So the other day I received an email form someone I had been helping for a while. He has grown tremendously as a man and a photographer. He now has the bug in his belly and wants to be a photographer as a career. So the other day he asked me, "How do I become a wedding photographer?" He had only been to one wedding in his life and heard somewhere that he could make tons of money doing weddings. This is what I said...
You want to know how to be a millionaire, hang out with millionaires, If you want to be a mechanic, spend your off time with mechanics. If you want to be a wedding phootgrapher... well, you get the point. Find a local guy and ask if you can assist for them. Look online. Google has the answers to almost anything. read, research, watch, do. There is no way you should be charging tons of money for your first weddings because you have no portfolio to proove such. So you start off simple. Shooting friend's weddings, capturing moments, etc. A lot of people see shooting a wedding as some sort of secret formula. The key shots that the bride and groom are looking for. There are a lot of these. I sum them up like this;
CONTROL YOUR BACKGROUND, FILL YOUR FRAME, WAIT FOR THE MOMENT.
Look for OVERALL, MEDIUM, CLOSE UP, EXTREME CLOSE UP, SILLHUETTE, PORTRAIT, DETAIL, FRINGE of EVERY SCENE
TELL A STORY
Sound familiar. I used to pound this in your heads day in day out when I was in the Navy stationed with you. most of you thought of me as a pain in the ass about it. Shooting a wedding is telling the most incredible story in one's life sometimes in a matter of a few hours. Months of planning, thousands of dollars spent, lots of stress just to get to this one moment where a girl becomes a woman and weds. What do YOU think you should shoot? EVERYTHING. As for what others may say... get the bride getting ready, get the groom nervous, the little cute flower girl, the shot of them walking down the isle, the close up of the hands holding, the ring, the saying I do and kissing, them walking away from the isle, the people hugging, the bride and groom leaving. the redeption, the first dance, the groom dancing with mom-in-law, the cutting of the cake, the flower girl asleep in a corner, blah blah blah.
You are a photojournalist. You are supposed to have the talent to tell stories with your images. If you were at any event and all of a sudden every body gathered around and someone took a garter off a woman and prepared to throw it to a group of men behind him, what would you do?
About 12 years ago or more, I went to a wedding convention in Va Beach. I was walking around looking to see what it was all about. Then I ran into a group of photographers in their 50s arguing. It was getting to the point where their voices where raising. The subject was about this new style of photojournalistic style weddings. They thought of it as a bunch of bullshit. "The wedding party doesn't want that." one said. "When it is all said and done, there is no way a guy can consistently capture moments all day long." said another. "A bride needs the 'key' shots that are set up and that's that." I was taken back as to why these guys were arguing over this. See, in the not so distant past it was "STANDARD" that a wedding photographer walk around with a medium format camera clicking one frame here and there and most of the time telling the people how to position. He had tons of lights and set up everywhere and cameras with that kind of quality where unaffordable. The 'money' shots where the groups and families, and because he could position people right he was everybody's hero. Then all of a sudden newspaper photographers started realizing they could make a few bucks extra by shooting photojournalistic style weddings on their days off. Bam! a standard was raped.
Now people are raking in the money with weddings because they simply shoot on high speed with no lights and get great stuff. Look at what Nikon is focusing most of their marketing dollars on... The wedding community. Why? Because many times churches refuse to allow lights in the church. So a new D3 with super high ISO and no noise can cure all of this. People are doing things now that could never had been done before. The D3 is (to me) the camera to shift everything even further down the road where it won't take much to get the shot.
So when it is all said and done. You have the talents and capabilities to shoot weddings. You just don't know it yet. Shot any Navy retirements lately???
What I would suggest since I know you don't have any of your own gear is to shoot a couple for little money. Borrow someone's personal camera. Then with the money go and get yourself a D40 or used D200. Then shoot some more. With that money go and buy a bigger camera and so on and so forth. But remember one important thing...
It is NOT the camera, but the photographer that captures incredible moments in time.
All the best,
AA
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