Is it just me or is everybody and their mother a wedding photographer?

[RemoWilliams]

I swear, I have at LEAST 8 or 9 people that I know who do wedding/engagement photography. Is it something that photo journalists do that don't make the cut or is it just uber easy to get into if you have moderate camera skills? Also, I hear you can make some decent cash for little to no effort at all. Also, why aren't more of us doing this instead of fooling with stubborn musicians!

 

[exoslime]

my opinion is, beeing a wedding photographer is a total serious job.. i have semi-pro equipment and some knowledge, but i wouldnt do it.. because you have some really serious responsibilities, you have to capture the probably most important moments of a couple in their life together.
if you fail.. oh no, the bride´s gonna be very angry

i have a friend, who was a pro-photographer years ago, and he does sometimes weddings now too, he told its not only about taking the pictures, but also the post-processing is alot of work to do, dont forget that.

 

[RemoWilliams]

That's pretty cool. My thoughts about come mainly from most of the people I know just doing photography stuff on the side and just have the perfect combination of friends always getting engaged/married. Plus, those people tell others and they seem to have constant work, or at least it seems that way. They have probably upgraded their equipment/process now, but back when I was talking to them they just seemed to have a have decent camera and some lighting stuff. I must say that I have no want to do wedding photography, it was just something that struck me as funny that I know so many "semi-pro-ish-amateurs" doing it.

 

[SocialNumb]

I don't like weddings. I just don't get what the big deal is. I look at it like a mindfuck. You convince yourself it's somehow important. Funny humans.

 

[LeSedna]

I'm an amateur photographer and I'm thinking of doing this some time to time, for all those reasons

 

[xFkx]

I hate artsy/hipster teenagers who buy an entry level digital slr, shoot some random pictures and suddenly they're artists.


FUUUUUUUUUUUUU

 

[Proggm]

I hate artsy/hipster teenagers who buy an entry level digital slr, shoot some random pictures and suddenly they're artists.


FUUUUUUUUUUUUU

+1000000000000000
look at deviantart - it's full of pseudo-photographers trying to be trendy.

 

[RyanUsesThis]

I have a friend who is a professional photographer, but she avoids weddings like the plague. Big money, but a pain in the ass.

I work with a lot of video production majors, and they all fall back on wedding videography when they need some extra cash... but when you see them editing that footage you know it's sucking the life out of them

 

[spioraid]

I hate artsy/hipster teenagers who buy an entry level digital slr, shoot some random pictures and suddenly they're artists.


FUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Dead on.

I've done wedding videos off and on since I graduated high school, the odd thing is that almost NO ONE wants high quality of their wedding. They all want high quality pictures.

It's real decent money (average DSLR wedding package in my area costs $1,800) for the effort. But you really have to know your stuff and do a killer job in post. Like with all things media, post can take a really long time.

Anyone can take pictures at a wedding. It takes a talented photographer to make those pictures worth the cash.

 

[MarcusGHedwig]

I've done wedding videos off and on since I graduated high school, the odd thing is that almost NO ONE wants high quality of their wedding. They all want high quality pictures.

That's so when they look back at them, the vagueness of pictures let them convince themselves they had more fun than they actually did

 

[STINNETT]

I have a good friend who is actually a professional photographer of the highest order. The best around here by a mile, he's won national awards and makes a shit-ton of money. And then I know countless people who think they can do the same thing with the SLR camera they picked up at Best Buy and some pirated Photoshop.

They Can't.

(The good news is that guy wants to do some fancy guitar shots for me sometime soon for my website!)

 

[arv_foh]

I do mostly wedding photography when I'm not running live sound. Weird combo I know.

You need a serious DSLR (the 2 I use are both in the $2500+ range) with an external flash before you even think about shooting a wedding, you have to shoot in a wide variety of situations in quick succession, often times with minimal light. It's not good for people that don't like being under pressure but I don't mind it. You have to be good at editing because most churches have the most horrible lighting known to man and it takes a lot of color correction to make things look the way they are supposed to.

