rpavich Loc: West Virginia

You make a good point and now I'm wondering how blind we (oldsters) really are?

We don't see it BECAUSE of our blindness... sort of like a fish doesn't even realize that it's wet...

Interesting point.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

We got married in August of 1966, and we have 61 pictures, all taken by people at the wedding. They are not pro quality, but that doesn't matter. They capture the spirit of the day. I much prefer what we have to artistically posed photos done by a pro. We went from the church straight to the reception, without spending two hours getting posed photos taken. I have scanned them, so we can see them on a monitor or TV.

photodaddy Loc: Missouri

Yep, the digital age has made everyone a pro. I started out with my trusty 35mm pentax when I was in Vietnam. Most of these socalled professionals go out and buy a Cannon and call themselves a pro. One such mom took photos of my grandsons's baseball team and the picture almost slid off the paper. She never bothered to straighten it. But to take wedding photos with an Iphone? One borne ever minute.

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

It's the trend today for clients to demand, and photographers to provide, 1500+ photos of a wedding. In my former region of Ohio and Michigan, the going "professional" wedding rate was $2500 for 1500 to 1800 shots.

I once calculated that would be a photo taken every 1.7 seconds from the beginning of an 11 am. wedding until halfway through the reception around 9 pm. if the photographer and/or second shooter didn't take breaks at all and kept shooting. It's virtually impossible to take quality shots because there's no time to think about anything except focus to keep that pace up. And somehow the "professional" has time to drive to the reception, eat while they're there, and sit and talk part of the time.

And then there's post editing to factor in. Is the "professional" really going to edit 1500 to 1800 shots during the week and have them up online or on a CD by the following weekend? If they did, what pitiful kind of bulk editing is it going to be?

And some clients apparently demand that they receive every single shot taken on the CD with none left out. I can't imagine why they want that. And I can't imagine why any true professional would allow his crappiest mistake shots to get out in public. And then the bride will also pay a videographer to shoot the whole thing with no editing for another $1,000+.

As others are saying, when I got married the first time in 1973 we got a "storybook" album with about 100 nice shots in it and that was enough. If I remember right, we paid $150 for the photographer's total package. His highest priced package with 250 pictures seemed absurd to us. Relatives also gave us a few prints of what they had shot with P&S cameras from the pews or from their reception table so that everything and everybody was well-documented. I shot a couple weddings in the mid-1990s and taking just 400 shots was getting quite boring.

So if your nephew's daughter's exposures were wrong, the compositions sucked, and most shots should have been thrown out - that can be blamed on the trend of shooting continuously and handing every shot over to the client at the end, likely with no post editing. That's before you even consider a lack of talent from some who charge "professional" rates although they shouldn't.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

The customer is always right? I wonder how much control the photographer has over what and how he wants to shoot. I wouldn't tell my surgeon how to do his job.

kathlyndee

I agree it is sad that anyone can call themselves a professional nowadays and unfortunately it shows. BUT in this digital age the clients ask to see ALL the shots. They want to be able to "play" with the images themselves and honestly many people do not want to spend the EXHORBITANT prices that many "professionals" charge these days.

Is it sad? YES Does it cause true professionals to step up their game and become more competitive? YES it does.

tvsnan

You make an excellent point.
I wonder too if it has something to do with so many mediocre pictures shown everywhere that it's become the norm and a lot of people don't expect anything else, or know the difference between really good photos and what they see every day? Does that make sense?

Thom Loc: Cleveland Ohio

Well the industry has changed...with all the "uncle joe's" that went and bought themselves cameras thinking they are a pro....Well the Wedding band industry went through it back in the early 90's, with the portable so called DJ's and there crummy sound systems...eventually they got bad reviews and pretty much had to seel there gear for something else (a camera )...wedding bands are making a comeback and so will the Pro-wedding photographer as well...get enough bad press....the customer will run you out of town as well!
I was one of those wedding band guys so I know!

Lucian Loc: From Wales, living in Ohio

Marcomarks wrote:

"...the going "professional" wedding rate was $2500 for 1500 to 1800 shots. I once calculated that would be a photo taken every 1.7 seconds from the beginning of an 11 am. wedding until halfway through the reception around 9 pm. if the photographer and/or second shooter didn't take breaks at all and kept shooting... "


Ummmm... I hate to tell you this but you either have a broken calculator or you need to go back to math school with calculations like the ones you made above.

Even if there were 2,000 photos taken and the photographer took one photo every 2 seconds, the total time to take all these would work out to only 66.6 minutes.

So if the wedding began at 11am as you suggest, just after 12:06pm the photographer would have complete 2,000 photos, at one image every 2 seconds. Maybe you could expand upon your math calculation for us please, so that the rest of us may understand how you arrived at your results for total shots and total hours needed.

Cadugand Loc: Houston, Texas

In many weddings everyone is given a small disposable camera and told to shoot. They then post everything without editing or hitting "delete". That's how you typically get 1000's of pictures. They make no pretense of being professional. It's a fun activity. I imagine this is what happened in this case. We shouldn't be so critical. Not everyone who picks up a camera is a pro, nor wants to be.

Roger Hicks Loc: Aquitaine

That must also be a part of it -- lowered expectations -- but I think it also more than likely that they have a different view about certain aspects of how a picture is 'supposed' to look.

Cheers,

R.

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

As a consumer not a photographer, I'd rather have 50 breathtaking photos of my wedding than 500 crappy ones.

guy145 Loc: Norridge IL

My brother-in-law just had brain surgery in OK. It was supose to be simple. He died 5 day later.

Big Daddy Loc: Near Cleveland

Ok I'll say what many of us are thinking. I think in this day and age people put WAAAYY to much importance on wedding photos. My Mom and Dad were were happily married for 47 years. I have the old wedding pictures.. about 35 maybe. I remember looking at them with my parents. We didnt sit there and say, "Oh look how the sun reflects off her hair!" or "Wow those pictures are so clear and focused!" WE would sit and she would tell us about this picture or something about that person in a shot. All these are... are photos that record a place and a time. MY wedding photos were not taken by a pro. We couldnt afford the $1000's that people pay. But we still take them out and laugh and remember the day. Photographers today and customers put so much emphasis on the photos that for some it actually ruins their wedding (in their eyes.) They (photographers and customers) act like they are recording the wedding of Jesus or something! Its just a wedding folks.. it doesn't matter if those shots are perfectly composed or perfectly exposed.. its just a wedding and there are SO many more important things you will have to worry about in life! I know people that have literally gone broke paying for a wedding of their kids... thats CRAZY! Dont get me wrong.. I have photgraphed a few weddings.. alot of work and headaches.. everything came out fine.. they all loved the photos I took...but ITS JUST A WEDDING!

lj

I by no means consider myself to be a professional photographer... but I would like to be. The only way for me to do that is lots of reading and practicing. I did shoot a wedding a few months ago for the experience (I didn't charge anything) and because the couple could not afford $2000. I am sure a lot of people would like to hire the best photographEr, but simply can't afford it during these times. I think I got some good pictures, and I definitely got some bad ones! I only gave them the ones I thought were good. I know for sure someone else could have done better. I learned a lot that day. I especially learned that I have a lot to learn. I wish there was someone around here I could tag along with and learn from but it's so small of an area I don't think people want to teach the competition.

So I guess my point is, not all of us non- professionals are bad or think we are anywhere as good as some of you, but by reading the forums and listening to you we hope to get better. I love photography and want to learn as much as I can... Besides that I hate my fulltime job and would very much like to do something else, something I enjoy and something that would allow me to spend more time with my kids. I feel like I am missing out on their childhood.