Men at work

[mib2]

I've just been up to the Black Isle in Scotland for a friends wedding - to be honest didn't take many pictures at the wedding but enjoyed watching the Professional working hard and earning his crust.

As a professional phototgrapher it must be very difficult to "job" these days as every man and his dog has a camera.

Any of the Pro's in the Forum any thoughts on this subject.

Cheers
Dave R

[Ian]

Re: Men at work

Even nearly 20 years ago when one of my best friends (and a very talented amateur photographer) got married, he decided to rely on the guests' photos rather than hire a pro.

11 years ago my sister used a friend who was a part time photographer, but not in the wedding business, to photograph her wedding in 'reportage' style.

I'm not convinced that they made the right decision!

My other sister asked me to photograph her wedding - again, I'm not sure that was a great idea

My advice to anyone planning their wedding - you only have one chance (hopefully!) to get it right.

Ian

[Pol]

Re: Men at work

I'm certainly not a 'pro', just another 'prole' but I must say i'm surprised to see a professional wedding togfa working the way that one is ... ie no tripod and also casting his own shadow across the foreground of his picci of the bride and groom. Nice background behind them though - even a prole can see that.

When we married, in 1973, my mother insisted we should hire the most expensive, poshest, sought after wedding togfa for miles around and I certainly wasn't gonna disagree as my parents were paying for it. Besides NOBODY dared disagree with my mother!!

In short - it cost a small fortune, he stayed for about 3-4 hours iirc and my family insisted on buying enlargements of all his shots. I wore a very long train and he didn't manage to get the full length of my dress and train in ANY of the shots. I wasn't exactly bowled over by many of his pics but my mother thought they were great so I suppose that was what mattered most as she was paying the bill.


Pol

[Ian]

Re: Men at work

I'm certainly not a 'pro', just another 'prole' but I must say i'm surprised to see a professional wedding togfa working the way that one is ... ie no tripod and also casting his own shadow across the foreground of his picci of the bride and groom. Nice background behind them though - even a prole can see that.

When we married, in 1973, my mother insisted we should hire the most expensive, poshest, sought after wedding togfa for miles around and I certainly wasn't gonna disagree as my parents were paying for it. Besides NOBODY dared disagree with my mother!!

In short - it cost a small fortune, he stayed for about 3-4 hours iirc and my family insisted on buying enlargements of all his shots. I wore a very long train and he didn't manage to get the full length of my dress and train in ANY of the shots. I wasn't exactly bowled over by many of his pics but my mother thought they were great so I suppose that was what mattered most as she was paying the bill.


Pol

Even with the formal group shots at my cousin's wedding a couple io years ago I don't recall the photographer using a tripod at all.

My neighbour, Paul, who is a wedding photographer, does use one.

Julia and I were married in 1995 and we hired a good ol' fashioned traditional photographer who used a big 6x7 medium format camera

Ian

[Pol]

Re: Men at work

Even with the formal group shots at my cousin's wedding a couple io years ago I don't recall the photographer using a tripod at all.

My neighbour, Paul, who is a wedding photographer, does use one.

Julia and I were married in 1995 and we hired a good ol' fashioned traditional photographer who used a big 6x7 medium format camera

Ian

Ours had a couple of flunkies fetching and carrying for him. One of them was buzzing about organising people for the pics on the instructions of the togfa. They had 2 or 3 tripods iirc and were placing them in advance of the shots.

It was all a bit of a farce actually. Not our choice - we just went along with what the families were demanding I wouldn't do that now but we were so fed up at the time that we just went along with them rather than endure more arguments.

So the moral of this story is if yer thinking of getting married, tell no-one, just elope!

Pol

[Gina]

Re: Men at work

I've just been up to the Black Isle in Scotland for a friends wedding - to be honest didn't take many pictures at the wedding but enjoyed watching the Professional working hard and earning his crust.

As a professional phototgrapher it must be very difficult to "job" these days as every man and his dog has a camera.

Any of the Pro's in the Forum any thoughts on this subject.

Cheers
Dave R

Hope you enjoyed the wedding Dave.

My thoughts are summed up in a word "Reputation".

My Dad used to tell me about how proud he was of his building business reputation when I was a kid. He told me that if you're good at what you do and have others tell their friends, you will always have work. He never advertised his building company and sadly he died at the age of 54. I believe and stand by my Dad on this one Dave, if you can offer the skill and type of business to the people and give them a personal service (so to speak), then work will come to you.

Most people don't know or care about a shot being technically perfect, if they like it, they will buy it. I've recently had a look at some portrait studios in my area and some of the galleries I've seen are atrocious. If this is the kind of work some so called 'Professional Photographer' can produce and display on their website then there's hope for us all!

If you really want to succeed - your reputation is key in this business.

That's my two penneth x

Gina