So yeah, it takes serious gear and skill to be a wedding photog, and time (it takes me 1-2 months to edit an entire wedding, typically) if you're going to do it right and have nice photos.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Ugh, shopping for a wedding photographer was the worst fucking nightmare task ever. I'll preference this with the fact that my budget was $2k and under. Let me clarify that when I say digital, I mean what you get is either a DVD or CD as a product. Not the way it was shot.

Here is what you find:

Douchebags who are ashamed of there prices, and they only way for you to figure them out is to either:
A: Have him mail you a brochure while at the same time insulting you on the phone as to your budget (that I never told him). Funny, his prices were fine. I went out of my way to tell him he lost my business and the possibility of a meet because of the unprofessionalism I experienced on the phone.
B: Meet with him personally, even though you have no time for that shit and his office is an hour away.

Guys who charges a little under just right (around $1200), but only give you a DVD of your pictures in a movie format. You want an album? That's 60 cents a print + $100 for the album + whatever the fuck he wants to put them in the book + whatever he charges for touchups + etc....

Guy who is super cheap ($800), but does no digital shit. He will take your pictures, then bug you to buy more prints after the fact. His pictures are not great, but they are not amazing either. Traditional in every sense of the word. To bad this comes with a mediocre personality. Price comes with the cost of this guy spamming you old school via telephone calls.

Guys who want to show up with 6 photographers, and bang you for $9000. Actually I only ran in to one company like this. It was pretty laughable as his fees started at $9k for 5 hours.

Artistic cunts who want to turn the camera sideways for every photo they shoot. They will find a mirror and shoot you through the mirror. Never would they EVER pose anyone for a photo. That's not art. OH!!!!! and by the way, since they are an artist expect to pay a min of $3k for 4 hours.

The opposite of above, every photo is a "hey look here." Your album will resemble a family photo album. This guy however is very fucking affordable at $1100 and comes with 300 prints, and 3 13X9 photos and digital prints of the 300 photos you picked.

The one person (and the one we went with) who shows up at the beginning of the day to shoot my wife from the point she gets her hair and makeup done. She shot from 10am to 9am for one flat rate. She did digital prints and actual copies in the form of an album. She had a great personality and was in tune with the DJ and never missed a beat when it came to the important shit at the reception. She was willing to kneel in the snow in a fucking dress. And probably her biggest selling point was a "signature shot" that she did. It was a close up of the wedding rings in the flower bouquet. Her turn around time was a couple months and it was worth it. She did it for $1700.


Any asshole can shoot a wedding, but it takes skill to do it correctly. We initially went with Mr. no digital prints or shots only guy (because he was cheap and shot my brothers wedding), but we fired his ass for being an unprofessional asshat. I certainly learned my lesson. I met with over 13 photographers after making the mistake of hiring that first douche. Do you homework, just because there are a lot of people that do it, does not mean that there are a lot of people that do it good.

Just remember, when your shopping for this person. Make sure it's someone you want to smile for.

Also remember: If your planning on getting into this business, expect that if you fuck up you will get your ass reamed out or fired. Your ideas are always fucking wrong if they conflict with the brides, the client is always right. It's not the same as recording a band .

 

[CatharsisStudios]

you don't need expensive ass dslr(though it would be to sick one)

you need an okay body dslr body

its the lenses that matter

also is it just me or is everybody and their mother an audio engineer

 

[smy1]

I do weddings sometimes, although most of the time prices for wedding photography in Germany are far lower than in the US.

I actually enjoy shooting weddings. And the post processing isn't really that big a deal if you know what you are doing. Most people (including "pro" photographers) simply don't! My average turnaround on ANYTHING is 2-7 days. If you need longer, you are either lazy or a hack. Clients would kill me if it took me months ...

 

[_Brutalism_]

Quote:
Originally Posted by xFkx View Post
I hate artsy/hipster teenagers who buy an entry level digital slr, shoot some random pictures and suddenly they're artists.


