The guest "papparazi" phenomenon - competing with guests for photos...

[steve_c.5]

I guess we all wrestle with this, but I just wanted to pass on my experiences

and observations in dealing with guest photographers. The proliferation of

people with computers and digital point and shoot cameras, as well as DSLRs,

is really having an effect on what we see at weddings.

 

I shot a church wedding with an outdoor reception this weekend, and you would

have thought the bride asked everyone to bring their cameras and take as many

pictures as they could.

 

Of course, I as the professional have to abide by the rules and not use flash

during the ceremony, which usually isn't helpful for anything but the

processional/recessional anyway. But the minute that bride comes down the

aisle, the point and shoot cameras come out, and it's a flash-fest. Of

typically poor quality shots, no less.

 

At the reception, it was ridiculous. These folks were all having a great time,

snapping away with their little point and shoots, comparing photos, and one or

two walking around with DSLRs with their brand new Ritz Camera zoom lens kit.

 

I'm walking around shooting candids with my $3000 rig, and one guy sees me,

runs over and hands me his $4 disposable, and says, "hey, would you take a

picture of us?". He then runs over to a couple of friends and poses. I wanted

to say, "You want me to shoot you with THIS (the disposable) or THIS (the

$3000 rig)?" I just sighed, put my rig down, and took the pic for him. He was

happy.

 

Another recent wedding found me shooting formals in a church at the altar

before the ceremony. There was Grandma, off behind me with a disposable,

snapping away. She apparently thought that if she didn't, she'd have to rely

on her memory to re-live the day, and that I was shooting photos just for

myself.

 

I suppose there's nothing to be gained by being a jerk. These folks have no

idea what we go through to do our work. They had no idea that my images would

be online for all to see/purchase, because it's hard to get brides to educate

everyone beforehand. These folks are just having fun with photography, and we

have to live with them. In the end, like it or not, it does have the effect of

diminishing the value and exclusivity of our work, and there's not much we can

do about it.

[fotografz]

"These folks are just having fun with photography, and we have to live with them. In the end, like it or not, it does have the effect of diminishing the value and exclusivity of our work, and there's not much we can do about it."

 

Well, I guess you could look at the glass as being half empty. Personally, I see it as being half full : -) The more that people shoot and see what they get ... then see what you get ... the more they might appreciate your work. Of course, this is predicated on the fact that you DO get something better ... LOL.

 

If anything, it should spur you on to take more risks, be bolder in your thinking, more observant of the lighting, more sensitive to the drama unfolding around you. Then it wouldn't matter if the playing field was leveled and all you had was the same point & shoot they have ... your images would still be better.

[david_schilling___chicago_]

I agree with Marc. The "point & shoot" cameras have been an issue for years (including the dreaded disposables). Perhaps digital's latest contribution is the cell phone camera which will give you about the same quality as the disposable but guests can share them with friends/relatives all over the globe in the time it takes to make a phone call.

 

If a guest hands me a disposable to shoot a quick pose, I simply offer to take a couple with my rig (which is less than $3000 but provides good quality images) and one or two with their disposable....easy peasy.

[cochranb]

If it is a part of the event - capture it. I agree with Marc's comment - when the bride sees your photos and the photos from the disposables - it just makes your work look better. As for the business end - your contract is with the bride, not Aunt Sue / Uncle Bob.

 

If someone where to give me a disposable, I just tell them that "I just don't know how to use one of them there fancy cameras" and jsut use mine.<div></div>

[austinphoto]

Get used to it! That's the way it is, it willl be and for the forseeable future, it will not change. Everyone has a camera and wants pictures. It really doesn't bother me at all. In fact, I love interacting with as many people as possible. The happier you make people, the more you will get out of it. Better smiles, more cooperation from others and more referrals. Photography is for everyone, not just you. Just realize, however, that you are getting paid and they have to pay (presents to the bride and groom). I think you are better off! Whatever happens, no matter how many cameras come out, just enjoy yourself.

[steve_c.5]

Abe makes an interesting point, about how the guests have to pay with presents, and we get paid (very well) to be there. Of course, I smile and do my PJ thing at every event, and would never bring anyone down by being sarcastic or unkind. I was mostly just making an observation that the proliferation of these snapshooters looks like a real phenomenon. I'm really not upset over it, I've just never seen anything like it in the past. Best to all!

[mike_payne3]

I agree with the take that it doesn't pay to be a jerk. You'll be so much better off relaxing and going with it. Remember, these folks snapping away are also watching YOU. Some of these people may very well have a future wedding in mind..you want them to think highly of you.

