Meatball wedding shot

[RMThompson]

I don't think I quite understand what you are all talking about.

While I understand the concept that brides look through magazines and even your own portfolio and they see images of the 27 year old slim bride with her handsome husband in a beautiful church, and they think they are going to somehow magically get the same through the photography.

However I don't think that it's an excuse to offer bad photography because the people weren't the richest, or most beautiful people. My first, and only, wedding was shot outside on a beach with people in the background, a 2 minutes ceremony was followed by a 4 hour reception in a Lion's Club Clubhouse.

Not all my shots are perfect, in fact, I am sure not a single one of them are, but I would never be able to intentionally hand a customer over with the harshest of flashes (diffuser perhaps?), or a picture with a terrible white balance, etc.

I don't mean to pick on any of the photogs here that showed pictures, they are all better photographers than I am, but I still can't get over the fact that when a customer is upset someone would just simply blame it on them not looking good.

In particular I didn't like this statement:

Well put, mysteryscribe. I think it's easy to forget (especially for people who love photography) that not every event is meant to produce magazine or portfolio quality images.

If you start a project saying "Hey these people aren't pretty enough to even be in my portfolio" then aren't you somewhere going to give them less quality than you would if if you were photographing the union of Tyrese and Gabriella from Desperate Housewives.... the attempt should be the same, should it not?

And I really didn't like this:

i wish i could shoot one of these weddings as straight photo-j, it would be a blast, and the bride would cry a different kind of tear than i normally want . . . but jeez would she see what her wedding really was.

I'm not saying I loved everyone I've ever taken pictures of, but geez I've never wanted to make anyone CRY... and I certainly have never hated one to make her "see what her wedding really was." TO HER the wedding was the best day of her life, hopefully, or at least one of the most important. If you don't like shooting weddings for ugly people, you should probably stop shooting wedding altogether.

In my wedding I had to deal with a LOT of obstructions, people not looking their best, two disabled family members, a tight area, 70% of the people sitting the entire team, terrible lighting, and yet I gave it my best. I sweated, My knees and legs ached, and there wasn't anything I could've done to shoot better in my opinion. I gave them everything I had.

here are the shots:

http://www.rmtimages.com/wedding

http://www.rmtimages.com/Wedding 2/

Meatball? I don't know, maybe, but they were happy, and isn't that what matters?

 

[mysteryscribe]

A lot of the churchs I worked in looked like this. I wonder do any of you shoot shots of the church any more.

 

[JimmyJaceyMom]

Yup!

 

[mysteryscribe]

I love it. I once shot a wedding out of town in a very old church. I shot the outside at sunset for no apparent reason at all. This was years ago back in the day of film. When I finish the wedding I mailed the proofs to the bride and groom, I knew the groom/s father.

The bridal order included about then 8x10s of that church. I could not figure it out. I saw the grooms father later and he said the next days service was the last in that building. They put the church to the wrecking ball on Monday to make room for a new one. I had accidentally made the last professional quality image of the church.

That day I was shooting a Graflex 6x7 press camera that I had borrowed for the shoot so I had a big negative image. The Church in the sunset (7pm wedding) had it's lights on but there was also some sunlight left. As I said earlier, you have to get lucky sometime.