FUUUUUUUUUUUUU
+1000000000000000
look at deviantart - it's full of pseudo-photographers trying to be trendy.

Haha, I'm sorry but these are ridiculous and elitist comments which really don't show any class at all.

First off, I don't own a camera, but I intend to get a DSLR in the future and get into it once I can afford one. Just wanted to clarify that before you thought I'm replying from a photographer's perspective.

I'd like to know how then, in your seemingly professional opinion, you'd go about getting into a new hobby? Isn't experimentation and attempting to work towards the ideal the way to go? Not everyone can afford high quality gear, but what's so wrong in attempting to get good quality with whatever you can afford? (Same applies for AE, of course).
You seem to despise those "teenage hipsters", who try and emulate the professionals with their cheaper gear. Don't we all start from somewhere? Therefore, I find the part of your criticism based on the quality of the camera pretty silly.

Expression through photography is after all a personal thing too; deciding the location, the angle, the lighting, and all the other variables I'm oblivious to. So what if you're not producing the best quality pictures, does it really matter? What defines art? If one has to reach a certain level of technical expertise before being deemed an artist by such esteemed people as yourself, what are the criteria for this? What's random and what's carefully planned when it comes to photography? If the guy's got a story behind his photo, then I think its a perfectly fine means of expression; whether is good or not is totally a different story, but debasing the person for at least interesting himself and getting his feet wet in a new field is going a bit too far, in my opinion.

Of course, pretentious attitudes and pseudo-expertise is never cool, but come on, are teenagers the only ones guilty of this?

Don't want to start a whole debate here, but degrading people who would like to get into photography simply because they're shooting for the stars with cheap gear, and yes, maybe attributing some title to themselves to boost their ego somewhat, is needlessly haughty and only serves to prove what a contemptuous person you are.

 

[Flat Fifth Fury]

Well folks I am a professional photographer so here are a few thoughts on this topic from where I sit.

1) Photography is the most popular hobby in the world. Millions of people actively make photographs every day. It's the easiest art form to start with because due to the technology of even 20 years ago getting a well exposed and properly focused image isn't that hard. It's also one of the hardest to master. There has never been a certified prodigy in photography because among other things it requires both sides of the brain and happens in real time.

2) People expect to pay a lot of money for anything dealing with a wedding. They are easily sold on the impression of extravagance and the whole "fairy tale wedding" ideal. However most wedding couples, really the bride and her mother, don't really know what they are looking at or want. As a result wedding photography is more about selling the impression of quality than what is actually produced.

3) Wedding photography is the lowest technical and artistic level that a person can attain and still be a professional. The portraits produced by most wedding photographers would never get them work doing commercial or editorial portraiture. The "documentary" work covering the wedding days events is usually the same thing over and over enabling a wedding photographer to only need to be able to handle a few situations. Thus these "photojournalist" wedding photographers couldn't get an internship at their daily newspaper because their skill set is far too limited.

Put the above together and you get people who make the same usable photos over and over again but are pretty good at selling the idea that their work is somehow fresh and dynamic. Yes you need to not mess things up but if you can walk into the day with a sheet telling you in advance where you need to be and what shots you need to get it's pretty easy to do. Everyone is dressed up, they picked a pretty place to throw a party and people quickly get drunk and act happy. How can you go wrong? Yet the amount of money spent on poor wedding photography is insane. You spend 4-6 hours on locale and if you have your workflow down another day or two tops processing the images and bring home $2-4K from it. It's a cash cow.

The problem is that people see that they can make very good money making not too terrible photos and try to get into it when they have neither the business or photographic skills to do it right. This isn't any different than someone getting an interface and a few microphones into Audacity and calling themselves a music producer. Even if they outfit themselves with all the best gear and are giving away studio time @ $100 a song because they love it doesn't mean that the recordings will sound good.

 

[arv_foh]

My average turnaround on ANYTHING is 2-7 days. If you need longer, you are either lazy or a hack. Clients would kill me if it took me months ...