What I sometimes do is, if I take a photo and someone next to me is ready to snap one as well, I'll jump in the picture myself with the biggest sh*# eatin' grin you ever saw!. They get a good laugh out of it, then I go away quickly and let them take what they want. I've been told my 'style' is an unusual combo of Robin Williams and Gomer Pyle, but it works for me.

Have FUN with it!

[sam_ellis]

I will gladly take photos for people with their camera...actually, I have my assistant do it! I saw a grandmother setting up a big shot of the family at the last wedding and she was struggling to get the camera to take the photo. I jumped in and offered to use her camera for her then took one with mine. I was actually surprised at how bad the photo from her camera looked.

 

It's not a competition, we're there to provide a service. If that involves taking a few photos with a guest's camera, why not. As long as I can still get my job done, there's no problem.

 

As for the church, this was the FIRST wedding I've ever been to that the officiant told everyone at the beginning to turn off their cell phones and put away their cameras! She had told me the same thing earlier, but was pleased to hear her say it to the entire congregation. She looked mean too, so nobody crossed her :)

 

 

Sam

[greg jansen]

Yeah, get used to it. But know when to draw the line. If people want to take pictures during the formals, kindly tell them it's o.k. IF they turn their flash off (which can interfere with our shots).

 

During the processional if someone is leaning into the isle, I try to get theor attention and wave for them to get back in the pew.

 

Worst case scenario, if they are REALLY leaning into the isle, I'll take the pic anyways, and post it online with all the others. I usually focus on the culprit.

 

My little revenge.

[marshall]

<em>At the reception, it was ridiculous. These folks were all having a great time ....</em>

<P>

If they're "all having a great time", more power to 'em, right? It's supposed to be fun.

<P>

I mean, I don't shoot wedding professionally, so my opinion obviously doesn't count, but I think the trend will continue of more and more people carrying cameras, and more of those cameras being dSLRs. As long as they don't get in your way unreasonably, they ain't really gonna be stopped from taking some pictures.

<P>

On the other hand, I can't imagine interrupting the pro to ask him or her to take a picture with my camera. [Tangentially: when people come up to me in some random place because I happen to be holding a camera and asks me to take their picture, I always want to say "but I don't WANT your picture --- oh you mean with YOUR camera. I see!". But I never do say that...]

[steve_c.5]

I love Mike Payne's response above...that's great! :p

 

GAWWWW-LEE! SHAZZAAAAM! Nah-noo nah-noo!

[walter_degroot]

what would happen at the pre wedding day conference, when the flash/ picture / no pictures during the cerimony rules were laid down.

 

IF the photographer said" Ok I am a pro and will abide by your rules, it is, after all ,YOUR church" BUT " after the first guest's flash goes off, all rules are off. it's going to look like the public event of the century."

 

 

Some pastors think the pro's can take pictures under adverse conditions when amateurs need a flash.

And some are seriously concerned to keep the ceremony serious.

 

Should there be a dual standard? the pro uses film of the same speed or only has a one stop advantage in his pro camera lens. it doesn't seem fair to the working pro. I have even heard that a pro may carry a quiet camera with a f/.1.4 lens to sneak pictures during the ceremony. again not fair to the working pro.

[marlena_thomas]

I'm so confused by professional photographers who get ANGRY when guests take pictures. The wedding is about the bride and groom first, their guests second and you LAST! Of course they should be having fun! What is with the snobbiness towards point and shoot cameras or *god forbid* disposables! (Most) of these guests do not think they're professional photographers- they just want a picture to remember the moment. Trust me, as amazing of a photographer as you might be- you will NOT capture every moment at a wedding. The value in an image is not always based on its technical merit.

I am pretty sure that Grandma's disposable camera won't produce the same quality as your "rig" but I think it would be pretty neat, as a bride, to look back at the images my Grandmother captured on my wedding day.

As a professional who chooses to shoot weddings for a living- you should really reevaluate WHO you're working for. If the bride and groom didn't value professional photography they wouldn't have hired you. So suck it up, ignore the pushy guests and do your job.

I can understand the annoyance with flashes during formals and people looking every which way. Just say to the paparazzi- "Hey everybody, let me get my shots in first so I can get everyone looking right at me and then I'll move out of the way and let you get a couple shots too!"

I mean please- do you really think the family will blow up a P&S print to an 11x14 instead of ordering prints from you.

It's time to start building your profits into your initial fee.

Sorry for the rant!

[johnmottershaw]

I find that having loads of snappers can make it all even more fun for the bride and groom.

They are there because they're all happy and want to record the happy day for themselves.

Very few of them would have bought reprints from the photographer anyway.

 

Rule number one (of many) for producing great wedding photographs: ENJOY YOURSELF! If

you do, it will show in your pictures.

