Weddings with Bessa r3a

[Gary Cable]

Hello, first time poster, new to forum/

i received a bessar3a for christmas, first time I have had a rangefinder in over 20 years. I am a pro commerical & wedding photographer. I have been digital for several years now and was probably one fo the first wedding photographers it do digitally designed wedding albums.

All wedding photographers are jumping on the digital wedding album bandwagon, so it is time for me to jump off!

Are there any photographers here shooting weddings with rangefinders or do you know of any? B&W is very popular in weddings today, but digital makes a bad looking b&w. Any suggestions on film and processing? I do mostly available light weddings. or do you think I should scan film and print to something like Epson 4000 printer?

Any suggestions??
Gary

 

[peter_n]

Welcome to the forum Gary! 🙂 A lot of new members today.

We had a new member join a few weeks ago who does a lot of wedding photography although that's not his main job. He does a mix of digital and Leica. Mark Williams is his name and his web site is at http://www.fotografz.com/. (Try to ignore the music, its very annoying.)

However the best RF wedding photographer in the world IMO is an English bloke (of course 🙂 ) called Jeff Ascough. Visit his site to get your sock knocked off! 🙂

 

[akalai]

Hi Gary,

here are a few links you might be interested in reading or looking at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/essays/vanRiper/040205.htm

About an English wedding photographer that uses Leica M's for available light only shoots.

www.jeffascough.com/

This is his personal website, you MUST look at this.

www.fotografz.com/

Personal website of Marc Williams who also uses Leica M's for candid wedding shots, brilliant stuff as well, he is active on the photo.net webpage in the wedding section....worth reading for his insights/tips and tricks.

Hope people add some other links as I am always interested in seeing new work.

Have fun,

AKALAI

 

[akalai]

Peter you beat me to it! 😉

 

[peter_n]

Great minds, Akalai, great minds! 😀

Hey, check out the "pricing question" thread in the list below this thread. There's a guy there (new member) who's been offered a CV 35/2.5 pancake as part of a bundle and he's unsure about it... 🙂

 

[MCTuomey]

Anscough's work is just marvelous. I am stunned at the vibrancy and tones, compositions, great moments, his whole thing is ... I'm speechless.

 

[rover]

Available light...wow, what wonderful light in some of those shots where you wouldn't expect it.

 

[peter_n]

He's unbelievable, isn't he? Take a look at his schedule, he's booked solid. Hey rover, he works with an M6TTL... 😉

 

[doubs43]

I did weddings some years back - more than I'd care to recall - and after looking at the work of both, I'm not convinced that one is demonstrably better than the other. BOTH are very, very good! (Just my opinion and those who think one is better than the other can disagree. 🙂)

One thing is quite obvious though; wedding photography has changed quite a bit over the years and is more informal than in the past. When I was taking weddings, no Bride would ever allow the Photographer to take pictures of her dressing or in just her undergarmets. I do recall one time asking the Bride to stand on a staircase and raise her dress to show her garter. Before I could explain that the garter was to be barely exposed, she'd hiked her dress above her waist. I saw more than I'd bargained for! 🙂

Walker

 

[SzuMe]

See this site:
http://www.beneden.com/wedding/

Wonderful pics...

Szume

 

[Finbred]

Ascough really is flashy in being not. But looking at the featured set, I can't help the feeling the groom is not Mr Right for the sweet and innocent looking bride... 😛

 

[Doug]

Wow, it seems I was in the vanguard of wedding photographers, when as an amateur I did the job free for a friend, in, um, 1966! Shot it mostly available light, with Tri-X and a pair of Spotmatics. Boy were those 8x10's grainy! I'm sure the bride was "stunned" by my work too, and wishing she'd hired a pro!

 

[peter_n]

The only time I ever shot a wedding (unofficially of course) was when I lived in Ireland. I shot an in-laws wedding on a Saturday, developed and printed in my darkroom on the Sunday and Monday mailed a package of prints to my sister who was living here in the U.S.

On the Thursday she called home to her in-laws to say how marvellous the bride looked in the pictures. Cue total confusion in the in-law family because no-one had seen any prints from the official photographer! Boy did I get it in the neck for not running a set of prints over to the family... 🙂