— A PROFESSIONAL ASSESSMENT OF THE WEDDING CULTURE BY A —
— VETERAN OF 450 OF THESE SOMETIMES SOCIAL MISHAPS —
Greetings, A Short Discourse On Policy, And A Brief Biography —
I welcome you to this Guide which is offered freely and it contains years of experience and some hard lessons learned. My friend calls it "The Portnoy's Complaint of Wedding Photography". I tried to make it more of a reader with lots of common sense, a few humorous episodes I lived through and more so, less of a manual which many get turned off by and with very few endorsements or what I call “ Shilling” or endorsements for free gear. Most would rather read a magazine than a phone book.
My logo says it all. NO SMOKE / NO BULLSHIT. If something is good, it gets merit, if it’s bad you will hear about it, I’m not shy on this adventure nor any other topics I follow and report on such as Political leaders, Food quality, Fake Theologians, Fraud Scammers and Corporate liars. Food? Yes, the corporate CEO of McDonalds Hamburgers recently was fired for mingling with the workers on a personal scale, several nude photos of employee's and it might even have been deeper because they kept it from the press. In court he had to give back his 120 million dollar severance pay. Due to other problems? No comment.
With That Said — We will encompass relationships, processes, and tools you need to make it through a Wedding, sans gimmicks.
- No ads, no wasted drivel. The opinions expressed here are my own, I am
very opinionated because mistakes are a hard teacher and I have made them.
And if you differ from my thinking you are entitled to your opinion and
you may keep it to yourself, thank you. Discourse, questions, solutions,
gladly answered, and if we differ you have the right to get your own site. Go for it.
- We do not accept payment for reviews, nor "door
prizes" for good reviews about camera product but when I do comment on a
particular item I will bring it to you possibly in a slightly sadistic and
sarcastic written environment if warranted coining a new word "sardastic”.
Bottom line, for the most part this guide about photographing Weddings
is representative of the most monumental day in a woman’s life…and occasionally
the worst day you might walk into.
- I am old school, in my business dealings. I have rules for my
small business which makes Battery power packs and custom accessories with a big
emphasis on putting customers first and being old school does not mean being
outdated. If something works well, don’t fix it and find a use for it somewhere else, sort of like re-gifting of fruitcake at Christmas. I once had the idea to put a tracker in a fruitcake to see how many of those disgusting cakes got passed house to house.
Me bad , I send them to those I don’t like. - I follow the rules that have been successful in
business and it says I have concerns just like anyone else that things
go right. I have a disadvantage because I am a small business and to keep
costs down, I don't have an advertising budget. Those who do not have big
advertising dollars capture “ Word of mouth contacts” for future
business and thus my best salesmen are my customers. Save that thought, we all
learn from our past experiences and want to share with others.
- I like simple communication and attention to what my clients,
many who have become friends needs were. Thus no weird phone setups, no
press "one or two," I just say, "hello" and we
together can go on with the conversation in English. Today in business
to be conservative means keeping up with progress, saving money, better
deals, but it only works if the end product is GOOD and does what it is
supposed to.
You have a situation or a problem, my door is open and I’m a good listener and help you if I can and it’s within reason. - My name is on the products I build for primarily the wedding,
event, and photojournalism shooters. My clients are frugal, smart,
climbing in their league, building their business, competitive and they know
photography. Not as trendy as you might think, they don’t run after every
gadget on the market. If it works and makes you money don’t change it.
The key word is repetition of good practices, elimination and
identification of problematic situations and follow up with contacts.
- However, I am pretty brand neutral and have worked with Kodak,
Aires, Graflex, Leica, Rollie, Minolta, Pentax, Nikon, Hasselblad, Mamiya 4x5,
6x7, Bronica 4x5, currently SONY and gave up on Nikon and Canon. I have shot every format from 4x5, Medium
format to 35 mm. Brand loyalty in the beginning is the shooters acceptance into
the club, brand loyalty by the pro is based on results, familiarity and
investment. Major difference.
- I carried Nikon from the day I met Joseph Ehrenreich of Nikon. Over fifty years, and then saw the light from SONY. Currently I am having a blast shooting SONY. By the way since SONY makes all the sensors and boards for the other
guys, some SONY products are about a year ahead.
- And though I have owned
just about any brand you may mention. I have gotten good mojo from most of the
cameras on the market today. Again, I will however slam bad stuff, really
bad. When was the last time you saw a bad review in those magazines you
get? Or bullshitter reviewers on line?
- Social Media is proving in 2021-2022 to have fallen from grace and a spreader of lies and untruths, many being dangerous. I am really not into the media as much of it has nothing but anonymity for toxic social discourse. Or what I term,
" The proving grounds for too many frickin idiots”.
- I like the
old ways, the phone and “ Face to face instead of farce to farce".
I avoid wasting days on Face-Book and Twitter since few significant ideas
come about. And between hacking and your name, social status and interests being compromised, just not worth it.
- All I got were offers, scams and people with social
problems I would rather not interface with. I keep very busy and am
blessed to have many friends and fans that make up enough sociality for my
world on the topics I choose to be interested in.
