ALJACOBSLADDER.com     

I’VE BEEN DIGITIZED

—  HISTORY — THE FAKE PHOTOJOURNALIST

Decades ago in this, the first edition we mentioned Digital, About 2008-2009,  I was convinced in the next few years Digital will take over.  But this also had opened the door to the low-ball no-talent or not-trained wedding shooter.  

• Digital also means the Bride might be getting a Digital CD ROM for the Do-It-Yourself prints
• Bringing it to our lab,  the few good, the mostly bad, and the really ugly and .72 DPI.  
• Impossible in most cases to print or save anything good.
• Owning a lab exacerbated the condition even worse.  This would make us look bad. So the decision was made not to print them.    
• The images these new hotshots brought in were crap, the images were multitudes of bad lighting angles, depth control, overs and unders, blurry, poor flash use,  just sheer nothing, even close to the work our Pro’s brought us.
• We were supposed to sort 2000 shots , pick the best and only print them.
• I was not in business to lose money for these grifters.
• Nor to make them look good basically doing the work for the shooter.
• They called themselves photojournalists, we used other names, and I almost got dragged into court as a witness against one moron being sued by the Bride and her Attorney family for those unusable and embarrassing  forty shots of her sneakers under her dress since she was taller than her husband
• It was a numbers game, each of the schmucks pushing this false venue sold the numbers of shots as a selling tool.  We would get a CD ROM, low 72 DPI, couple thousand un-culled images and barely got a 4x5 much less a 4x6 out of it.  All thousands of bad shots.  I could have done better had he used a video camera. and made images 

—  BRIDES AND SHOOTERS BEWARE -  

• For the Bride, unless this is a specifically budget wise decision, you are heading in the wrong direction. I would at least look at the disk, high resolution I would take a shot at it.  Most were bad, we got three in one week. No good.
• For the shooter,  if you came in with this junk,  I would have sent you to K-Mart.  I would, rather could not, print them, I sent them to one of the chain big box stores who said you did not have to pay if they were not acceptable. Let them burn their chemistry and paper. And let them hurt their reputation. Let them waste their time.
• If you go digital disk budget weddings we insisted on Hi-RES or RAW, culled, numbered and in order for Premium pricing.  You must insist on high resolution files, 300 DPI or the CDROM will be only good for viewing on a monitor and CD-ROM as an option is OK but should not be the primary goal of the professional wedding shooter and business person. 
• Also we asked for a business license from the photographer for Premium pricing and made and kept a copy in our files for tax and legality.
• Misnomer - You would think this would drive the costs of weddings down. In a sense it should.  Digital only saves you the cost of film and processing,  — BUT —  the gear costs four times as much. It has also increased the competition in this arena with the promise of taking good pictures is as easy as pie.  
• Unfortunately it has produced a breed of shooters lacking creativity making up for their lack of training by volume.  It’s like that joke, whereas the boss partner tells his salesman, you can’t sell the shirts that cheap and then the salesman replies “ Don’t worry boss we”ll make it up in volume”.
• So now you have Tom, Dick and Harry now posing as "professionals" and popping low cost CD-ROMS and goodbye real processing.  Digital in the hands of an artistic practiced wedding professional is art. Digital in the hands of a hack is still “JUNK”. “
• “ The camera doth not maketh the pictures”.  It records a moment in time created by someone with artistic and balanced understanding.   The single most ridiculous question I ever hear in a class or forum I’m running is the photo-related question forum idiot starts off with:  And gets my forum related idiot answer for idiots

QUES: What was the shutter speed and F stop, or what lens was that? 
ANS:  I don’t remember but I did patent it so no one else could use it.

— A ONE CHANCE TO GET IT RIGHT  —  

• It’s simple, all those variables don’t mean a thing as soon as the light, the poses, the backgrounds, the players, the location and a hundred other things change.  Put the same gear in the untrained person's hands running his camera in the P mode, no flash, nor flash corrections and you get what I call a KAA-KAA disaster.  Just common sense.
• Back to the prints. The point here is that quality prints from DIGITAL are printed at .300 Dots per Inch. CD-ROMs for viewing are represented at .72 dots per inch.  It is literally four times less resolution. You want to see the work at the printing resolution and that's where the quality is based, not the cartoon-show that some of these guys deliver, because when you go to print them a .72 DPI photo is ghastly when enlarged. No cropping room, no salvage for borders and a host of poor images.
• The real important questions for Brides are your criteria for choosing what you would shoot with at my Wedding?

