Photographer Phanatics

Maybe it's the Phillies Phan in me, but I think you can add a Ph to any word that begins with an "F".

Philadelphia is home to amazing photographers, that can make choosing just one a very difficult process.  I follow many photographers work on their blogs, facebook, and twitter. Pictures are my passion.  I am a hobbyist photographer, my friends lovingly refer to me as the paparazzi.  To me, this is the most important aspect of our wedding.  MORE important than our venue, more important than food, music, video, flowers combined.  There was no compromise, and no budget set for our photographer.  We would just find what we loved.

I'm not denying that I've been secretly stalking who would photograph our wedding since before we got engaged. Wedding photography is so accessible and passionate, it's a snippet of the most memorable day of a person's life.  If done correctly, it should stir emotion and awe. But as much as I have a lot that I love about wedding photography, I also had a long list of don'ts. I don't like over processed pictures, or unnaturally lit pictures, and the vintage wash and distortion in pictures are not for me.  If the photographs on a photographers website didn't look clean, naturally lit, and organically created, they were not the photographer for us. 

After a few weeks of searching, deliberating and eliminating, we narrowed it down to our top 5. 

1. Todd Laffler.  He had recently shot a friend of mine's wedding.  And I was a tad obsessed with her pictures.  We would pay the travel fees for him to come from North Jersey, and everything.  The only problem is he never answered any of my emails, multiple emails, so he got scratched early on. He is an amazing photographer though - just check out this shot from my friend's wedding. 

Image via Laffler Photography

2. Amie Schroeder  I found through searching wedding photographs of our venue.  Her blog was one that I could spend hours scrolling through, getting immersed in the stories from each event.  I liked that she and her husband worked together, and if we decided to do videography too, he would be our videographer.  She, too, did not get back to me (at first), and when she finally did, we had already booked our photographer.

Image via Amie Schroeder Photography

3. Mike Landis  When I started really considering contacting photographers, I had Mike in mind.  He had shot my MOH's sister-in-law's wedding and also her best friend's wedding.  Both sets of pictures were amazing.  I was truly impressed by the work, and made sure he was on our list of photographers.   He was the first photographer I contacted and the first we met with, he was warm and friendly.  He showed us an entire edited gallery that he had shot at our venue.  And we felt really comfortable with him.  It was a great meeting, but we still had two more to go.

Image via Mike Landis Photography (@ The Curtis Center)

Off we went, directly from our meeting with Mike to our meeting with Gabe.

4.  Philip Gabriel -  I have always been aware of Philip Gabriel photography.  I have seen this snowy wedding ad in just about every single wedding magazine that I have ever read.  And really, what January bride doesn't  want pictures like this?

Image via Philip Gabriel 

But he really wasn't on my radar of photographers until Miss Turkey posted her engagement pictures.  I loved the warmth of the pictures, and the way he used light and the natural beauty of the city.  During our meeting, as photographers are want to do, Gabe asked how I came across his work.  I was happy to explain how I loved his ads, especially the snowy one, but then I came to explaining how I came across Miss Turkey's pictures.  And I got all tongue tied and twisted, because no matter how I tried to phrase it, it kind of made me seem like a crazy person.  Because you really can't say in a meeting - well you're Miss Turkey's photographer - you sound nuts, trust me. Gabe was amazing to meet with, we really loved his work, and also felt really comfortable with him as well. We left our second meeting of the evening conflicted between both photographers we had met with. 

Two days later, we met with our final photographer.

5. Cliff Mautner  If you've ever heard of Cliff Mautner, you know his work is to.die.for.  I'm not really sure how he does it, but he is able to create the most incredible images I have ever seen. Mr. Ly and I spent the entire two hours of our meeting slightly star struck.  He is an incredibly talented photographer with 30 years experience and a reputation of being one of the best wedding photographers in the world.  Nikon endorses him as their expert in wedding photography, we weren't really sure how we came to be sitting in his studio, but we were just happy to be there.  We really enjoyed speaking with him, and when we left there, we felt for sure he was the clear front runner for our wedding. 

Image via Cliff Mautner

However, making a decision was harder than we thought. We eliminated Philip Gabriel almost immediately because his prices are comparable to Cliff's, and if we were spending that kind of money, we were going to get Cliff. Then we were torn.  Cliff Mautner's work is clearly superior.  But his price was nearly $2000 more than Mike Landis. And I still loved both of their work.  Cliff has a good 20 years experience over Mike, but was it really worth the cost? I am not one to be cheap when it comes to photography, this decision was not one I could make lightly.  

I took some time to think it over, we had pros and cons list going, and I have to say I had the most anxiety over this decision than any other one for the wedding thus far. 

Which one would you pick?  Which one do you think WE picked?