.

[runnah]

I am not a pro photographer but I am quite well known for my photography within my social circle. I have been asked 4 times to capture someones wedding or special event simply because the pro was "stupidly expensive" . I refused all requests as I am not good enough.
The quality of the photos is not the issue but perception of photography in general has changed dramatically over even the last 5 years. Through social media people are exposed to set after set of what they perceive as good photography compared to what they themselves can get from a phone. These days the jump in quality from amateur with some skill to a pro is not so much of a jump but a skip and most people I know are oblivious to the nuances that define the difference.
One couple I know very well got a pro photographer to do their wedding and a more miserable man I have never met. He was at the point of myself and a few other guests having a word with him to stop being so rude to everyone. Anyway the pics came back and I have to say some were quite stunning but the 2 most expensive prints looked like they were tone mapped by a child. Of course I have never mentioned this as they are happy with the end result but between his attitude and the processing on those 2 pics I would never recommend him.

I have a similar philosophy but I will make exceptions for boudoir sessions.

 

[runnah]

I'm not sure how to say it but turning a question into an opportunity to educate people would be something that might work. For instance, you could ask how many weddings this other person has shot. Then you are in a position to explain how experience is key to this type of photography. (being at the right place and the right time with the right equipment).

God that sounds like a lot of effort. Can't I just call her the c-word under my breath and move on?

 

[ronlane]

I'm not sure how to say it but turning a question into an opportunity to educate people would be something that might work. For instance, you could ask how many weddings this other person has shot. Then you are in a position to explain how experience is key to this type of photography. (being at the right place and the right time with the right equipment).

God that sounds like a lot of effort. Can't I just call her the c-word under my breath and move on?

Do what you feel works for you.

 

[runnah]

I'm not sure how to say it but turning a question into an opportunity to educate people would be something that might work. For instance, you could ask how many weddings this other person has shot. Then you are in a position to explain how experience is key to this type of photography. (being at the right place and the right time with the right equipment).

God that sounds like a lot of effort. Can't I just call her the c-word under my breath and move on?

Do what you feel works for you.

OK great!

wise ass sunofabitch

 

[jcdeboever]

Generally speaking, people just do not want to pay for a professional photographer is what I was told by an expert photographer. Or they can not afford one. The expert said it was an opportunity that opened his eyes to the services he provided... I helped the expert with a wedding last fall. He had the cost dialed down to pressing the shutter, I mean detailed cost analysis. He could tailor most situations to satisfy the potential customer's budget. He had more work than he could handle because he could serve most budgets without compromising quality. I was impressed that he figured out a way to adjust to the market.

 

[SquarePeg]

I had a good friend get married this past November. They are in their 40's and very financially solid. They spent a small fortune on the venue, flowers, entertainment and food. Everything was absolutely gorgeous down to the smallest detail and it was a wonderful wedding. I was shocked when I realized that they had a friend taking their photos! And not a "photographer friend" either, just a friend/wedding guest who used a Canon Rebel with on camera flash. From what my friend said when I asked him, they decided that they didn't want to "waste" the money on a pro and this guy "has a good camera" and likes to take pictures. I saw the pics recently (the friend created a slide show for them) - they were just awful - washed out, wonky white balance, lots of pics with people lined up like soldiers and half of them looking the other way. When I think about what a pro could have done with the beautiful venue and very photogenic couple... Such a shame to cheap out on the one thing that lasts after the big day is over! Amazingly, they were very happy with the photos. No clue what they missed out on.

I had my camera with me and had my 50mm on it. People photography is not my thing and I am by no means anything other than a beginner but I did get a couple of nice shots during the ceremony (from my seat) and I took a bunch of candids during the reception and after party that were pretty good. At one point I asked the photographer's wife, who I know, to take a picture of our group using my camera. She passed it off to her husband since he "is the photographer in the family" and he then spent 5 minutes trying to figure out how to zoom out with the 50mm prime.