—  THE INTERNAL TOOL THINKINGS OF A GOOD PHOTOGRAPHER  — 

• You need some good tools to start with. I’m referring to the tools of business, not the tools you do business with. There is a difference. One will let you down, one will bring you down.
• These tools are skill's - As a Wedding Photographer you are expected to be both an  artist, light technician, business person and a compassionate human being. 
• To this I will add, Psychiatrist for the Runaway Bride, Master of Ceremonies, Arbitrator and sometimes a Religious Sponsor or coach like Jessie Jackson was for Michael Jackson. What a tragedy that turned out to be. He needed some real help and never got it from those around him who needed to be qualified, not self sanctified.
• Be Prepared - You will also have equipment, purchased or rented suitable backup gear and be all knowing of photographic equipment especially digital gear, their idiosyncrasies, and purpose. 
• You will need to be strong in portraiture or studio work, so you know about lighting and facial size, proportion, angles and layouts. 
• You will know the layout, lighting, paths of the Church, the Synagogue or Mosque, its rules, the Officiate, and memorized the reception before-hand…
• You did and prepare that defines a pro- As trends change and as the consumer becomes aware of different trends and vogues, you have to increase schooling with classes and seminars. 
• You will be expected to arrive early, stick with schedules, and stay late because we knew the Bride will never ever be on time. 
• With all that expected of you, what’s the essence of the mentality to succeed in this game... your preparation, training, business sense and most important of all the ability to laugh it off…
• A sense of humor is a good start - Guides and checklists help keep things on track… Learn to use them. A wedding is like that train ride I spoke about. As long as you stay on track things go well but a train that jumps track is an accident.  Few trains ever jump back on track and its chaos from there - The wedding photographs you take may have to reflect a diversification of interests and taste. The entire wedding market has not totally embraced Photo Journalistic efforts and there are still many out there who are traditionalists. 
• Just gander at an old time Mint Julip Outdoor Old Southern Wedding. They are like a trip back in time, very romantic and they find staircases at some of the mansions that cater specifically to Weddings.  Rhett Butler and Scarlet O’Hara might just show up - 
• Many are very traditional, or they go off the wall, sometimes unintentionally. Because every couple is different, just as their family profiles are different, there is a chance without some form of list you might be shooting out in the cold. 
• The initial interview with the Bride and advisors is vital to the clarification of the entire process and thats where you create the list and processes. You become part of the total process so they follow the same script you are on.
  
• This is like selling a house - All the realtors go on a walkthrough to become familiar with the property for sale thus you being there at the rehearsals and pre-parties is essential for you to know what's going to happen and when.
• Changes occur and I’m not referring just to the weather either. That’s just a variable in conditions and lighting. A whole bunch of shots of insignificant people at the affair means lost revenue. Here is what some consider the “must-have” shots… 
• You need a shoot list - By giving the Bride a chance to go over the list you save stress on yourself by ensuring that you will get the shots the Bride and you want.  Get these in the bag and then go PJ or the hunter mode. In these lists we combined traditional and PJ and a few off the wall scenarios and the most important  ticket is… 
• Traditions count - Traditions change, we know people are different. Doves might be the thing to do at a very traditional wedding, but Bats might be the right thing at a “Goth” ceremony.
• Pets are also being invited more and more to Weddings with some startling interludes.  One was recently shown on Americas Funniest Videos. Nine weeks later they were happy and announced all seven pups on Craig's list. Twenty years after the Wedding is long forgotten they’ll still be talking about what the pooches were doing. 
• Ethnicities may warrant a change in plans. In some countries, and elbow or a knee or foot might cause you missing a limb.   
• Same sex Weddings, or companionship vows may warrant a few changes.

—  THE PAPARAZZI CLUB — 

I have found by being nice to guests and giving them a moment after my work is done and even a few tips has made me a friend rather than competitor.  When I have to do my formals I would ask them out loud to refrain from shooting and as soon as I was done I would pose the group for them and they could shoot till they ran out of disc, film or battery. 

As long as they respected that, I had no problem.  After each sequence I would tell my tell my Official Helpers, Ok, ready, now all on three. Then count it out, two, three.  Thats insured the ten folks with cell phones and point and shoot all got the same exact shot, period! They literally just signed a no competition clause and usually all the flashes interfere with each other, and I had closed the discreet circuit to my portable studio lights. My big lights did not go off.

Then after that moment, I’ll say something like “The Paparazzi will meet outside the church by the steps after they come out and you can see me set up”. It has worked every time. It’s also a great time for card giving and you would be surprised at the referrals you get. They love you for this. 

• IT PAYS TO HAVE A SIX-THREE 2ND SHOOTER WHO PLAYS FOOTBALL —  If someone didn’t listen and darted in and out or interfering with me, he was presented with THE UNDER GOD standing and starring at him in front of him and found faith very quickly.
• PRINT UP SOME CHEAP OFFICIAL PAPARAZZI  CARDS —  I have business cards that are printed “Official Paparazzi” with a stamp on the back,  ( just a few dollars order at Office Depot or on Line) and when we do the informal shots at cake, and limo and tosses, I tell them all to hold and AFTER I shoot, I yell Paparazzi time and they all come forward with their official cards  and let them have a good time.
• WHAT DO I CARE IF THEY SHOOT A SET, you think the point and shoot at fifteen feet and eight people wide is competition to my speed lights and perfection brackets with their width and extra power. They can’ t do what a studio Norman or any of my other blasters with 400 watt seconds can do. Half of those point and shoots won’t even work at the distance they are at so I push them closer so they do come out. 
• SOMETIMES I HAVE TAKEN AN ADVANCED AMATEUR WHO got in the way and made him hold the lights so that took him out of the picture but he learned something and appreciated it.
• SMART MOVE — Why the Official Paparazzi cards? They are my business cards on the other side and you wish you had a dollar for everyone that found me a wedding. Most of the snappers are friends or members of the wedding party and they get married too.  What a time to make friends and future clients, not enemies!