Weekend Shooters

This may take five whole minutes to read. But considering that you'll be looking at your
Wedding Photographs for the rest of your life, what's five minutes?

Would you take your brand new car to a neighborhood backyard mechanic to get it fixed?
If you bought a new scalpel, would you be able to perform major surgery?
If you bought a new grand piano, would you automatically be able to play like Horowitz?

Certainly not, to all of these ludicrous questions. But yet, when it comes to recording one of the most important events in their lifetime, their Wedding, that's EXACTLY what a lot of people do. They have a friend or relative, or a weekend shooter, take the most important photos of their lifetime.

Just like someone who buys a new scalpel isn't turned into a competent surgeon, or the purchase of a grand piano doesn't automatically create a concert pianist, a new, high priced, digital camera doesn't make a capable photographer out of just anyone.

(A "weekend shooter" is someone who has a regular full time job but wants to make $500 or more for 6 or 7 hours of work on Saturday. Usually they just shoot the wedding and give you the proofs or digital files on a CD, not wanting anything whatsoever to do with creating an album or handling reprint orders. And usually, they don't know zilch about wedding photography.)

"My uncle (or friend), who's a shutterbug from way back, says he will shoot the wedding as a wedding gift."
To start, how many group shots, involving a dozen or more people, has you uncle or friend arranged and shot? These photos are among the most important taken at your wedding. Will your photographer of choice arrange people according to height, clothing color, relation to others in the group, "rank" in the wedding party, good lighting, and so on? Is he/she even capable of doing all that?
I have photographed hundreds of wedding parties, both indoors and out, and, including other shots (like various family arrangements at weddings) thousands of different groupings. And in every photograph you can see everyone! Nobody's blocked by someone else or in the shadow of another. Those in the back of large groups (or near the edges) are not dark because they're farther away from that piddly on-camera flash that your "weekend shooter" is using. I bring several studio lighting units to weddings so we're quaranteed of decent, even lighting in the formal photos.
Another thing about relatives and friends is that they often "chicken out" at the last minute. Thoughts start going through their head, like, "Suppose I do something wrong and the photos don't come out right?" You'd be surprised at the number of weddings I've been called to shoot within a week of the date because their photographer got cold feet and finally confessed up and withdrew.

Are the members of the wedding party and the families going to take a friend or relative seriously and pay attention to any directions they may give, if they give any at all?
More often than not, no! So guess what? You get second rate shots, with poorly arranged people, some standing behind others, some not even looking in the same direction as the majority, one bridesmaid without her bouquet, etc. With all the group photos I've taken, including some rather large class and family reunion photos, I've found that one of the most important qualities for a photographer to possess is the ability to direct and arrange large groups in limited time. The average weekend shooter has probably never encounted this situation and doesn't have the slightest idea of how to handle it, if they even care.

What about the hundreds of candid photos taken at your wedding?
Is your relative or friend willing to go the extra mile and spend the extra bucks to take these? With a pro, it's part of the game. And I don't know how many wedding photos I've seen where you can see only the backs of peoples heads. Worthless! You HAVE to get faces in the candid shots, and most amateurs aren't willing to stand looking at people dancing, or whatever else, patiently waiting for that moment to materialize. lnstead, they just shoot, getting eight people and only two faces.

Relatives or friends at the reception.
What do people like to do at the reception? Party and have a good time! Well, they should, after all. But that's when your relative or friend photographer starts feeling left out and wants to join the festivities. Result? They start missing shots. Or worse yet, they get half-tanked and bungle the photos from thereon out.

If your relative or friend is going to create a finished album for you, does he/she know where to get professional quality prints done?
In a wedding album, you want the prints to be of good quality and uniform. Two shots on one page, one with a green dress and the other a little on the pink side, is not acceptable. Unfortunately, most of the pro-quality labs have been forced to close due to digital photography, and many pros are now doing their own final prints using one of the expensive, archival, digital printers. I stress good, pro-quality printers here. Not those available in discount stores, with only three colors of inks and images that may start to fade in a matter of months. My printer uses eight different ink cartridges, and digital photos I've displayed in my studio window have showed no signs of fading, unlike the actual chemically produced color photos produced the old way. Besides, digital allows us to have much more control over the final prints than film ever did.

Your "photographer" says he/she can give you proofs of all the shots or all the shots on a CD so you can get your own prints done.
If you refer to the previous paragraph about the lack of pro-quality labs, you'll understand the problem you willhave getting decent prints made. I've had numerous calls from brides telling me that a weekend shooter or friend did their wedding and gave them a CD, but they can't find a decent lab. Well, as previously mentioned, they're almost gone. And some of the few remaining still cater only to working pros and not the general public.
I also get calls from people looking for decent quality albums. They don't want the sleazy cheapo plastic pages junk available in the local discount and consumer photo stores. When I started my business I had to wait for my supplier of choice to verify my authenticity and actual business location before they would ship my first order. Would your relative or friend, or "weekend shooter," or yourself, be able to get the pro albums from these suppliers? These poor newlyweds ultimately end up putting their proofs in the cheap albums. You know the kind, the ones with plastic pages that start falling part in no time, and that reflect light like crazy so you can't see the photos anyway.
Weekend shooters like to charge you for shooting the wedding and getting proofs or, worse yet, just put the files on a CD and give them to you. Many of them have other fulltime jobs. In other words, they don't have the time or the desire to do anything beyond their intial "windfall" because of the time involved. After the wedding, they want nothing more to do with you because there isn't enough money in it for them. They made around four to six hundred dollars for part of a Saturday just shooting your wedding, and they leave you with all the problems when it comes to decent reprints, the album, parents or attendants albums, etc. Just what you want to do when you're starting your marriage.
I have found that the time I actually spend at a wedding and reception is roughly one/third of the total time I spend on that wedding. The other time is spent meeting with the bride & groom, engagement sessions and making the signature prints, producing proofs, explaining the ordering process for their album, digitally retouching, producing, finishing and spraying the prints, and putting the finished album together. The "weedend shooter" wants nothing to do with any of this because it isn't as profitable as the Saturday windfall. And a relative or friend usually has absolutely no idea of what's involved in any or it.

