I am sitting at home, dead tired from an all-day wedding shoot. Really, I should be going to bed, but for some reason, I just felt the urge to talk through it a little here. I have a lot running through my head, as I do after any important shoot…and here is some of it.
Second shooters are a great thing…fifth and sixth are a curse! My primary job was to shoot the “engagement ceremony” in the morning (it’s a Thai thing…I still find it funny that you do an engagement ceremony the morning of the wedding). The wedding ceremony later in the afternoon was the domain of a “professional photographer”. I will explain why that is in quotes.
It is in quotes, because I am quoting someone. Ok, that is the sarcastic answer. I was told a professional photographer would be shooting the wedding, but I was welcome to stay and shoot myself. That statement had a couple red flags for me.
One, as soon as you have more than one official or semi-official photographer at a wedding, things start falling apart. Guests do not know where to look. Group photos take four times as long because you have to wait to smile at all the different cameras. And, most important, you have four or five semi-professional photographers milling around the church in the middle of the ceremony…four or five because once there are two, more just seem to come out of the woodwork.
The second red flag is the word “professional”. When I hear that, I just have to wonder. Is this some guy who just happens to get paid for his photography services or is this someone who really knows what they are doing? Well, I have run into both, and my personal solution is to come prepared for either case. If they obviously have a handle on things, I will just step back and let them do their thing. If not, I am ready to step up and make sure things run the way they should.
Well, today I was pleasantly surprised. Within a few moments, I knew this other guy was good. He was working his angle and perspective, not just shooting the shot straight. Plus, as soon as I saw a photographic opportunity about to happen, I saw him react at the same time. That is good enough for me. So, I just backed down.
I went ahead and shot some of the ceremony, but in a very relaxed way. I did not want to be another photographer getting in the way of the service (there were two or three amateur videographers and three or four photographers…and only one of all those was a professional). So, when I saw a little something here or there when the other guy was doing the essential wedding photography, I shot.
So this wedding was in Thailand as well? The way you talked about having multiple photographers at the wedding reminded me of my amateur job as yearbook photographer. There is another photographer this year besides me, and when we are both shooting a school event, I often feel that he is getting in my way or I am getting in his way. If we’re both shooting the same event, I often just go to the opposite end of the room or field, or just back off. I guess in some ways yearbook photography can be quite similar to bigger jobs such as wedding photography.
Well, I think it is even more broad than that. It will almost always be something between annoying or awkward when shooting with other photographers on the same job. Well…I will take that back, partially. It depends on the circumstances, I guess.
I can also be highly beneficial to shoot with others. That only seems to be when the relationship is established, though: teacher-student, fellow participants in a photo workshop, and such.
I am quite sure the other photographer did a great job, but I would just love to know what he thought of the other dudes and dudettes with cameras running around. He seemed to do well with it…but then again, what option did he have? Making a big deal of it only makes it worse. If it were my wedding though, it would irritate me to no end.