 

[JacaRanda]

Amazingly, they were very happy with the photos

This is all that matters - to me. Hopefully, they will never learn what's considered better photos or good photography. Hopefully, their lives will be so filled with other things that they won't have time to even consider what their wedding photos look like.
I'm glad our wedding photographer captured everyone important that attended and that the photos were in focus (as far as any normal person can tell). The rest was gravy.

 

[SquarePeg]

Amazingly, they were very happy with the photos

This is all that matters - to me. Hopefully, they will never learn what's considered better photos or good photography. Hopefully, their lives will be so filled with other things that they won't have time to even consider what their wedding photos look like.
I'm glad our wedding photographer captured everyone important that attended and that the photos were in focus (as far as any normal person can tell). The rest was gravy.

I certainly would never enlighten them!

 

[robbins.photo]

Amazingly, they were very happy with the photos

This is all that matters - to me. Hopefully, they will never learn what's considered better photos or good photography. Hopefully, their lives will be so filled with other things that they won't have time to even consider what their wedding photos look like.
I'm glad our wedding photographer captured everyone important that attended and that the photos were in focus (as far as any normal person can tell). The rest was gravy.

My ex wife actually got pretty upset that I hired a professional photographer to take my youngest daughters senior pictures. She had been telling my daughter for months just to have me take them, which kind of put my daughter in a bad spot because she didn't want to hurt my feelings. When my daughter finally talked to me about it, I told her that for something like that she really wanted to have professional portraits done, and asked if she'd looked into hiring a pro. Turns out she already had one in mind, we looked over the pro's portfolio, and I paid to have the pictures taken.

I caught a lot of flak from the ex over it, but I just told her that this was a big deal to our daughter and it's something that really needed to be done right. She calmed down once I mentioned that I told our youngest that she'd paid for half, even though all the money came out of my pocket. Suddenly that made everything ok.. lol...

 

[JacaRanda]

Amazingly, they were very happy with the photos

This is all that matters - to me. Hopefully, they will never learn what's considered better photos or good photography. Hopefully, their lives will be so filled with other things that they won't have time to even consider what their wedding photos look like.
I'm glad our wedding photographer captured everyone important that attended and that the photos were in focus (as far as any normal person can tell). The rest was gravy.

My ex wife actually got pretty upset that I hired a professional photographer to take my youngest daughters senior pictures. She had been telling my daughter for months just to have me take them, which kind of put my daughter in a bad spot because she didn't want to hurt my feelings. When my daughter finally talked to me about it, I told her that for something like that she really wanted to have professional portraits done, and asked if she'd looked into hiring a pro. Turns out she already had one in mind, we looked over the pro's portfolio, and I paid to have the pictures taken.

I caught a lot of flak from the ex over it, but I just told her that this was a big deal to our daughter and it's something that really needed to be done right. She calmed down once I mentioned that I told our youngest that she'd paid for half, even though all the money came out of my pocket. Suddenly that made everything ok.. lol...

Yup. The whole thing just means something different for most of us. I can't remember the last time we pulled the pictures out of a box and went down memory lane. Wifey recently shared a few off the hard drive with some new co-workers. I guess that's cool to be able to do.

Maybe I will start a new thread where those brave enough can share some of our special day photos; including how much we paid for the photographer. ((((Is it legal to post our wedding photos - do I have to get permission from the photographer?)))) Will have to dig out the contract - I guess.

 

[robbins.photo]

Yup. The whole thing just means something different for most of us. I can't remember the last time we pulled the pictures out of a box and went down memory lane. Wifey recently shared a few off the hard drive with some new co-workers. I guess that's cool to be able to do.

I have to admit the conversation with my daughter was pretty funny. She starts off by telling me that mom suggested I take the pictures, and I responded with, oh honey, no. You don't want to have to tell your friends that your dippy dad took your senior photos. She didn't say anything of course but I could just see the weight lifted from her shoulders.

