Wedding Photogs -- Can you please explain bizarre behaviour?

Ysarex

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Just got home from an afternoon walk and stop at the grocery store. When I have a grocery stop to make, I pass through a couple blocks of industrial decay (abandoned warehouses, graffiti) and under an old bridge over the railroad tracks. It's possible to drive down a seriously neglected road to get under the bridge but there's no where to go except back the way you came.

So today I'm walking through when a bunch of very nice cars and a bus come driving down the road to get under the bridge. I knew what was going on as soon as I saw them because I've seen this before. It was a wedding party. It just finished raining for two days and under the bridge was a mud puddle. There were big puddles all over the tracks. It was nothing short of hilarious to watch the women holding on to each other in a group while trying to make it across two pairs of muddy train tracks wearing fashion torture devices on their feet. They headed for one of the well-graffiti-covered warehouses.

I grabbed a snap of part of the group as I walked by and they were waiting for the photographer to set up his gear.


bleepin_crazy_zpsc3c56805.jpg



So these people were from outside the city (license plates) and they drove down here to take wedding photos in a setting of abandoned urban decay. I understand going to a garden to take wedding photos. I understand going to a natural setting to take wedding photos. I understand going to a meaningful place like a ballpark or a ski slope to take wedding photos. I can even understand things like taking wedding photos on your Harleys or in your bass boat. But I don't get this one: What the bleepin' bleep is wrong with these people!?

Joe
 
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I can't even begin to answer your question, but I can tell you that this is Reason #3,067 why I do not even desire to become a professional photographer. Because when a wedding party, or a high school senior wanted me to take their portraits in front of places like this, the gasket would blow around the "tact filter" in my brain and there is no telling what I'd say to them.
(Not that it would not be the FIRST time I've blown that tact filter gasket...I pretty much have to replace that thing on a weekly basis..)
 
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Maybe they're a bunch of gangstas, lol. The groom is obviously their leader...
 
In the same way that old, moldy abandoned mental hospitals have become "cool places" for photography, so have decrepit, grafitti-covered urban and industrial areas. It's kind of like the "trash the dress" and the "save the date" things...something newbie togs can push and sell as "cool" and "new and different". Sort of a form of photo-slumming, I think. It extends all the way out here...a friend of mine shot a very wealthy Nike employee's wedding, and they wanted an urban "street" feel for the pics, so he scouted around and found a very old rundown warehouse and loading dock area...they were in love with the location. I guess it was just ghetto enough...

Pop culture elevates "ghetto"; the word ghetto no longer has its original meaning--it means something much,much different than what it used to mean. Rap music, hip-hop culture, and changing times, plus white guilt and so on have all had major sociological impacts over the past 20 years. I view this as an effort on the part of young people to show their "street cred", and also a way for them to try and be sort of counter-culture, rebellious, etc., etc..

"These are not your parents' wedding photos," the advertisement might say.
 
It could be that there's something about that place that's of particular importance to them, maybe the bride's grandad built it, perhaps the groom did the graffiti in his wild youth...who knows? I doubt there's anything 'wrong' with them, we just don't know the significance.

Still, let's not let our ignorance stop us from turning up our noses at the plebs eh?
 
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What the bleepin' bleep is wrong with these people!?

Unimaginative, easily duped, "urban chic" wannabes being "guided" by an unimaginative photographer toward a random example of the "true grit" of urban decay in a vain effort to proclaim their tolerance, nay; embrace of the lower classes, all the while engaged in a thoroughly middle class event.
 
That graffiti is actually quite decent. I could totally see trying to make something out of it. I don't think that party is going to make it work, the colors in the art and the colors of the clothes are too similar, and not similar enough. You're not going to get interesting contrasts, or interesting blending, it's just likely to look dumb.

It's a neat backdrop, no lamer than any of the other completely arbitrary rituals of weddings. Think about it: every wedding is essentially a series of completely arbitrary rituals, which have meaning only because we imbue them with it. The light looks effing terrible, but whatcha gonna do?

Also, it's a long shot, but maybe someone in the wedding party is the artist.
 
Who cares? It's not your wedding and you're not the photographer. Let the kids have fun.
 
That graffiti is actually quite decent. I could totally see trying to make something out of it. I don't think that party is going to make it work, the colors in the art and the colors of the clothes are too similar, and not similar enough. You're not going to get interesting contrasts, or interesting blending, it's just likely to look dumb.

It's a neat backdrop, no lamer than any of the other completely arbitrary rituals of weddings. Think about it: every wedding is essentially a series of completely arbitrary rituals, which have meaning only because we imbue them with it. The light looks effing terrible, but whatcha gonna do?

Also, it's a long shot, but maybe someone in the wedding party is the artist.

Here's a better look at the graffiti for you (from a different day):


alfapet_zps799ae81d.jpg



I understand why I photograph this. I live with it and walk past it about once every ten days or less on my way to the grocery store.

As I noted this isn't the first (or the second or the third) wedding party I've stumbled across down here. Given some of the identifying stickers and plate holders on their cars, I'm confident these folks weren't from anywhere nearby. They drove down into the dirty city looking for a place like this. I'm bemused by it and puzzled by it as it really does seem rather weird, but there's also a little nagging something about it that bugs me.

Joe
 
As I noted this isn't the first (or the second or the third) wedding party I've stumbled across down here. Given some of the identifying stickers and plate holders on their cars, I'm confident these folks weren't from anywhere nearby. They drove down into the dirty city looking for a place like this. I'm bemused by it and puzzled by it as it really does seem rather weird, but there's also a little nagging something about it that bugs me.

Yeah, that they came there from out of town seems [gah - I know there is a word that describes how I feel, but I can't think of it, so it will take an entire sentence (or more) to explain it] "off" to me...

[It's like, they want to show how cool or tough or *whatever* they are, but they are so far from actually being what they're pretending to be that they can't even find a suitable location where they live.]

They are posers. That's the word I was looking for.
 
.
 
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As I noted this isn't the first (or the second or the third) wedding party I've stumbled across down here. Given some of the identifying stickers and plate holders on their cars, I'm confident these folks weren't from anywhere nearby. They drove down into the dirty city looking for a place like this. I'm bemused by it and puzzled by it as it really does seem rather weird, but there's also a little nagging something about it that bugs me.

Yeah, that they came there from out of town seems [gah - I know there is a word that describes how I feel, but I can't think of it, so it will take an entire sentence (or more) to explain it] "off" to me...

[It's like, they want to show how cool or tough or *whatever* they are, but they are so far from actually being what they're pretending to be that they can't even find a suitable location where they live.]

They are posers. That's the word I was looking for.

What's the difference between them and any other wedding party? they've contracted a photographer to take photos of them in particular settings, whether it's a churchyard or a boneyard it's still egotistical posing if that's the view you want to take of it.
 
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