What's Wrong with Wedding Photography Today

[jkantor]

According to an editorial in Studio Photography & Design:

http://www.imaginginfo.com/publicati...ubId=3&id=1757

The short version is - if you are not a traditional portrait shooter, you are destroying the industry.

[PaulCosmic]

Interesting Article. I guess the bottom line is we all have our own opinions on PJ, as with all other aspects of our industry.

[jkantor]

I think part of the article is correct. People see PJ shots and think anyone can do them - that they could hire anyone to walk around for 8 hours and they would get the same shots. (I've been doing PJ for long enough to realize that's certainly not true.)

When people see posed or Photoshopped images, however, they are obviously something an amateur couldn't do.

But I've stopped publicizing myself primarily as a PJ photographer for precisely that reason - and I'm going to start emphasizing my retouching and album design skills.

[PaulYoung]

Yet another "the world is moving on and leaving me behind so I'm going to slate it" article !!!

Anybody who stands still in this profession will be left for dead and rightly so. Couples requirements from their photographer (hey, that does count for something doesn't it ?) are changing all the time. The days of sitting back and letting the photographer do what he/she wants "because they know best" are over.

The modern day "art" of digital wedding photography has blow apart traditional parameters and, whilst that may allow a lot more shooters into the market, it still provides more than enough opportunity for the decent hard working professionals to stand clear from the crowd. Me ? I'm loving it !!!

IMHO ....... of course !!!

[imported_Vaughan]

I get a lot of business from young couples running screaming from old-fashioned, proscriptive wedding photographers who are (in the jargon) product-orientated rather than consumer-orientated. They tell clients the way it will be rather than asking clients how they would like it.
The danger with the modern trend for reportage is that sometimes clients think that it is easier to do than the old-fashioned approach and that they could cut corners on an expensive wedding by asking their artistic friend or uncle to do the job. How difficult can it be to wander about the reception taking candid photographs? Well by the time they find out exactly how difficult it can be it is too late - we professionals don't have a second bite of the cherry. The opportunity has gone and the clients rue their cost-cutting measure for ever after.
As jkantor says we need to emphasise the skills we have; skills that the clients' uncle - even with all his expensive kit - doesn't have!
Vaughan

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