What has digital done?

"Wedding Portraits" are not being done anymore, they are "Wedding Snapshots".

Like everything today, the event doesn't really matter any more, the proof is what everyone wants. So a wedding becomes a day long photographic production. It's not really a ceremony, it's a photo op. 10,000 shots of crumpled napkins and wine glass bokeh. Of the groom coming out of the bathroom, the bridesmaids giving pouty duck lips faces? Please, stop the madness.

The only wedding I did was as a "backup" after some DSLR soccer mom started her new wedding photography business and the bride changed her mind about me. That mom shot a lot of shots too. She missed all the good ones, even didn't think to take the "you may kiss the bride moment", though she was standing obtrusively on the platform. I think she spaced out, and was romantically enjoying the moment, instead of getting the shot. (I got it with a 1950s Canon RF with a Tele). I guess she could have "sleep shot" a couple hundred frames and there would be one in there.

I took about 1 roll, all candids. The bride later told me she made a mistake, and wished I was the "official" photographer, mine looked much better.

Yeah, because I think about each shot. It's not trying to go full auto and full metal jacket to maybe get lucky. I thought, moved quickly, snapped a shot, moved away. 36 shots, all good. I learned a lot doing LF. Because if you do a lot of Large Format, you may shoot 4 sheets for a portrait session. And it's really a portrait, thought out, composed, posed, lit properly. Running around poking a DSLR in peoples faces and firing off 15 rounds isn't my idea of fun, or art. It may be "efficient" considering all they want is "snapshots" anyway.
 
David Vestal addressed this issue -
In order to produce wedding photos (or any other body of images) that are visually arresting and have impact, a photographer has had to have previously spent years honing his/her craft, photographic technical skills, compositional skills and his/her "eye" (for lack of a better term) and his/her photographic vision and style.

This is something that takes years of work. The process of helping your eye, vision, style, composition and technical skills evolve and grow can be helped along the path by attending quality workshops, but at the end of the day evolving and growing as an image maker demands old fashioned blood, sweat and tears - plain ol' old school @$$ busting. Nothing less will do.

You cannot buy photographic vision, an evolved, mature eye or arresting compositional ability. There is no app to buy. These photographic attributes come only from desire and years of hard work. That is not a popular message in today's "I want what I want and I want it now" world.

Quantity is no substitute for quality. anyone can go to a wedding and push the shutter release button 1000 times. Or 5000. Or 10,000. What matters is how many of those images have any amount of visual impact?

Producing crap is easy. Producing arresting images is not easy. That's why there is so much photographic crap in the world today.

Make it your mission in life to not contribute to the crap side of the equation.

Well said ... :D
 
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