 

[Derrel]

Like many businesses, wedding photography has changed over the decades. Wedding photography a long,long time ago meant hiring a photographer to come to the church with a large plate camera, and to take a handful of photos as a record of the day and the newly married couple. At the height of the film era, the storybook type wedding was in vogue. In the 1990's wedding videos as "a thing" took off, with the newly emerging and fairly affordable and very good 3-CCD camcorder models that lowered the cost of decent video gear to under $3,500 for a camera and tripod and microphone kit. Now we're in a different era, one in which "photos" are no longer thought of as printed pictures in albums, but more of sharable digital files, photos to be uploaded to one's Facebook page, one's personal Flickr page, uploaded to a web page so people can be given a URL, a link to digital pictures, and so on.

The "old paradigm" was to get the job, then to sell larger prints and canvasses at high markups, and to deliver at least two very expensive wedding albums; in most cases, the majority of the market has moved on from that because that is simply NOT the way people are viewing photos or using photos or thinking about photos. Photos today are much more about immediately-accessible digital images...smallish to medium-sized .JPG files that look good on-screen.

A fairly substantial part of today's wedding photography with younger brides is the smartphone captures, the real, genuine, candid moments, the videos, shot by the bride and groom's friends and family members. Today's newer smart phones can take excellent quality candid stills and video, and the devices have the ability to easily, and for "free", make perfect digital duplicates that can be shared with the B&G and their family and friends. A group of six to ten young women with their own smartphones can easily generate hundreds of good wedding images, acting as a sort of blanket coverage photography team. These photos are almost never the ones the "pro" will get.

It's no longer about the quality of the camera that shoots the photos--it's about the quality of the moments captured. A one- or two-person professional photography team will miss 95% of the actual moments, the exchanges of genuine emotion, compared to a 10- to 150-person team with their smartphones. Again, it's no longer the 30 x 40 inch canvas that is the hook, the closer, the big sell. Photos are not the same thing they used to be even 10 years ago. Is wedding photography dying? No. But it is changing, and it has changed from what it was in 1910, and 1950, and 1980, and in the year 2000. The last time somebody asked me if she could show me some wedding photos, she pulled out an iPhone 6s.

In multiple ways, an iPhone or an Android phone is a much,much,much better wedding memory-grabber than a Hasselblad 500 C/M and a 50/80/150 lens trio ever was. The smartphone shoots video, has no 12-frame limit, has hyperfocal DOF, is silent, not loud, and is very high-capacity, and can shoot,shoot,shoot,shoot. Having 10 to 40 of those things at a wedding means that thousands of stills are available to the B&G.

 

[astroNikon]

Generally speaking, people just do not want to pay for a professional photographer is what I was told by an expert photographer. Or they can not afford one. The expert said it was an opportunity that opened his eyes to the services he provided... I helped the expert with a wedding last fall. He had the cost dialed down to pressing the shutter, I mean detailed cost analysis. He could tailor most situations to satisfy the potential customer's budget. He had more work than he could handle because he could serve most budgets without compromising quality. I was impressed that he figured out a way to adjust to the market.

Essentially he removed all his time prewedding counseling on stuff and simply showed up and got the job done then did fast post processing. Very doable with experienced wedding photographers I would think but probably not by your lower end who simply don't have the experience from top to bottom.

So he pushed out the lower end with similar pricing but way better quality. A good way to keep the cash flowing.

Essentially stop doing all the "extra" work as listed on these pages and just take the shots and provide the digital images ==> Why I Can’t Shoot Your Wedding for Free {Part I of II}

 

[gsgary]

I ditched the photography at my wedding last year and invited more of my friends but 3 of them are good photographers

Sent from my SM-G903F using Tapatalk

 

[Vtec44]

Photography in general has changed over the years. DSLR's have lower the entry point, reduced the learning time, and raised the quality so much that you have to be MUCH MUCH better than someone with a nice camera to charge a lot for your services. A lot of my clients are in the creative field with many photographer friends. They still hire me because of the consistency of my work, the way I tell a wedding day, and me as a person. For me, catching a few beautiful photos is easy but to tell a beautiful story of the day is a whole different level.