I was having a great conversation the other day with a close friend/colleague/photographer I respect.
We were talking about that $500 craigslist photographer and railing against how they are causing havoc in the wedding photography industry. I’ve written on this before, about why brides should pay more for a professional photographer and what sets us apart.
But then I started thinking. If the bride can’t tell by looking at a portfolio why she should pay $5000 for a photographer instead of $500, whose problem is that really?
As a wedding photographer, I believe it’s both our problem and our fault. Certainly, when I get the opportunity to sit down with a couple and explain what I bring to the table, I can get them to see why professional photographers are worth the money. But why is htat necessary?
I like magic. I know it’s fake and a combination of skill, smoke, and mirrors. I think that’s why I like it more than if it really were “magic”. When I see a good magician, I am in awe of that talent of being able to make me think something is happening when, I know, it isn’t. But, a few years ago on Fox, there was a set of specials where an unrevealed magician (he revealed himself at the end), performed a trick and then showed how it was done. As you can guess, other magicians were not too happy with this guy.
After the last episode, he said that he did it because he thought magicians had been falling back onto the same illusions and tricks for too long and it is time to innovate again and come up with new tricks.
Let’s jump for a second to modern digital cameras (bear with me, it will all come together shortly). The technology available in the entry-level SLR cameras allows the craigslist shooter to buy a cheap camera and, with the facial recognition and all the auto settings, take pretty decent pictures. In fact, those cameras are almost at the point where the resulting images aren’t far off (technically) from the pictures created by the seasoned professional. It’s just the artistic and compositional factors of the picture that sets us apart.
But is that enough?
Like the magicians falling back ot the old standby tricks, us wedding shooters need to step up and achieve greater and more artistic pictures than ever before. We have te experience and the knowledge to do things that no one has seen before but, until now, we’ve never had to.
So, the challenege I send out to myself and my brethren behind the lens is this: we need to step up. The cheap wedding shooters that I so often hear people complain about is changing the landscape of wedding photographer. We can rise to meet this challenge or sit back and complain about how things used to be.
Me? I choose to step up.
Hold me to that.
