Earlier today I mentioned to a lady that I was a wedding photographer. Her immediate response was to tell me about a feature on The One Show that she’d seen about a wedding photographer who had been taken to court for taking terrible wedding photos. It immediately put me on the defensive, and it was a bit of a worry to find that the first thing this lady associates with my profession is rogue photographers (how many other people think this way?) but it got me thinking about how people are often surprised at how much a good wedding photographer costs.
Anyone can call themselves a wedding photographer, make a simple website, buy a cheap SLR and shoot a wedding. Unfortunately for those who think they can do just that, it is one of the most challenging types of photography out there. There are no second chances. You can be moving from bright sunlight into a dark church, then back out into sunlight, then later cope with a dance-floor that is lit only by disco lights! You need to be able to create beautiful portraits, often in just a few minutes because the wedding is running over time. You have to arrange perhaps as many as 200 guests into one place for the group shot (nicely, cheerfully and politely of course!) and get it right. You need to take beautiful still-life’s too, of the flowers and the table decorations, of beautiful shoes and intricate detailing on the dress, of rings, of the cake and perhaps even details of the car. It can then take several days to upload all of the photos and edit them, as well as a couple of days to design the album. For me, that’s what I love about it; I love the challenge, the technical challenges as well as enjoying being creative, meeting lovely people and capturing those special shots that capture the emotion and tell the story of the day. But it’s not easy, and I’m always very nervous at the beginning of each and every wedding – if I wasn’t then it would probably be time to do something else, because it would mean I wasn’t taking it seriously enough.
Making the most of difficult light conditions are one of the professional's skills at a wedding
As Rosie Tanner, the editor of Digital Photographer magazine, mentions in this month’s edition,“With wedding photography comes huge responsibility. The people who do it and do it well have to possess far more than technical ability. It takes organisation, confidence, and a backup plan for every occasion – not to mention nerves of steel!”
Any serious professional photographer spends thousands of pounds a year on things like being a member of one or more of the major associations such as the BIPP, MPA, SWPP etc., public liability insurance, equipment insurance, courses and qualifications, new kit, premises and so on. This means that our fees must be over a certain price if we are to remain up to date, provide an excellent service – and still eat. Unfortunately there are people out there who have none of the above, and so can afford to charge a fraction of what a qualified full time photographer can. This undermines the profession and is putting a lot a excellent photographers out of work, while the weekend warriors earn some cash in hand at the weekend. If that’s what the market wants, then in a way that’s fine – we can change tack, perhaps get into other types of photography. Maybe with the quality of cameras increasing every month, with everyone having a camera on their phone, with brilliant apps like Hipstamatic and cheap online books available to quickly put together a printed record of the day, this is the way it is going. But if people want beautiful shots that really tell the story of the day, show the bride looking stunning, the very expensive dress and its detailing, the amazing vintage car, the exotic cake, and the friends and family and the emotions that go with it, then they need to be willing to at least pay the photographer as much as they paid for the cake and champagne – because at the end of the day, you’ll still have photographs after you’ve eaten the cake and drunk the fizz!
So next time you’re comparing photographers and trying to decide who to choose for your wedding (or portraits, or any other photography really), check that they are qualified, look at previous work (and make sure it’s theirs!), see if they belong to a professional association, and if they’re charging a fraction of other photographers, question why. Admittedly, the couple in the above article were being charged a ‘normal’ amount, and had been shown previous work that was apparently the photographer’s own, but you can at least reduce the chances of it happening to you by doing other checks. Of course, the best thing is if you can get a recommendation from a friend – at least you can blame them if the photos come out bad!
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