So I’m a pretty “green” person in my regular life, and I try to keep the business as green as possible as well. I print a little as possible and recycle everything. I’m always going around turning out lights and other things that waste energy. I buy local as much as possible. But what about wedding albums? My current album companies are overseas because they deliver quality products consistently, but it just bugs me to have to ship an album all over the place. If I could find someone local who makes custom albums, I would (and not those little things you order on line with the paper pages and low quality prints. Sorry if you sell those, they definitely have their place, just not in my studio), but I have had no luck. I have found some “green” album companies, though, and have contacted them for more information. Of course, they’re all in California (sigh), but that’s closer than Europe, so we’re making some improvements, right? Anyway, I hope to have more information soon.
Other ways we are working towards green:
My website & blog are both “dark” sites which uses less electricity to display on your monitor (your welcome for the savings to your electricity bill too 😉 )
We shoot 100% digitally. Film and photochemicals are not environmentally friendly, especially when you have the itchy trigger finger I do.
We always carpool to every event in our 30+ mpg car (no giant SUV for us, we pack small so we can travel small). Of course, if our assistant has to pass the venue to get to us, we make an exception because it would be silly not to. Also, our next car will definitely get even better gas mileage or hopefully run on something other than gas. Can we say Mr. Fusion!
We work out of our house so our commute is all done on foot (across the hall).
While we do travel all over, we always try to do it in the most eco-friendly way possible. We also work to combine trips (example: I’m heading to Atlanta at the end of April/beginning of May to shoot a baby portrait, a bridal portrait, pick up a camera and lens we purchased from an Atlanta photographer and do any other jobs and errands we can pack into the trip between now and then).
As it is, I’m doing all kinds of research on green weddings as we speak. I hope to be a real expert on it by the summer and will post useful links as I find them. Just because you want a fancy blow out party, doesn’t mean you can’t be nice to the earth while you’re at it. Remember, it’s the only one we’ve got!
