Mike,
I hope you enjoy it and have some success!
Easy for me to say, but try not to be too put off by the inexperience. Christine and I recently chose our wedding photographer and only after deciding on him did we realise he's only 22 or 23 years old. As it happens our second choice was 25 years old. Both may be "less experienced" than other wedding photographers out there, but their creativity and skill stood out from the rest quite clearly. The older more "what you expect" photographers we met with (some charging more, some charging less) had such "stuck in the mud" ideals of what photos they would take etc, so little creativity and inspiration. It's costing us more to get this guy, but he's worth it.
A criteria for us was having the digital files. It's going to cost us, but not as much as some. One lot wanted to charge us $10,000 for the digital files!!! and several others flat out refused. They lost our business immediately. They don't realise - it's not that we think we can edit them better or print more for less $$, it's just that we want to be able to have our own photo album the way we want with our text and story in it! how hard is that to get their head around.
The biggest "People photography" shoot stuff I've done was my grandmothers 90th some years ago (about 5), back with my EOS300 film camera. I tell you what, using an L lens gets you 70% the way to a good set of photo's, and lighting does the other 30% ... I really surprised myself with a lot of nice shots.
I look forward to hearing how it goes
Roger.
PS. As it turns out, our photographer happens to have had a stint doing astrophotography! and is keen to persue that somewhat. So after 30mins of showing us his work the other night at our place, we then spent 2 hours in the observatory
