The Image Clique

Notice that my wedding list is entitled «A Grad School Wedding.» These guys are the bomb if you’re on a dime.
When you’re planning a wedding and reading all the magazines (which ruin people’s lives, by the way), they give you all this criteria you should have when selecting a wedding photographer. Stuff like:
*They should be a professional photographer
*They should strictly do wedding/​engagement photos, and interned to do so
*They should be taking thousands of photographs
*It is the one expense you should NOT scrimp on
Now! If you want to try and meet all that criteria, decent wedding photogs in the area go for about four grand. The cheapest good photographer IMO went for about $ 2,500…and he’s in Austin. Additional fees for travel. Bleah. Others around that price ranged just sucked. After asking around at work, someone gave me the number for Shane McDowell, the owner of the Image Clique. I won’t tell you how much he charged, but it was less than one of my paychecks. He also let me pay him whenever. Now, after the wedding, really, just whenever. Very grad school friendly. The wedding industry would be aghast, of course. Hiring him broke all their little rules, ALL of which he was very up front, open, and honest about:
*Education-​wise, he is not a photographer.
His partner (his wife), isn’t, either. She’s a nurse. He is a graphic design artist. He’ll tell you about his day job designing websites. He still has a great eye for design, and his photo editing is amazing. He added his wife later after we hired him, but she knows what she’s doing. A lot of my favorite photos were of me getting ready with my bridal party, all of which she took.
*He specializes in portraits, not weddings
He could not stress this enough. He really doesn’t advertise his services as a wedding photographer and is open about it. I like his honesty about his strengths and weaknesses. That being said, my formals looked really, really good! I was pretty happy with my reception photos as well.
*I ended up with about 250 photos; four grand people do give you thousands. I’m happy with what I got, although I will add one of my friends was so overwhelmed that she still hasn’t gone through her thousands of photos and made a wedding album, prints etc.
*Uh, he was definitely not expensive. I used the saved expenses on the open bar.
I know it may seem like I’m just entranced y the price, but he’s actually pretty good! I had an artist friend look at his work online for an objective opinion. There were a few things she was harsh about, but overall said that his work is pretty good, and that I should feel comfortable going with him. IMO, I think he makes things look cool. SImple as that. He does a lot of portraits, and a lot of them of kids. He has the skill tomake a 12-​year old baseball player look bad ass. He hasn’t updated his new site, but you can find his Facebook page here for examples:
When we met him, he was really cool! Ultra relaxed. We talked with him in his office without any shoes on. He was very laid back and personable. We immediately felt comfortable with him and we both liked him. Shane didn’t have any problems getting us, our wedding party, or the associated kids to smile on the big day. On the wedding day, they were prompt, professional, and did not charge for «extra hours.» He also threw in one of our prints on canvas when he gave us the zip drive of our wedding photos. And nope, he didn’t charge any extra for all of that. All of the prints were ours.
Only one complaint: I didn’t get a picture of THE KISS! I got one of us going in for the lean, but not THE KISS. Given everything else though, I’ll live. No star deduction :) My husband and I are pretty happy about our photographs. I posted a few, with the watermark still intact to protect their work.