"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful." Samuel Johnson
It’s another afternoon, I’m clicking away at my desk on any one of a variety projects I have going on at any given time. My dachshund Buster, is snoring in the chair next to me. We keep the office pretty dim throughout the day, often the only light of any significance is the soft light of my dual monitors spills across my keyboard and desk as the only light.. I just ate lunch and that groggy food coma is just starting to set in.
The silence is interrupted by the ringing of our office phone. I reach for the rattling device which is dancing across the desk flashing lots of lights and numbers.
The caller ID number is one I’m not familiar with. I answer. It’s a local number…
My post-lunch sleepy affects are shaken off. There’s instant anticipation. You see, it’s a lonely job being a wedding and portrait photographer especially when you love people. My excitement to speak with yet another potential client is half excitement of possibly beginning a new relationship and the other half just being able to chat with someone and learn a little about their story.
As the conversation starts, my heart sinks… she’s a bride, but her voice is small and you can hear the pain in her voice as she begins to tell her story. “Oh no…. it’s another,” I say to myself.
She’s already had her wedding. The dress is dry cleaned and gently stored in the attic. The flowers - once so beautiful - are wilted. The top of the cake is in the deepest corner of the freezer to be thawed in a matter of weeks for the first anniversary. “I do” is now “we did.”
Sadly, sometimes a grandparent that stood with the bride and her husband at the altar, for some joyous family portraits is now gone. At least she has professional photography to remember this romantic, joyous day….
But that is just it. The photography is a disaster…
She shares her story with me. The calls are all so similar. She hired a family member or friend to do the photography. He or she had a nice camera and some decent shots in their portfolio and the photographer’s price was going to help her and her groom save some dough. Little did she know what she saved in money in the end would cost her so many tears.
She explains that her photographer took six, seven or nine months to even deliver the images. When he or she finally did see the photographs they were so poorly lit, badly composed, unflattering and out-of-focus the bride was crushed.
Her one chance to beautifully record the romance, emotions, personalities, family generations and amazing details of her and her husband’s big day is gone forever. My heart breaks. I’m not a told you so person. I didn’t want this to happen to her or anyone else for that matter.
The bride has called me trying to rekindle and salvage what she can from the sorry set of images, “can you fix these for us? Can you make them right?” she asks choking back the tears, pausing to collect herself. “Can you make an album for us from the ones you fix?”
“I’m sorry…. we can’t,” I gently tell her, “it’s just too hard.”
We can’t make good photography out of bad original images… the time and effort required to make something passable would destroy our ability to serve our clients with their own amazing images that they will love forever.
The problem is these calls keep happening more and more.
Technology is rapidly changing our world, my industry of wedding and portrait photography is no exception. My industry has seen all barriers to entry into the professional ranks wiped out with affordable, high quality cameras, YouTube tutorials and being able to see the images instantly on the back of the camera.
Putting together a nice, memorable wedding is hard… so it is seductive to entrust your memories to a photographer with only a couple of years of experience who is offering heavily discounted prices and “sweetheart deals.” But like a lot of things, what saves us a little money is often the most costly.
But here’s what too many folks are learning in the most heartbreaking ways… the cameras don’t make the artist no more than a good knife makes for a good surgeon. Wedding photography is hard. It takes practice, passion and personality to walk into someone’s wedding day, record beautiful images while making it fun and adding to the enjoyment of the entire wedding experience for you, your groom and everyone. There’s no reason someone should wait more than month to see her wedding’s images.
It’s a terrible price to pay to learn this lesson. Please don’t wait until after the wedding to realize how important your wedding photography is to you.
All the best,
Chris Cummins, chief photographic artist/owner Glow Imagery
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Apart from the divine wedding dress and the lavish decors, flowers are a very essential part of every wedding. They adorn every corner of the venue and even serve as centerpieces for the tables. The vibrant colors and natural fragrance seem to give weddings the personality and flair that it deserves. Choosing the best flowers, though, can be a very tedious process as there is a wide array of flower varieties to pick from.
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