A photographer on one of the web forums
“wrote about a unique set of circumstances he encountered while shooting at a
wedding” I guess for him it was a unique experience. Realistically, this is all
too common,
many of us seasoned photographers have seen this before. I can feel his pain, and don’t wish it to appear as an excuse rather
than a disappointment.
“I was told there was a rehearsal so I showed up
2.5 hours early. No One showed till a half hour before the wedding. There was NO rehearsal. No one had any
idea what they were doing. The groom
showed up 45 minutes late. The best man showed up AFTER the wedding. They
B&G didn’t have a wedding license”.
“The ceremony lasted a total of about 3.5 minutes. I started at the front of the hall, shot a few pics, ran around behind the crowd and up to the other side, snapped a few more and the wedding was over. Half of the things that were supposed to take place, like the unity candle, were completely skipped. The hall is so dark that the camera wouldn’t focus, even with the 70-200 f/2.8 IS. To give you an idea, to get a normal exposure without flash, I had to drop down to a full second exposure, f/8, at ISO 400. The B&G were completely uninterested in the formal pictures”. Keep this in your mind I will come back to it.
SYNOPSIS - Lets start at the beginning, not the end. This is how I see this… Their marriage will probably be PERFECT. Love is blind and they will live happily ever after. Based on pictures they look previously, they were very comfortable with each other and very uncomfortable with anyone else. Their feelings have nothing to do with a ritualistic ceremony obviously they cared little about other than getting it over with. Pre-nuptual casual shots with them might have caught this in time.
As far as shots go and adverse conditions, you do what you have to do, you did your best. You might asked them to do some casual handholding shots in the park for fill-ins and to break the ice and put them at ease. Maybe they’ll look and respond better in a casual environment. Blaming the haste on the personnel she hired to do the organizing can backfire, when she tells you it was her mother, run for the hills... Nevertheless, short of a lawsuit, don't aggravate yourself over this, this is the wedding game.
THE NOT MY FAULT SCENARIO!
The worst feeling in the world is when the indoor flash pictures were ruined. The outside shots all shot in P mode and RAW worked wonderfully. The storm is developing; We have a new shooter with stress; An amateur low powered unit; Untested and unfamiliar with; A darker room than he figured, mirrors, chandeliers and green walls; He never saw the Church or lighting during the day or with the in-house lighting turned on; And the people are moving!
Moving, who said they could do that! The Bride and Groom are moving! And the camera is firmly locked in "P" mode. Thats for Professional right? “S” is for SnapShot, it might have offended a few people. So, things did not go well and it’s time to put the problem in the right perspective.
SYNOPSIS - Here are the most commonly used expressions of blamesmanship. These are common blames, only one or two are needed to hopefully prevent a lawsuit. The order is people, God, location.
THE PEOPLE BLAME - Blame the (Please pick one) Bride, the Reverend, the Priest, the Rabbi, the Imam, the Witch Doctor, Mother-in-law, the Caterer, the Church layout, the Wedding Coordinator, the DJ, your helper.
The GODLY OFFENSE BLAME - The Weather. The sun, the wind, and the stars, global warming, the internet lost the pictures and the abominable snow man.
THE LOCATION BLAME - Blame the location for not allowing you to take over the place and interrupt the entire occasion because this is your day to explore your craft. After all the Priest could of paused when doing the Communion for you to blast his eyeballs out. “I feel sorry for the couple getting married. If they don't care enough to do the wedding right then what is the rest of the marriage gonna be like? Well, grain of salt here, and excuses.
KILL THE WEDDING PLANNER SCENARIO!
Quote: “I simply finished taking all the shots at that wedding and decided I
would not accept any further bookings from that planner. I guess weddings are
stressful for many people involved in the event, including planners. Wedding
planners are a dime a dozen, so I didn't loose any sleep over not doing any
more business with this particular planner!”
SYNOPSIS- As far as rejecting or accepting work from a specific wedding planner, I wouldn't make too much of an issue over it. Depends on where you live, they talk amongst themselves and if your local or town is small enough, you'll bury yourself. It is just like you'd be apt to warn another photographer about that planner. That changes the expression “talk is cheap, into talk is expensive”. This could be a really dumb arrogant move.
JUST PART OF THE GAME:
I truly feel up to ninety
percent of the problems that pop at Weddings are not the Bride, Groom or anyone
else’s fault. And that many of these problems can be avoided by an effort on
behalf of the photographer. Newer
shooters without experience have just walked into a minefield. Well maybe tap danced through a minefield is a better (and
my favorite) metaphor.
It’s just the nature of the beast and the learning curve. I place things that go wrong at a Wedding into two specific categories.
|
These are
beyond the scope of mortal man and acts of God. |
|
Planning:
You have to take the time and
the initiative to coordinate and plan with the rest of the folks involved and
know every nuance of what’s about to happen during the planning stages. If they don't or haven't done this,
it's your job to wake the "stick" (carnival employee phrase for the
wielder or boss officiate or planner) for the information. Everyone else brings something to the
Wedding, the photographer is the only one that HAS to bring something home from
the wedding!
Organization:
You have to know what is to be where and when and put all the parts into
play that involves your part of the occasion. It's nice to make a list of all the things that went wrong
that effected your work BUT as Michael Brown head of FEMA got blasted for “you
can blast the bureaucracy, but good management is what overcomes adversity”.
That’s what they pay a pro for.
Newbies fail because they just don’t have the instinct of the pros to ward off
the problems. By having an organization and a chain of command in place
problems become "lets handle this" and be done.
Opportunities:
Weddings are great places
for referrals and I talk about it a lot in several articles. They are great
opportunities for you to show the clients you know what you are doing and to
impress and solicit potential business. You are on stage as well as the Bride
and Groom at a wedding.
Recon:
I can't
believe how many weddings get shot and all we hear is " I was told no
flash when I got there; the light was really bad; I didn't know the reception
was in the Church basement and they only had two 60 watt bulbs”, whatever.
If you walked in blind you
are the one that failed the exam. Not the Bride, not the Groom and not the Planner.
Knowing the turf, location, possible problems with lighting, position, and the
mechanics of your gear is your responsibility. No one else to blame in a one man business is there, so we
blame the folks who hired us or who we had to work with..
The Bottom Line:
Not knowing or not doing what you have to do is paramount to failure
and having owned a lab I saw it every day. Brutally bad work passed off as art
combined with lots of excuses. I think I have heard every one in the book. On most forums the blame always falls
on someone or something else. Not being prepared is like firing a mortar at a
controlled zero azimuth and vertical angle of ninety degrees in zero wind conditions.
There are few excuses for failure that weren’t avoidable or predictable or
anticipated. If you did your recon properly most will surface during the walk
around. Then you pull your
organization and planning team together. This is what defines the true pro from
the wannabes and hackers.
I fear many of the “photographers” starting in wedding work are afraid to be
assertive in some ways. They just
stand there in the background and record things that happen and maybe that’s
their mantra. When things go wrong, they are dead in the water and cannot pull
the results out. Remember you the
photographer are the only one taking something from the wedding, the images the
essence, anything less you should
of stayed a guest.