- I will tell you up front this portion of my website addresses weddings, events and slide conservation as a business. Casual players are welcome but much published here is about business. The best shooter in the world without a Gig is a waste of talent and resources. The best camera you can own is the one in your hand when that shot of a lifetime takes place. Those are truths.
Inspiration — Photography really started for me on a serious note when someone left a paper bag left sitting on a park bench in the Zoo area in NYC's Central Park. With no one claiming it, I stood on top of the park bench and yelled the sacred words "finders keepers”.
- I had mischievously become the owner of an
AIRES IIIL 35 mm Rangefinder Camera, the first of the excellent Japanese clones
of a Leica Rangefinder. I instantly moved up in the world from my folding 127
Kodak roll film camera.
- The bag even contained a roll of film and the manual. I was fourteen, a junior, and was naturally, playing hooky from school, I artfully dodged the truant officers who carried my picture in their wallets with a big number one on it.
The Gadget Meister — I picked up a few nicknames, like "the Gadget Meister" starting my working career in an “ obscure” camera repair facility, the best service center in the east in the camera district of New York City. Photography, and Aviation, were my life —
- I started as a delivery boy. I gained a lot of
knowledge in those early days as a kid working with, and meeting with some of
the great building blocks of the analog era of photography like Marty Forschner
and Joe Ehrenreich at Nippon Koyagaku on 17th street. The future owner importer of Nikon USA.
- I was always building something and battery packs
fascinated me. It was also where I first found out what happens if
you forget to short a capacitor from a Honeywell 770 Strobe, and when I got too
close to an Eveready 510 volt battery, it almost sent me to the ER.
- But I
learned early what works and what doesn't work and that you don't get it all
from school or books. You have to get out there and see for yourself.
I also worked weekends for a Wedding mill in NYC as a run and gunner for
several years to learn the business. I was Wedding shooter,
maybe one of the youngest.
- Shooting weddings in NY was a cornucopia of stress since
the divergence alone in ethnicity taught me a lot about people. Learning how to work
with people on probably the single most emotional day in their lives, is an
experience that should be welcomed, digested, absorbed and practiced.
This is good, better to be prepared today for the emotional trauma days
we sometimes have seen on TV. For me shooting weddings and batteries it
was a natural. Both shocked you at times.
- So was the draft board. It was a numbers game and my
number was up. Maybe aviation was a better way to fly than self induced battery
electrocution and getting shot at in the jungle. I can thank the United
States Air Force for that saving me from being a ground pounder. So I
thought but thats another story. When I got out, I swapped big Boeings
for Cessna and Piper, and a few trips in the Lear chauffeuring medical patients
back to Canada.
- I retired at 70 four different times, piling up a few thousand hours over 30 years and
the occasional heart over stimulation. I owned five aircraft that taught
me quality control, maintenance, repair and fire fighting. If you own it, you
work on it to afford it, you fix it, you fly it first, and it taught me about
taking things for granted, like a blown inverted carburetor which almost became a water landing with a full cabin. My instructor saw we land , no engine and said, “ You did good!
- My life? I was alive, though a few times in war I thought I had
doubts about longevity, and decided being a bachelor was a good thing but it
was still lacking something. There goes that “Divine Guidance” again.
You learn a lot about people during a Wedding, good and bad. After
a while the one you want to marry comes along at the strangest times. That was
when I met the love of my life. Midnight, dancing at a upscale honky tonk
in Clearwater, Florida. Blindsided, she knocked me on my butt from day
one. Her name was “ Dolly" . Till she passed on, we had 32 wonderful years together. She made me a changed man. Never a day goes by
I don’t miss her —
- I’m not big on social media, as a reporter fact wins, over conspiracies, liars, cheats , anti-vaxers losers, so I am not on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or the FBI wanted list. If you are wondering why
you are getting more spam and garbage mail, just look at what YOU did to
deserve this attention. OK we know you are sharp. So was the guy who turned
down the offer to buy the Brooklyn Bridge. He did however buy the mineral
rights for under the Brooklyn Bridge and paid cash.
SOCIAL MEDIA — TOO MUCH INFORMATION ABOUT YOURSELF —
Others don’t have to know, and some things I really have no interest in. The best was a posted picture of a eight by ten garden just tilled and ready for planting. Wow, rich brown dirt. Nothing like blank earth, now thats the stuff Pulitzer Prize winning photos are made of. The kind of sh*t only a lonely sick person puts up.
I have been socially networking for a long time before it became popular and Steve Gibson a friend of 45 plus years found this old Kodachrome that drowned during Hurricane KATRINA and after an hour in ICU, Photoshop and a lot of alcohol saved the wet slide.
He lost his house but saved all his gear and photos and rebuilt in Louisiana proper.
That's me, thirty or forty years ago socializing my way while taking dance lessons and attending the Arthur Murray Dance Studios in Hawaii. Gotta love it, actually I was there filming a Wedding and what a blast that gig was.
It was a great shoot and a great vacation. I’ll let th girls do the dancing…
- Now we’ll talk about weddings —