Not quite ten years ago my wedding photographer, a budding amateur, charged me for cost of film, processing and $200.00 for his time. He showed up without a flash, so most of the photos wound up being underexposed or grainy. Fortunately, he was Nikon based so I lent him my flash. He got some passable candid shots of people talking or hanging-out but no keepers of group shots of the family. Most of the relatives were 200 lbs. and beyond and didn’t appreciate seeing photos of them shoveling food down their nostrils or bellies protruding through a misfit wedding garment or rented tux. Nothing ever became of the photos. To this day they’re in a lost drawer collecting dust.
Did he have wedding photography experience? Yes, he had helped a couple of times and had a dynamite portfolio. A caterer had highly recommended him. Later, I visited the caterer’s home she had walls of his landscape work. Being an accomplished landscape photographer he had little experience with people or wedding photography. He even showed up in blue jeans. He worked as an assistant on a couple of jobs and just clicked the shutter while the contracted photographer posed and coordinated the shots. He had no real-time under pressure to perform wedding experience. He kept interrupting asking what shots I wanted next even though I had faxed a shot list a week earlier.
Ten years later the wife still reminds me that we should’ve hired a pro.
Pushing my personal experience aside, in 2010 the economy was depressed so many brides sought less expensive alternatives to professional wedding coverage. In the following three scenarios the client decided to either entrust the talents of a close friend or budding amateur.
Scenario #1. Dark-skinned Afro-American bride with fair-skinned groom.
Apparently our extremely young sleepy-headed groom showed up with problems. In the photos, his shirt wasn’t tucked in, clothing was badly wrinkled and hair was uncombed.
The groom’s images were properly exposed but his poor bride appeared darker than life. Apparently, the photographer had limited knowledge of flash photography and relied on the camera’s automatic settings thus underexposing the darker skinned bride. According to Mom, this was the photographer’s first attempt at photographing interracial couples.
Attempts to forewarn the bride’s mother proved fruitless. The bride claimed that her best friend had been dreaming of this experience day and night and she didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Nine months later, wedding images surfaced via Facebook. Mom was furious, the bride reportedly still cries whenever the topic arises and now she’s angry with her best friend forever.
Scenario #2. Outdoor ceremony in bright sunlight.
Bride #2 later admitted that she based her hiring decision on budget and on the photographer’s outdoor photojournalistic portfolio. The wedding took place outdoors at a local marina under intense bright sunlight. The bride figured what could go wrong… all the light is provided and the photographer claimed to be a natural light candid type photographer. Well, the bride didn’t factor in the photographers inexperience in dealing with bright overhead contrast producing light. Eye sockets were shadowed while faces were full of bright spots or specular highlights. Ornate details in her deceased mother’s refitted wedding dress were blown out or lacking. The photographer compensated by unsuccessfully using Photoshop filters on each image. The bride, a Photoshop guru, spent hours doctoring the images but was only able to rescue a few.
How could these problems have been prevented? Simply avoiding the bright sunlight would’ve been a bright alternative and using an off camera flash to balance a contrasting situation or maybe a combination of the both.
Scenario #3. A medium skinned Afro-American couple in white wedding garments.
They decided on a church friend “an up and coming photographer” who was good with a camera. The ceremony was an indoor church wedding. The photographer used a flash; but often, and more toward the end, the flash failed to fire. In the excitement he failed to notice that the flash wasn’t operating properly. The batteries were probably too exhausted to fire at the end so we ended up with dark shinned people in a dark church grossly underexposed. The photos showed a bunch of flatfooted, slouching, overweight, eyes closed people in basically uncomplimentary poses.
The bride printed some pictures at Wal-Mart but the contrast and colors were off. The faces turned out too dark so the photos were unusable. After fussing at the technician, Wal-Mart gladly refunded her money. The bride requested that I work with her to develop a professional album or adjust the digital files. I agreed to point her in the right direction; however, upon closer inspection, I noted black spots on the digital files in the same location on each image. The photographer had dust on his camera’s sensor which now has to be removed manually on each digital file.
On a minor note… most professional labs offer free color correction on prints. The MART type labs only offer as is type printing.
Summary
When all is said and done, the only tangible memories left are the photographs. Correcting another photographer’s mistakes is time-consuming and usually cost the bride lots of money so many pros seldom contract to do after-the-fact cleanup. Here we are in 2011 and these brides are still crying their eyes out because they got a second rate record of a once in a life time event. Take good advice, if you want to minimize post-wedding horror stories, contract with a pro. Your firstborn and unborn bloodline will hold you in high regard forever.
Contributed by Puget Sound Wedding Professional member John of Pendleton Imaging & Photography. They can also be found on Facebook.
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