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THE VILLAGE IDIOT AND MINEFIELDS

Normally I'm very patient with people but sometimes the Village Idiots walking on their  knuckles makes it to this site and it gets to me.   So I get an email asking why I would put a checklist on my site for a Bride to ask questions with if the intent of my site is to help new shooters.

ANS:  My first remark to this nimrod was   “Are you that naive?”  I added,  “ Knowing the type, size, shape, techniques and burial characteristics of troop positions and landmines laid by an enemy can prevent one’s lower extremities from being blown off.”  
Chinese General Sun-Tzu wrote The Art of War, an influential document written by the ancient Chinese military strategist. It is the first known treatise on warfare strategy in history.  
Knowing what you are up against is the key to winning.  Knowing what you will be asked allows you to prepare good answers.

BURYING YOUR HEAD IN THE SAND, EXPOSES ANOTHER SIDE OF YOU — 

Nothing like burying your head in the sand, only it's a minefield.  If that doesn't explain a Wedding, I haven’t got a better explanation. Furthermore: The questions you see here are all over the Bridal Sections of the Web.  Brides are smarter and you have to be smart too or you’ll come across as an idiot.  Knowing what she’ll ask, aids and prepares you with better answers.

Almost every Wedding site, magazine, book, has a way to select a photographer. I am merely echoing what's out there. If you don't have the qualifications a smart Bride is looking for, at least you'll know what they are looking for. Possibly even realizing, you are not in their league. It's a checklist, for what you should be doing.

Is this is a guide for the Bride. No, it’s for the shooter and to share with credentials with the Bride. What “ to ask” should eliminate many problems. It is also a guide for the shooter to know what he or she might be asked. The questions here start and really  pertain to medium to high end, multi contingent, or structured, moderate to EXPENSIVE, weddings. Not to say a small private affair with a Justice of the Peace doesn't warrant the same careful attention.

But being realistic, the $200 package shooter isn't about to meet the qualifications or demands you would expect from a $5000 plus affair with assistants and video. The shooting teams size, capacity, training.  

Wedding director coordination, planning, appropriate equipment, experience, familiarity, enter into this size affair. Both size weddings however do require a backup if the primary  photographer doesn't make bail, can't start his car, does a financial disappearance act,   goes out of business, or fails to show for any other reason. I have heard and seen all of the above.

So take a few of the questions from the selection and see what your budget and qualifications are. I think if you used all the questions below you would scare a large percentage of non-ranked Photographers away.

QUESTIONS  —  

• How many years have you been in the business?
• What are your qualifications, certifications, organizations associated with.
• What further training, seminars attended and what other formal training have you had?
  
• Is this a full time occupation, just a weekend part time job and what do you do the rest of the week?
• Do you have a studio or registered pace of business with a tax number and the proper business certificate?
  
• Have you handled many events of my type and size before?
• What are the reasons you think we should hire you?
• Will you personally be the photographer for our wedding?
• Will the person you are talking to be the actual shooter.
• Some pro's have associates during peak seasons to cover duplicate dates. You want to meet that person and discuss those same topics with the actual photographer.
• If the party uses his wife as the assistant, generally it's nice to have a woman around the chaos and she can go where the photographer can’t.
• Ask yourself - How comfortable are you with this person? You will have intimate and stressful moments with this person.
• How does this person fit in with the total picture of the Wedding?
• Simple, do you have clothes for (tux) for a formal wedding?
• Can you afford this person? Ask yourself.
• What would you photograph at my wedding?
• How do you know how many pictures to take?
• What makes your photographs better or different than anybody else’s?
• Have you photographed in this hall, Church, Mosque, Synagogue before?
• Do you have backup equipment? Let them tell you they never have problems and don't need backups and you walk out. 
• Simple. He’s not what you are looking for.

TERMS — 

• Nothing more to be said here except what are his terms. Read what my terms are, to use as an example. They are fair to both parties.
• What if any Value added options?
• Is he willing to put everything in writing?
• When will you see your proofs, how long?
• Is he providing the album?
• How much for extras, incidentals, time constraints, travel fees and other costs?
• Does he have packages, or shoot by the picture, picture purchased, etc.
• When will you see the proofs?
• After it is in writing ask for a copy and you'll study it overnight. Get someone who understands legalese to decipher it.
• Hidden Costs ? Are there extra fees for staying late, traveling, tolls, parking, and so forth. 
• Who will do the processing.

SHOOTERS AND BRIDES READ THIS

FOOD FOR THE CREW —   TWO RED FLAGS  One of the two biggest arguments at weddings was never discussed before hand.  It’s so simple,  it’s ridiculous,  so get it out of the way ahead of time as caterers count heads.  Who is entitled to eat at the wedding as you are paying for it?  If you are that generous feed the flower people, the cake people, the dressmaker and so forth. 

And these folks your shooter is dragging along,  do they eat, do they need a table, who pays them, do they work for you or are they trainees, second shooters, etc  I saw one wedding the Bride got bounced three hundred dollars for the filming crew.   They cannot keep my pictures, are you charging them to work with, as lessons or for you for practice. You want the truth up front.

• Who eats or doesn't, when and where do they sit etc. This is numero uno on the after the Wedding Report card complaints from both sides. Get this settled way in advance. 
• The Wedding is no place to negotiate. This seems to be a bigger problem than you think especially with large weddings and caterers who count by the head. And at 40 TO 60 dollars a head, some guys bring their students  as second shooters for practice, it can get costly.  
• How many people will cover the event?  In writing.
• Is your crew there to work or are they trainees getting practice? 
• How do they get paid?  Can they keep my pictures? No.
• Ask if they are for the photographers benefit or the Brides benefit?
• Will you be using my pictures for advertisements for your business?

