Have a picture perfect wedding with a green photographer

  Photo by Colin Tossijn

You’ll be all smiles if you choose to work with a green wedding photographer for your big day.

As noted in last week’s Finding Green Certified Wedding Vendors article, an easy, sure-fire way to ensure that you’re infusing sustainable practices in your wedding is to work with green vendors who have declared their commitment to be environmentally responsible.

Today’s column kicks off a series highlighting local, green certified wedding vendors. You’ll hear their advice to those tying the knot, what steps they are taking to lessen their  business’ impact and what drives them to be so green.

Picture Perfect Snapshot: Gustavo Fernandez

Gustavo Fernandez of Pleasant Hill is one of just a handful of wedding photographers in the Bay Area who have been green certified.

He says, as an eco-photographer “it is all about getting both the business and the lifestyle green.”

  Eco-photographer Gustavo Fernandez

The initial impetus to go green actually hit him after watching Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth at the Sundance Film Festival. That’s when he said he started making conscious changes in his lifestyle like trading in his gas guzzler for a more fuel efficient Toyota Prius.

At the time, Fernandez had been working in pharmaceutical sales for nine years, and realized that the corporate life of climbing up the ranks was no longer for him either. So with encouragement from a friend, he turned his hobby of being a shutterbug and snapping photos just for fun into a serious venture as a green wedding photographer.

Fernandez says he jumped into it with both feet — keeping the earth in mind on day one of his business by joining 1% For the Planet. As a member of the non-profit, Fernandez has pledged to donate 1% of his sales to environmental organizations.

Since then, his business has been certified by both the Bay Area Green Business Program and Green Wedding Providers, which has an online directory of green certified photographers and other wedding vendors on its site.

So what, exactly, does it mean to be a green photographer?

According to Fernandez’s blog, “Being a green photographer means changing the way you purchase, develop, produce, and provide products and services so you make a positive impact on the environment.”

It is easy going green

He says certification was a relatively simple process and only took about a month with the Bay Area Green Business program.

Since his home acts as his office, a member of the program came out to evaluate the house. As he already had good recycling and conservation practices, all he was essentially required to do was install low-flow water fixtures, energy star equipment and CFL light bulbs, and reduce the amount of hazardous chemicals in his home in order to meet green compliancy requirements. A few weeks later, there was a second check to ensure that the regulations were met, and he became certified on Earth Day.

  Earth Collection green photo album by
  Couture Book, used by Gustavo Fernandez.

Fernandez also partners with other green vendors like Bay Photo Lab, Couture Book which supplies him with green photo albums, ShootQ which has allowed his studio business to become paperless, and Pixel 2 Canvas, who provide him with an eco-friendly canvas product.

If becoming green certified is as easy as recycling and reducing waste, making a few changes to the office and working with other green vendors, this column begs to ask the question — why aren’t more photographers green certified?

Hopefully this will change in time as more couples look to partner with businesses that can help them make their wedding eco-friendly.

Take time to explore
 
Fernandez says he enjoys working with couples who want to give back to the environment, and likes to help them with the process by also suggesting other local green vendors they might consider.

His advice to couples greening their wedding is to “take the time to explore your wedding vendors and ask them about their green practices and how they are giving back. Do your research. There are many vendors out there doing great things to give back to the environment and not just for their bottom line.”