Photography: Prevent Grief - Hire a Professional!
By Daniel Sheehan (WedNet Specialist Blogger for Photography): A Beautiful Day Photography, http://www.abeautifuldayphotography.com
At a number of weddings this past year I had several people came up to me during the receptions and mention that they had been watching me work over the course of the day. I was flattered and had not noticed. They had been married recently but complained that their wedding photographers did not take both as many pictures and the variety of interesting photos I was making. When I asked them who had photographed their wedding, they responded a family member or friend of the family was the photographer, but they wished that they had hired me. In times like these, people are often tempted to save time money on an expensive wedding by accepting the services of a family member or friend when they come to the wedding photography. This often results in a case of unintended consequences as the friend or family member delivers less than acceptable results due to the lack of prior experience, and both of you feel regrets that it turned out to be a disaster. Despite the cost, there are a number of benefits to hiring a professional wedding photographer. The combination of years of experience, artistic approach, and choice of equipment insure that the professional wedding photographer’s work will stand the test of time.
A professional photographer’s cameras and lenses make a big difference on the fundamental level coupled with extensive experience with the equipment they use. Their equipment will be professional quality gear that is able to withstand extremes of temperature or humidity, they will have access to a wider variety of lenses, lights, and accessories than an amateur would, and they will have backup equipment in case of failure or damage. They are routinely more comfortable working with their equipment. This translates into a stronger stylistic expression on the part of the experienced professional. The experienced photographer is then not limited by his equipment and is able to pick from a variety of lenses to obtain a specific look or feel to the photographs. More than just getting some good pictures, the best way to remember the day is to have it told in a picture story. The narrative or photo-journalistic approach to wedding photography is a lot more than just a bunch of pictures and requires someone who has learned the skills of telling a story with a camera. If you are not familiar with the style, check out the work of a wedding photojournalist.
Perhaps the most important purpose to employ an experienced photographer, who makes his living doing only photography, is his ability to be up to the task of confronting the problems that normally crop up over the course of a typical wedding. A photographer, like a friend or relative who is a very qualified amateur, might certainly make some good photographs during the wedding day, a full time working professional will produce more consistently throughout the day because his livelihood depends upon the quality of the photographs he makes. A professional craftsman needs to produce work on the highest level in order to stay in business, and that means whether the circumstance of the day are easy, or as often happens, may be especially challenging to any photographer with or without extensive experience of working in difficult environments.
Wedding couples can spend months planning their wedding day down to the last detail, but often things do not go exactly as planned. The best-laid plans can go awry when uncontrollable elements like traffic and weather cause chaos to a timeline and believe me the timeline can change on the spur of the moment. It quite frequently happens in real world weddings. Professional photographers know how to adapt to the changes and keep their stride and continue to photograph despite timeline breaks or other distractions. They have an edge over your amateur photographer neighbor or uncle when it comes to preserving the critical moments to highlight the action and capture the facial expressions that tell the story of the day
The laughing and crying that often breakout at emotional moments at weddings, often catch up the people who are close to the couple at an event and have been known to impair their photographic reflexes. They often miss the best parts of the story.
When it comes to making the formal family portraits, having a professional photographer with a lot of experience photographing weddings can make a tremendous difference.
A wedding is often a time when families whose members are scattered over distant places reunite. Under the pressure of a tight schedule when things run slower than expected, experienced wedding photographers, who once worked as photojournalists, thrive in such anxiety producing conditions. After covering breaking news for a number of years, a wedding, no matter how hectic, is never quite as stressful as having to photograph a war or protest demonstration. The very nature of the work tends to lead professional wedding photographers to love working with people, and be warm and personable so that often the bride and groom will feel as if they are having an old friend photograph the wedding. Avoid the regrets and hire a professional to have peace of mind that the most important photographs of the day will be made and you will have them to treasure and preserve your memories of the wedding day.