 

These people are not daft and will be able to appreciate just how good the pro pictures

are. If anything, all these snaps will help make it even more obvious and actually enhance

the value of a good photographer's work.

[picturesque]

"I mean please- do you really think the family will blow up a P&S print to an 11x14 instead of ordering prints from you."

 

Yes, they do.

 

"It's time to start building your profits into your initial fee."

 

Agreed.

 

Also, we wedding photographers need to realize that it is only going to get worse. As I've related before, at bar and bat mitzvah receptions, some of the kids pull out their cell phones and are on the dance floor competing with you for photos. They usually get better responses from the bar mitzvah kid and other kids because they are also kids (who wants some adult snapping their camera at you?). They do it for the fun of it and have no intention of saving the images or doing anything with them later, but they do take up good shooting positions and get the good expressions. When these kids grow up and get married, guess what is going to happen?

[steve_c.5]

I hope I'm not the one who set Marlena off on a "rant", but I hope it helped her to vent. :)

 

As I said, I'm not angry or upset over guest snappers, I shoot right alongside them and never give them an issue or make myself out to be a meanie. I'd never go "below the line" at an event, I want people to love me, and they do, pretty universally. I was just commenting on the phenomenon, hoping to hear others share their ideas about it, and their experiences.

 

As for flash from other cameras ruining my shot, I usually shoot 2 or 3 of each formal for cover, sometimes bracketing exposures, etc.

 

Sometimes, the flash from another camera actually helps a shot. I have one shot I did of a little flowergirl walking down the aisle away from me, which was shot with a wide angle lens with available light, ISO 2000. As I snapped the shutter, a guest camera from the other end of the aisle went off, and added a really neat flash highlight to my shot. I'd wager that the shot from the guest camera was FAR less dramatic than mine, but I loved the result on my end!

[jc5066]

Everyone thinks they're a photographer. The average person can't tell a crappy print from a great one.

 

This "phenomenon" is something a professional photographer needs to learn to deal with. How you deal with it is up to you.

[john_wilson10]

"I mean please- do you really think the family will blow up a P&S print to an 11x14 instead of ordering prints from you."

 

Absolutely! They'll do worse too. Example: I take family snaps at reunions and the like, and usually I print 4-6 photos for each couple there. Sally and Jeff get photos of their kids, Bill and Jen get photos of their kids, Grandma gets a good photo of each of the grandkids, and so on. Six months later my wife and I visit Sally and Jeff and they pull out their photo album, and they have a complete set of all of the pictures I took at the reunion. Some of them have been scanned and printed at walmart at the kiosk from a copy they got from Bill and Jen that had been scanned and printed at walmart at the kiosk. Some of them have been printed from the tiny 500x333 pictures I posted on flickr.

 

When I brought up image quality they didn't even understand what I was talking about. "Looks good to us," they proclaimed happily. "You take such wonderful photos!"

 

Makes pixel peeping look pretty ridiculous, doesn't it?

[steve_c.5]

(John Wilson) I'm sure that was quite a shocker for you! But, I guess it's par for the course. I've often said the minute aspects of image quality, lighting, and technical excellence we photographers stress and strain over in Photoshop seem to be lost on most folks.

 

You can go on MySpace and look through people's photo galleries, and read the comments they and their friends make about various pictures. It can be a lousy quality p/s camera shot with terrible lighting, washed out skin tones, etc., and they'll comment, "oh, that's a good picture", or "oh, I hate this picture of myself". They're looking at the PEOPLE in the shots, not the quality of light falling on them, not digital noise, not level of detail, not composition, etc. We can't expect ordinary folks to have the same appreciation we do, which is fine, but sometimes frustrating. I find very few brides who understand what truly makes a great photo that I took of them. They see themselves and decide whether they look good/fat/bad/big nose/bad hair/expression, whatever. The technical excellence and artistry is often overlooked. It's just the nature of many clients these days. Hopefully, if we do great work, we can all help raise the bar.

[cjogo]

We don't really shoot much PJ ...so the guests get us off the hook, so to speak. --- If there are disposable cameras on the tables ..I usually pick them up, during the dinning hour, & shoot the guest seated. They work quite well at about 6-9 feet for a couple shot.

[russ_konrad]

<b>"...I'm so confused by professional photographers who get ANGRY when guests take pictures..."</b>

<p>

Some professional photographers actually CARE about the job they do and the images that they present to the bride and groom whom have paid good money for GREAT photography.

<p>

If the guests get in the way and we have fewer GREAT images to present to the bride and groom - it is the bride and groom who suffer! I guess you really don't care if the professional pictures turn out lousy because of all the interference from everyone else at the wedding.