ON LOCATION —  I attended one wedding where four trainees of the photographer were just a pain in the ass, then they all sat down to a fine meal, the photographer decided to use my friends daughter's wedding as a training session.  Without telling her under the pretense of better coverage.

Then the creep and the photographer tried to sell the Wedding couple his students pictures and bump the bill.   Not on my watch —  Uncle AL was asked to help sort this out and got involved.  I explained to the bride he was using her — the Bride with a little Chutzpah told him the Judge would straighten the whole thing out.   Her father a deputy sheriff  pitched in,  She won.  It's good to be the niece of an attorney, judge, and It's good to have a photographer God father…me.   I offered to do her wedding, she told me no,  since I was a guest and my wife and I sat at the main table.  I still got involved.

I'd love to do all my relatives weddings but after doing one halfway around the world, in Austraila I am smart enough to stay out.  No more house calls. I don't need nor want the grief.  I will advise them, yes, but as I grow older less and less family — 

A TRUE VILLAGE IDIOT — THINGS WENT WRONG  —  A photographer on one of the web forums “ Wrote about a unique set of circumstances” he encountered while shooting at a wedding” I guess for him it was a unique experience and he should go back to Burger King Village and continue flipping burgers.

QUOTE VER BATEM --HE SAID —  

• I was told there was a rehearsal so I showed up 2.5 hours early —
• No one showed till a half hour before the wedding and there was no rehearsal— 
• No one had any idea what they were doing— 
• The groom showed up 45 minutes late —
• The best man showed up AFTER the wedding  —  
• The Bride and Groom didn’t have a wedding license — 
• The ceremony lasted a total of about 3.5 minutes  —
• I started at the front of the hall, shot a few pics, ran around behind the crowd and up to the other side.
• Snapped a few more and the wedding was over
• Half of the things that were supposed to take place, like the unity candle, were completely skipped —  
• The hall is so dark that the camera wouldn’t focus, even with the 70-200 f/2.8 IS — 
• To give you an idea, to get a normal exposure without flash, I had to drop to a full second exposure, f/8, at ISO 400—
• The Bride and Groom were completely uninterested in the formal pictures.

I NOTED THE FOLLOWING AND REPLIED: —  👩‍❤️‍👨  Love is blind and it is evident they will live happily ever after, till they decide different and kill each other.  Obviously you contracted with a few nuts. It could be a self-esteem problem. It could be her having a really emotional breakdown. Their feelings have nothing to do with a ritualistic ceremony obviously they cared little about other than getting it over with.

That part is not your problem, it was with whoever hired you, if you got paid just write it off as a learning lesson.  You learned that not everybody is normal, many are f*cked up and they tend to run in groups as you met their ensemble.

SOLUTION:  🦧But I see a lot of problems in you.  You had no control, no technique, you never planned the day, never sourced the Church and wedding party, nor confirmed things, nor pre-wedding who’s who with these people, nor did you go with them to the church prior about a week before the wedding? 

You are as much of the problem as they were, a complete disconnect. Keep the frickin money and ignore them. Go work with someone who has a plan, or remember on a hot grill three minutes a side for the Burgers. Obviously your career in Wedding Photography is short lived.

VILLAGE IDIOT THOUGHTS — REMEMBER PEOPLE DO STUPID THINGS — 

• Wearing a BRIGHT BLUE or BRIGHT RED shirt in certain areas of LA  —  
• Believing T-RUMP is a honest individual and so are members of his tribe, children, acolytes and sycophants
• Believing that Pro-Wrestling is real, and those guys really hate each other and none are on steroids — 
• The Gaither Mens Gospel singers all have real hair not awful cheap looking wigs
• Vince McMahon never did do steroids with his wrestlers, they just died young of unnatural causes
• And that the IRS is really there to help you — Really ?
• And your ex-wife will never again go after you in court for more child support  — 
• Popes don’t have mistresses, just matresse's and Pedophiles can be saved —  

THE BOTTOM LINE PREPARATION and MORTAR TRAINING —  

Not knowing or not doing what you have to do is paramount to failure and having owned a lab I saw it every day. Brutally bad work passed off as art combined with lots of excuses.  I think I have heard every one in the book. On most forums the blame always falls on someone or something else. People don’t accept their failure in their work, it’s always someone else.

In my training in the military one of my favorites weapons was the portable mortar. It simple, it’s a metal tube you drop a mortar shell in. The bottom of the shell hits an igniter, basically a pin, when dropped in the tube, that ignites the shell and boom its flying  and when it lands it blows up.  Possibly the simplest weapon on the battlefield.

The last step in preparation before you drop the shell in the tube is to angle it in the direction hopefully of the enemy by moving some dials and levers.  

I compare this to some wedding shooters. The military has a book and it tells you how to tilt and angle the tube, lock it in and it will go a certain distance and make a big bang when it strikes the enemy. Not being prepared for a wedding is like firing a mortar at the following: 

A controlled zero azimuth on both axis and vertical angle of ninety degrees in zero wind conditions resulting in ass removal, yours.

Not preparing correctly is when a mortar shooting straight up. Forgetting to do the settings correctly will fire the shell straight up and what goes straight up  with no wind comes straight down and you will blow your ass off.

There are few excuses for failure that weren’t avoidable or predictable or anticipated. If you did your recon properly most will surface during the walk around. 

Then you pull your organization and planning team together. This is what defines the true pro from the wannabes and hackers.

I fear many of the “ Photographers” starting in wedding work are afraid to be assertive in some ways. They just stand there in the background and record things that happen and maybe that’s their mantra. When things go wrong, they are dead in the water and cannot pull the results out. Remember you the photographer are the only one taking something from the wedding, the images, the essence, anything less you should of stayed a guest.