sploppert wrote:
"Basically special only to the subjects and their families because they are "their wedding". These are the people that are paying for my work. I'm not shooting to sell on the open market I'm shooting for what I'm being paid for. You go shoot for fun I shoot to put food on my table how about you. This post was why do people shoot 1000 pictures when 200 will do. It was asked to wedding photographers not wild life or landscape photographers period. So go out and shoot what you like I don't care. I don't tell you how to shoot so don't tell me how I shoot mine. I shoot for my clients not for you. I have made a nice living doing what I do, I don't tell you how to mop floors the way you do for a living. The difference between me and you as well as people like Monte Zuckor, Don Blair, Clay Blackmore and others that I have studied under is we make photographs not take them. We treat our clients for what they want and not shoot for the sake of piling up pictures. We actually care about what we do and it shows in our work.
"Basically special only to the subjects and t... (
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I didn't tell you what to do, I discussed something that might be done differently, as an addition to the regular things.
Actually I have mopped floors as part of a paid job. Why do you feel the need to insult, first the talking out my ass and now the snide remark about mopping floors. Hey it is honest labor that needs to be done, just like my lawn guy and my pool guy or the appliance repairman we use. All out there hustling for their families. Just like wedding photographers, many probably dreaming about being the next Ansel Adams.
Odd jobs and helping around my Grandparent's farm.
Clerk and general whatever needed doing for a super market (while in college).
Regular Army 2+ year vacation in beautiful South East Asia aka Vietnam.
More clerking and doing whatever needed doing at the super market when I came back to college and graduate school plus my first three years teaching (needed weekend and summer income for my family)
34 years in Jr and Sr High classrooms teaching 7 different subjects but mostly history, geography and government.
A few years of armed alarm response security guard on weekends and summers and about 10 years on weekends and summers helping out a friend who owned 3 gun shops and an auction business.
You say you are a professional and I will accept that. And probably very good at it. But like other things Wedding Photography is often a script driven formula based thing. I and others simply discussed some different things that could be done that could involve burst shooting and thus a very large volume of shots produced. My own wedding album is a set of beautiful posed shots, the closest thing to life and action is the walk down the aisle. Just like a few million other wedding albums. A good friend (actually my wife and I were married in her garden years ago.) got remarried in 2015, she asked several of us with photography as a hobby to bring our cameras and shoot pictures of all the things the wedding photographer would miss. A large Persian wedding/excuse for a party with lots of the guests switching back and forth to cooking serving, music etc. Many friends and relatives from two continents. When it was over they had the regular photos plus about 3000 frames from the friends doing the casual shots. My daughter did the dancing, Persians really know how to throw a wedding dance, but no one is even going to think about posing so Jasmine did over a 1000 shots* in four hours, every dancer, dance line or couple got a burst of 3-5 frames knowing that most would be culls due to over 100 people dancing on the patio at the same time. Sort of a creative riot set to music.
* I don't think she has ever shot a frame of film, she learned on digital and was taught by the members of the UCLA photo club while in Pre-Med. Only female in the club, lots of geeks and nerds willing to teach her. And a couple of them were Art/Photography majors who also worked at it on the side to help pay for school. She photographs and takes part in Anime, Cosplay, Steam Punk events etc. It is almost like being a sports photographer and a player at the same time. She alternates between posed shots and action from inside the action while I wonder around and do set piece shots and casual portraits of the participants.
The closest I come to her mixed style is at Civil War Reenactments when I go from set piece shots of the participants in their uniforms posing to the action shots of the battles etc. I do a lot of flowers, including focus stacks and macro both of which I am presently learning, but mostly birds and insects. I have mostly live, moving subjects and can set things up but then because of all the movement in unpredictable directions and speeds I use bursts a lot. Hummingbirds, Egrets, Finches etc don't take direction well or cooperate with the poses. Ducks almost do, a bag of corn, bird seed or bread and they will hang around until you run out. So set it up, try to time it and shoot, then let the burst run a second or so as insurance.
I understand you have done well at your profession and with your style. Hope it continues for as long as you want it to. I have read articles about people now using 4K video cameras and pulling all of the stills out of the video. Makes burst shooting look static and set piece.