So I'm shooting last weekend and one of the groom's relatives has a Canon 5D Mark II and a big enough zoom etc. and he's basically shadowing me from the moment I get there.
Now, I always expect there to be a lot of cameras at any wedding - at the most someone who's into photography and have a Nikon D90, Canon 550d or similar and they take a few snaps then get drunk and put the camera down. It's part of it and it's expected.
 
But when someone is there, talking mega pixels, suggesting set ups, arranging people and then telling me where to point my lens ("What zoom is that, by the way?") I find it gets in the way. Usually I politely let it slide, but there is a bigger problem here than my ego!
 
Capturing the moment at a wedding is about being in the right place at the right time, sure, but it's also about good planning, people management and responsibly creating moments, and all this is usually a loosely calculated procedure based on the client's needs discussed prior to the event, but also, and perhaps more critically, shot with the foresight of creating an editorialish story that is going to work in a professional album. Once somebody else throws their historical family influence into the ring things start going a little awry. For example, if the couple have to stand there looking at a million (and one) cameras and are getting pushed from pillar to post by everybody but their professional photographer, any chance of a moment, a candid snapshot in time, disappears very quickly. Special moments are lost when another photographer is backing up the aisle with the bride and groom hidden from view, popping away with their speedlight ("it's Brand new") You can't very well ask them to get out of the way, and you can't wait for them to finish and ask the Bride and Groom to just do that first kiss again. The moment's gone.
And having to wait for enthusiastic photographer's to get out of my background  when I'm off doing some private portraits soon gets embarrassing when I have to eventually have to ask them to 'give me a minute'!
 
Don't get me wrong - I'm not asking for people not to take pictures at a wedding - that would be naive and churlish. I like to give people as much room as possible to photograph their loved ones, and always make sure that I do.
 
Unfortunately, it takes a lot of experience and technical know how to shoot a wedding, and that is generally acquired by photographing and producing weddings for a living! A guest may well take a few  decent pictures, but having the equipment doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to get the job done. Photography and photographers have commonly fought with this problem, but digital cameras are being sold by the lorry load with the promise of making a person a better photographer. "it's alright, I'll fix it in photoshop" doesn't really help either. Photoshop is a professional image editing tool that costs well over £500 and takes years to learn. Most of the professional photographers I know will be happy to tell you that they're only now, after years of use, mastering the basics of subtle editing and enhancement within this software. Most of the enthusiast photographers I meet tell me about how photoshop is gonna save us all! I'm guessing that this re-gurgitated marketing jargon will justify the cost to the user.
 
In today's market, with 'professional' cameras becoming more accessible, is there any way to circum-navigate these problems to get the best results possible from your professional photographer? Can you really ask your favourite uncle not to bring along his new toy? I doubt it.
 
The truth is that all of the above generally changes the way in which a wedding can be captured. The pictures will still be of the same quality, but the context can shift a little. A bit of drama and romance is lost when there's a videographer in the background smoking a fag, but it's still a real photograph of that moment. It's a shame when the only possible shot of the bride getting out of the car might include a second cousin dressed in fuchsia pink lurking around between the photographer and the bride, but it's still a representation of what happened without any photographic contrivance or re-enactment. This is when the definitions of oft used words like 'reportage' need to be defined, but that might be a discussion for another time...
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