Wedding photographers --- can you relate?

[Kayaker72]

The closest I've come to that feeling is when I had a nice shot of a pair of roosting GBHs all lined up, and a grackle just flew up and landed right in the scene. Can you bird photographers relate?

I've gone to a couple of weddings where I brought my camera, and I tried very hard to not be 'that guy'. I introduced myself to the hired photographers, told them I'd stay out of the way but to tell me if I wasn't, shot ambient, etc.

Grackle's....rudest birds around...

I almost always bring my camera to weddings. But I do try to respect the pro photographers.

I agree with that from both the photographers point of view and the wedding guest point of view.

I typically hear that weddings are the events pros like to photograph the least. Not only do they have the issues with the guests, but usually the wedding party, parents, venue, general wedding craziness (and people get crazy around weddings), etc. And these are on top of having to give up nights and weekends to photograph the wedding. My wife's Uncle is a pro and he hasn't shot a wedding in over 10 years. You can see his face tense up whenever he talks about it. This is very unfortunate.

But I'd say I am in this camp in that I can see both sides. Ultimately, this is one of those things where of course the solution is that the guest photographers and pro photographers to work in harmony....but in reality, of course, that isn't what is going to happen all of the time. In a perfect world, 4x6 prints wouldn't cost $9 each, which they did at a recent wedding I attended (and I know those pros were already well paid just to shoot the wedding). So, guests want photographs they can afford and pros want to minimize the obsticles they face in performing their job. Because of the cost of the photos, your average guest will likely never own, maybe even see, any of the photos a pro takes. And, then there are just the people that will be crazy and want their own photos no matter what. This, of course, sets up a natural conflict.

I guess I don't see the need to blog about it, or maybe it was a few of the statements in the blog I didn't like. Every job has frustrations and obsticles, which are very often rude and inconsiderate people. But there is usually a lot of nervous energy and emotion at weddings. I suspect that for some people taking photos is the result of the energy and emotion. Simply putting down the camera wouldn't necessarily allow them to peacefully enjoy the wedding but rather they would be searching for another outlet for that energy and emotion. That said, it is amazing how inconsiderate, and rude some people can be, and feel bad when the author is talking about being pushed out of the way, etc.

One thing I would like to bring up is this ...my son is getting married in a couple months. They asked me to be their photographer. I told them that I don't see how I can be Mother of the Groom and photographer. They told me if I don't do it they won't have a "photographer" because all of their friends will have phones anyway. Is this really becoming the new generations way of thinking when it comes to an average-budgeted wedding? I have a simple phone that you can talk, text and take crappy photos with so I have no clue how good these photos are that they will end up with. Do I give up enjoying my son's wedding to be their photographer to make sure that they end up with well captured memories? Do I battle all of their friends to get the shot or ask for the wedding to be "unplugged"? Or do I just put my photographer's mind to rest for a day and enjoy the wedding?

I am headed to a wedding next weekend in North Carolina. It is actually the pro photographer's son getting married. He took the stand that he didn't want to shoot his own son's wedding and instead worked out a trade with another professional photographer. I am not sure that something similar can done in your situation. If it can't, if I were in your situation, I would probably take my camera and shoot the photos I would normally shoot as a guest (same with your daughter) without the pressure of "capturing" the day as the official photographer. But I may offer to take the formal portraits, because otherwise, will those even happen? That would also hopefully be less stressful because you could hopefully control the situation, we away from the other guests, etc.