The next one doesn't necessarily involve just friends, relatives, and weekend shooters, but professional photographers as well.

"We don't need a photographer at the reception because we're going to get disposable cameras for each table for the guests to use."
In all the weddings I've photographed where they have provided disposable cameras at the reception, NONE of the couples have said they got even a fair amount of decent photos. In fact, a number of them have said that they didn't get even one decent photo after spending several hundred dollars on the disposables. There was one reception where a teenage boy decided to hold the camera under the table and take a shot of the girl sitting opposite him. Needless to say, this caught on. The couple spent several hundred bucks on these cameras and all they got, for the whole reception, was nothing but under-the-table shots.
Moral? Save your money and put it toward a good professional.

I, for one, usually take table shots at the reception, asking everyone to turn and look at me. That way you have shots of everyone, and isn't that supposed to be the main purpose of disposables? The money you save could add five extra leaves, or ten additional photo pages, to your wedding album.

Does your photographer come with backup equipment?
In the case of relatives, friends, or weekend shooters, the answer is usually no. In the vast majority of cases, they bring nothing extra whatsoever. So, if something happens; their camera acts up, flash doesn't fire, or something gets damaged, they're dead in the water.
I ALWAYS carry a complete backup system to every wedding. Camera, flash, lenses, etc. At one wedding I tripped on a stairway and busted a lens. One minute later I had another one on the camera and ways taking photos again. At another wedding my flash unit started to misfire. A minute later the spare was on and I was ready again.

And now, time for a few stories.

Several years ago I was meeting with a bride-to-be and her mother and the mother told me of her other daughters marriage a few years before. She said the photographer they hired was so rude and abnoxious at the wedding that they told him to go home before the reception started. He actually told them that he would have to charge them for the remainder of the day anyway, even though he made a shambles of the wedding ceremony itself. Whadda jerk!

The supervisor of the lab that used to do my color printing before I went digital told me of a "weekend shooter" they had as a customer. They developed his last wedding and all of the films were blank, except two outdoor shots. He brought his camera in and the lab saw that he had a setting set wrong that prevented the flash from working correctly indoors. After the lab supervisor explained it to him, his response was, "Oh, well. I suppose I'll have to give them their money back." That was it. If it would have been me, I probably would still be a mental wreck. He ruined all of their wedding photos and all he could say was, "On, well."
This brings up another thing about many, but not all, of the weekend shooters. A lot of them get started because friends and relatives have told them that they take good pictures and they ought to turn pro. And, I must admit, a lot of them are good, but not necessarily at taking photos. They're good at spreading bull, and in a manner that many people believe. Be careful.

Another father of a bride or groom had told me that the wedding of another child of his had a husband/wife couple shoot their wedding a few years before. He husband photog actually did the "leave the lenscap on" trick and got no photos at all. When he realized this the photog actually demanded the balance of the wedding because, "We were there. We went through all the motions and did all the work. It wasn't my fault that the photos didn't come out." It wasn't his fault? The idiot left the lenscap on for the whole wedding! Of course it was his fault. And they he threatened to sue for the balance. Needless to say, that never got anywhere. In fact, the bride and groom had to sue to get their money back, which they didn. But it didn't bring back their wedding photos. They are gone forever due to an idiot.

Summary
Consider what is offered and what isn't offered. Remember, if you get stuck doing all the finished prints and the album, you're going to run into problems.

A lot of people are fairly good at taking photos, of certain things. But just because they may be good at photographing flowers, scenics or children, they're going to be in a completely different environment at a wedding. They won't be able to take all the time in the world to get the shots they need, or that you want.

Ask to see a lot of samples. If they don't have any, or very few, you're probably going to be one of their first weddings.
If they do offer finished prints, ask how they are made. If they have the name of one of the discount stores or local drug stores on the back,,,, well, that's not the greatest. Ask if they are familiar with what is needed to produce professional, long lasting, high quality finished prints. Some people use discount store printers, which are often capable of producing great looking prints, but lack the longevity that's needed for long lasting prints. As I stated before, the pro-quality, archival printers create photos that far outlast those produced from film, unlike the cheaper printers readily available.

A program called "PhotoShop" is the industry standard, and every serious photographer has it, as do a lot of hobbyists. However, I have heard people say they are proficient with PhotoShop and have seen some of their work. A few of them actually make photos worse with it, mainly because they really don't know what makes a good photo in the first place.

Email - jthompson@tpromo.com
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