Two weeks ago, I helped a family friend out by shooting parts of their child’s wedding.
The first request was to think about shooting the entire wedding. Quickly I decided against that- just too much responsibility and I wasn’t confident enough in my skills to pull off weddings. As a compromise, I was only going to do the reception for “candid” photos. Which was fine by me, I wouldn’t know anyone there, and I could ‘hide’ behind my camera. The music would be playing, I could ignore the detail shots of things like the cake, or such. I just worried about the live music and people’ reactions to it. (i.e. dancing)
Then a week before the wedding they asked my wife and I to come by the house for the preparations for the bride. The traditional makeup, dress, vial, and dad seeing daughter for the first time sorts of shots. Alrighty- works for me. I knew the family, I had done an engagement photo session for them a year ago. However, I didn’t know anyone else. Plus, just about everyone in the family was speaking Spanish- which I don’t even understand. I might as well be paint drying on the walls at points. One other thing I need to figure out, a better personality while shooting. Being commanding, thinking about the shot and technical camera stuff, and personable at the same time.
The prep photos were my best, as the reception hall was a huge light sucking hall. I had two remote strobes with me, but even at half power, was just enough to get the dance floor with some nice light. My favorite 14-40mm f/4 was barely good enough to work. Thank goodness for the f/2.8 on the 70-200 and f/1.8 on the 50mm. Life might have hurt otherwise. I got some decent action shots, but I did not have the gear for decent super low light people shots on the go.
For the actual wedding, I did not snap a single shot. The family had another person hired for the staged shots, and for a set time for the reception. As far as I could tell, she had only two camera bodies- a Canon 70D (maybe, looked like a X series) and a 6D. The 70D had a kit zoom on it... and the 6D had a 50mm f/1.2 prime. Thats it. (I was jealous of the 6D!) I think she broke out an on camera strobe at one point, but don’t recall it being used. So I was not too surprised to see some of her samples which were mainly filter happy. (i.e. lots of post processing)
Tell me I am not crazy to think people like this seem to get work because they of the love of filters.
I like black and white images if they are done well. I also know that they are great for hiding problems in color images- mostly low light problems. It can mask some graininess from high ISO settings, or post production of pushing exposures up. So it was not shocking to see many recipetion hall shots from the hired help being converted or over filtered.
Maybe it is a style thing, I like a very much “what I see is what you get” sort of style. I don’t want super altered interpretation of the scene. It is one thing to have bokeh, it is another to apply “wedding filter #3” to half the images to make them stylish.
In the end however, my taste and view of things only matters if the person who wants them is happy. I equate it to the value of something- “the value of something is whatever someone is willing to pay.” In this case, the willing to pay is if they are happy with the results.
I think the family was happy- they want to take us out to dinner as a thank you.
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