I spend an average of 10-15 minutes per image on editing, give or take, some take more, some take less. Times that by 1500 images (my average amount per wedding) = approx. 22500 minutes or 375 hours, so if I worked for 15 days straight for 24 hours a day then I'd still finish in double the time it takes you. Working for 8 hours a day that is 46 days, which is about average for my turnaround time. That does not include designing an album, either. I also do design and audio work in between all my wedding work, so try balancing that out and there you have the 1-2 month turnaround time, or more if I have several weddings to edit at one time

you don't need expensive ass dslr(though it would be to sick one)

you need an okay body dslr body

its the lenses that matter

also is it just me or is everybody and their mother an audio engineer

this is really not true, yes the glass matters, but you have to have a camera with great high ISO performance, even with fast glass consumer grade DSLRs are too noisy/don't go up to high enough ISO to use for wedding photography

 

[CatharsisStudios]

this is really not true, yes the glass matters, but you have to have a camera with great high ISO performance, even with fast glass consumer grade DSLRs are too noisy/don't go up to high enough ISO to use for wedding photography

truth but i ment as a okay dslr is like 700 and up

 

[LeSedna]

Well folks I am a professional photographer so here are a few thoughts on this topic from where I sit.

1) Photography is the most popular hobby in the world. Millions of people actively make photographs every day. It's the easiest art form to start with because due to the technology of even 20 years ago getting a well exposed and properly focused image isn't that hard. It's also one of the hardest to master. There has never been a certified prodigy in photography because among other things it requires both sides of the brain and happens in real time.

2) People expect to pay a lot of money for anything dealing with a wedding. They are easily sold on the impression of extravagance and the whole "fairy tale wedding" ideal. However most wedding couples, really the bride and her mother, don't really know what they are looking at or want. As a result wedding photography is more about selling the impression of quality than what is actually produced.

3) Wedding photography is the lowest technical and artistic level that a person can attain and still be a professional. The portraits produced by most wedding photographers would never get them work doing commercial or editorial portraiture. The "documentary" work covering the wedding days events is usually the same thing over and over enabling a wedding photographer to only need to be able to handle a few situations. Thus these "photojournalist" wedding photographers couldn't get an internship at their daily newspaper because their skill set is far too limited.

Put the above together and you get people who make the same usable photos over and over again but are pretty good at selling the idea that their work is somehow fresh and dynamic. Yes you need to not mess things up but if you can walk into the day with a sheet telling you in advance where you need to be and what shots you need to get it's pretty easy to do. Everyone is dressed up, they picked a pretty place to throw a party and people quickly get drunk and act happy. How can you go wrong? Yet the amount of money spent on poor wedding photography is insane. You spend 4-6 hours on locale and if you have your workflow down another day or two tops processing the images and bring home $2-4K from it. It's a cash cow.

The problem is that people see that they can make very good money making not too terrible photos and try to get into it when they have neither the business or photographic skills to do it right. This isn't any different than someone getting an interface and a few microphones into Audacity and calling themselves a music producer. Even if they outfit themselves with all the best gear and are giving away studio time @ $100 a song because they love it doesn't mean that the recordings will sound good.

First, as an amateur but yet interested photographer, I have to say I have never thought of the sentence I have put in bold, and it actually made me think a lot. It's true that, contrary to music, I can not even name a photographer that I could put higher than ALL others. I mean, there are good ones, but there is a level when the technical aspect is left beyond, and every photographer is then at the same level. It's more about the picture, not the photographer (comparatively to some other arts).

Then, I'm not surprised of all you have written. Whatever people think, you can say it's a big deal to take THE picture of THE day of a wedding. But hey, people just know nothing about photography, and they will be actually happy of any correct pic you will show them.

I've played the official photographer for the 40 years anniversary of my pilot school center. There were important people form the french aeronautic world. I just have a nikon D80 with nothing more than one of the most simple lenses, and a simple Photoshop Lightroom to edit my pictures.

They were actaually happy of what I have given them. It has been published in several official documents. I don't see why it would be harder for a wedding, excepted that some brides could be harsh to deal with !