So, how has wedding photography changed in the last few years?

<i>You know about the IR filters you put on the lenses don't you.</i>

<p>You mean that hoop you need to jump through just to get a $4800 camera to register color properly? Yeah. I also know a number of photog friends who are still waiting for Leica to deliver their promised filters, four months after taking delivery of their cameras. I've tried telling them <a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/154495-REG/B_W_65014686_46_mm_486_Digital.html" target="_blank">they can order from B&H</a> but they don't want to spend $70+ and wait 6-10 weeks when Leica's said their filters will ship "any day now" - any day now for the last month. Oh well.

Derek, probably the biggest change in the last 5 years is more prolific use of the internet.

 

Clients use it to search & review, and share word of mouth on wedding sites, and create

sites about their upcoming wedding. Photographers use it to advertise, for blogs, to

upload whole weddings for print sales, and to network information (like here).

 

Most of the remainer is the same, just the math has changed. There are mediocre shooters

and good ones same as before ... just more of both.

I am almost ready to end my 30 year career in Wedding Photography. Digital has brought a huge amount of weekend warriors with little knowledge, but "great prices". 1000's of photos on a CD. I wonder what they take for the average 3 to 4 hour wedding in this small town. 75 shots of the Cake Cutting?? 100 of the Bride dancing with Dad?? I shoot 120 format and always take 15 rolls with me, rarely shooting more than 13 to 14. Now, it seems to be "Supersize me". People would rather have quantity instead of quality. There are some very good digital photographers out there, but it won't be long and I'll be clearing what I use to make back in '89 after cost. Glad my Pension check is kicking in next month ;-)

"I've never known a learned photo journalist to post ... flash sucks! 'I only shoot available light!'"

<p>

"Like Eisie [ie, Alfred Eisenstaedt], I prefer a natural setting and existing light. Cartier-Bresson <i>abhorred</i> flash, explaining once that he wished subjects to appear natural as he saw them, but that flash gave him very different results." -- Herbert Keppler, <i>Popular Photography,</i> April 2007.

the whole history of the industrial revolution has been one of automation making it possible for less skilled machine operators to produce at lower cost and greater consistency than more skilled artisans. and, "consistency" is a nice word for "commodity" (ie, something more or less indistinguishable from the rest of its kind).

 

it is aximoatic that the price of a commodity will tend to converge with its cost of production. in terms of wedding photography, that means that a kid who's been shooting for a couple of years with a dSLR and auto-flash, still lives with his or her parents, and has a cousin who owns a one-hour photo kiosk can undercut on price any grownup just atarting out who is offering same-old, same-old wedding photographs.

 

conversely, the only way to overcome commoditization, in *any* business model, is by product and/or service differentiation. precisely because of the technological advances in photography, there are many avenues down which a wedding photographer can travel to make their work decidely different from the rest.

 

these various paths to differentiation might include large format, bringing to bear experience as an actual photojournalist, working on every file in Photoshop *individually* (instead of batch processing or leaving the subtle choices up to a lab), having an experienced street or travel photographer's eye for the 'decisive moment', doing one's own wet-lab silver gelatin prints, even (heaven forbid) shooting in available light. there are, of course, many others.

 

yes, Wal-Mart's revenues are vastly higher than those of Tiffany & Co. however, while Wal-Mart's net profit margin is just over 3% (an enormous margin, btw, for a consumer commodity retailer), Tiffany's are close to a handsome 10%.

 

as an aside, i am currently enjoying reading "Hollywood Portraits" by Roger Hicks and Christopher Nisperos. when reliable light meters were first introduced, experienced Hollywood portraitists tended to dismiss them as being for "amateurs" (the more things change, ...).

 

also, the pros tended to underexpose for the highlights and overdevelop to raise contrast. needless to say, as a result the shadows remained just that -- shadows {chuckling}.

 

for those who eschew Photoshop, it is worth noting that Hollywood at the time employed far more retouchers than photographers. (indeed, the authors theorize that these underexposed/overdevelped negatives were so thin, by textbook standards, in order to make them easier to retouch.)

 

a couple of years ago, MOMA in New York did a wonderful retrospective of the work of Diane Arbus. on display were her Nikon F and the Rolleiflex she later used. neither had a light meter. viewing the proof sheets from some of her privately commissioned work on display elsewhere, one wonders if she knew what a light meter was.

 

i've also seen some of Eisenstaedt's proof sheets on display. let's just say there were far more "misses" than "hits".

 

all of which just underscores the point that a newish wedding photographer who wants to charge higher than 'Wal-Mart' prices needs to bring something to the table besides Kodak-perfect shots of the formals.