<p>

I suppose that you wouldn't mind at all if some casual bystander prevented you from doing your job (whatever it is).

[tdj]

Here's a shot I like (the couple did, as well), enhanced by a guest with a p&s.<div></div>

[picturesque]

I happen to agree with much of Marlena's post. We wedding photographers sometimes are too full of ourselves. On the other hand, it is true that sometimes, guests get in the way and actually affect resulting pictures on the negative side. As usual, the reality is somewhere in between and good judgement, common sense and understanding are needed in order to best manage each specific situation. See the other side and apply your people skills.

[roger_smith4]

"I suppose there's nothing to be gained by being a jerk. These folks have no idea what we go through to do our work. They had no idea that my images would be online for all to see/purchase, because it's hard to get brides to educate everyone beforehand. These folks are just having fun with photography, and we have to live with them."

 

They clearly want pictures, so why not pass out your business card and tell them they'll all be online for purchase later? Probably get more sales out of that than from the couple.

[William Michael]

With scanning technology, it is obvious that the Professional Photographer has little (realistic) control over the quality of the end image in any photo album once any (quality) print has been sold.

 

Moreover, as some `clients` are satisfied with downloaded, low resolution, (or even low medium resolution), images; this issue of quality control, or rather lack of it, is exacerbated once any image goes on line: one could mount a logical argument that it is way easier to download, than the scan.

 

The landscape of photography`s end product has also changed. Many of these `freely` acquired images will actually never see paper. `Clients` are satisfied with them on their hard drive, or as email attachments, which are sent to family and friends, only then to be stored on hard drives, again.

 

Whilst, I agree that some `clients` will indeed lean over the shoulder of the Professional to capture the Wedding Party at the Church Door, with red eye included, and then enlarge the image to 11 x 14, or 10 x 8, rather than pay $69, $89, $200 . . . whatever for the better, professional shot: I do not see this as a major challenge . . . or indeed a great concern to the profession.

 

The point is, fewer 10 x 8, 11 x 14, 24 x 20, and 36 x 40 Wedding Prints now hang in living rooms or stand on dresser tables.

 

The photographic capture medium has gone digital: so too, to a very large extent, has the viewing medium gone digital, and this is increasing.

 

It is not the point and shoot photographers or the scanners of the 4 x 6 that are the major business concern, it is the fact that clients are more wanting the Hi Res DVD of the files, rather than the larger prints.

 

If this digital viewing trend continues, there will be fewer albums sales too, or the same quantity of sales but with fewer pictures in them, or both.

 

Clients, in some precincts, are already opting for the Hi Res Disc as the MAJOR part of the purchase; NOT as a supplement to: the two 24 x 20 prints; the Main Album; the (two) Mum and Dad albums; and the Bridesmaids set of three 10 x 8`s etc . . . ring any bells?

 

This trend is being fuelled, at the low cost end of the market, by those willing to arrive, shoot for three hours, burn and deliver a Hi Res DVD for $X00.00, and never see the client again.

 

Ah! But education is the key we cry: educate the client into noticing the quality differences even if only purchasing the Hi Res DVD, so they understand why I charge out my time at $X00.00 per hour and the studio requires $X000.00 for the Hi Res Post Produced DVD on top of my fee. . .?

 

But correspondence, our day to day intercourse and general interaction has become more. . . digital!

 

Our communication is daily becoming more so keyboard / screen based: note the number of web sites for Wedding Photographers and the number of actual portrait STUDIOS in the business directory, now as even 3 years ago!

 

Yes, some meet clients in coffee shops and some speak over the phone to distant clients meeting them only in person on the day, and for some, mostly all the communication is done via eMail.

 

Fewer and fewer meet the client at the studio: and show their wears . . . is showing one`s wears, in person, vastly different to a client, alone, viewing images on their laptop?

 

Are the selling and educating skills different, if the only opportunity to speak to a client is on the phone, and it all hangs on that telephone call, after they have been surfing the web and happen to like a low res shoot on the Photographer`s web page: will the emphasis of the Photographer be on acquiring the job, or on selling the 11 x 14, or 24 x 20 enlargements in the package: maybe the client has a big screen at home and some sample files could be eMailed?

 

 

Across the gamut of Photography Businesses, there are talented photographers and there are those with less talent . . . the examples of different businesses do not to imply one style of business automatically predicates a particular quality of photographer.

 

The point I am making is it is not the P&S guests (or the clients who scan the freebees) that the Professional Wedding Photographer should be concerned about in regard to: Print sales; Print quality; Album sales; Packages; and Pricing of their Product: there larger and more various elements, than the `P&S Granny` or the `Sam and Jill` with a scanner, driving the bus.

 

WW