But it's the reception that's the real killer. The one I shot (not for money, for a friend) was literally in a giant gymnasium. In virtual darkness. After all these years of doing photography, after investing in gawd-knows-how-much equipment, and after learning a nearly infinite amount of information about low-light photography, I still have no clue what I'm doing. It's all hit and miss.
Here are a few images I felt were more hit than miss.
4 comments:
Oh my lord! You have got such talent! I don't comment as much as I look through your blog, but I always love your picture taking talents.
I have done two weddings. It was way back in the film days, and I swore after the last one that I never would do another one. I still hold by that every bit as strongly as I did then. They just plain suck, and there are plenty of easier ways to get access to an open bar. Even when I look at what wedding photographers make (an absolute killing, btw) I have no second thoughts.
Gymnasium lighting can be a real pain in the butt, too, depending on what kind of lights they are using. I did one shoot in a gym once that was carpeted, yes, even the basketball court was carpet, in this rusty orange-yellow color, and they had some funky vapor lights which put off this really orangey tint. Everything looked orange, except for white, which looked purple, and it was simply impossible to get proper color balance in there. Nowadays something like that can be fixed with PS, but at the time all you could do was stack filters and fudge it.
As I understood it, the lights and carpet gave their basketball team a huge home-court advantage. And medical-quality rug burns.
I just don't have the temperament for that job. One of the many things I like about taking a photograph is the autonomy of it and I don't think that is what a wedding photographer has much of. Also, I've been to only a handful of weddings in my life so I don't know all the customs, procedures and overall psychology of a contemporary American wedding. I'd be real clumsy at it.
But then again, I don't see why you or anyone wouldn't be very happy with the photos you posted, especially the top and bottom ones, they seem like classics.
Thanks, everyone! That means a lot.
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