Wedding Photographer Blunders and Mishaps...

[bill_burke1]

<p>I consider myself a fairly new wedding photographer - I've been shooting weddings for three years and I'm up to about 25 weddings per year. I started thinking about the little blunders I've had - walking out from an air conditioned room into sweltering heat and not having a microfiber cloth to wipe the condensation from the lens before I missed any shots; forgetting an extra set of AA's for my SB800, etc etc. Thankfully I haven't experienced any major mishaps that have affected my images, but wanted to pose the question to more experienced photographers - <strong>What were some of the biggest flubs you've had happen to you, how did you recover and what lesson did you learn?</strong> I can't think of anything more helpful to hear about and potentially help to avoid the same mistakes!</p>

[personalphotos]

<p>I'm perfect, at least on a public forum...... :)</p>

[maryann_miles]

<p>I think one of the most important things is communication with the client. I've seen a lot of people come on here and look for help when they were dissatisfied with their photos, because they "weren't what we expected." Being sure enough time is allotted for bride and groom alone photos, and for formals before being kicked out of church (it happens) is another biggie. Also, being aware of those who do not want to be in the same room, or photographed together (i.e. divorce). Knowing all about your client and their circumstances & expectations is priceless.</p>

[mccosh]

<p>My biggest disaster was wardrobe malfunction "MINE" </p>

<p>The wedding I was shooting at the time wanted there Formal photos taking before the ceremony. It was near the end of the formal photograph's I bent down to arrange the bottom of the brides dress for a shot when there was one large rip in the rear of my trousers. </p>

<p>All I can say it was lucky that I was heading out of town that night straight after shooting the reception and had a spare set of cloths in the car. They were however casual cloths and had to shoot the ceremony, Family & guests and the reception in casual shorts. Felt uncomfortable. Always pack a spare pair of dress trousers now....</p>

<p>Regards<br>

John<br>

</p>

 

[dave_wilson1]

<p>I was doing a very big totally crazy wedding in either the end of Staten Island or maybe Queens. It was several photogs and we were each doing a section of the getting ready stuff, I had the studio lights and backgrounds and all that in my Toyota wagon. I decide to get extra gas in my car because I didn't want to deal with it anytime during this wedding. As Im pulling in the gas station I never saw this curb piece and blew my tire and bent my wheel. Now I have to unload all the studio stuff from my car, change my tire, and meet the guys for a one hour shoot in like 15 minutes, and I'm not really near yet, nor have I been to this place. No cell phones or GPS yet thi is maybe 1989. What's the lesson? I have no idea, just be ready for anything and everything always.</p>

[DickArnold]

<p>So I had been doing reasonably successful weddings for about six years. Because of being twice before retired, age and overwork in season I decided to get out of the business. My last wedding was a large one in a beautiful stone church. The ceremony was over and I was doing the wedding party inside the church with a Bronica ETRSi and I had to change lenses. I was sure I reset the aperture on the new lens. I had not and I lost a roll of fifteen over exposures. I had to tell the bride who was towing a ten foot bridal train behind her as we left. In my eagerness to tell her what I had done I stepped on the train and brought her to a full stop. She was a little surprised but was one of the nicest brides I had ever worked with. I confessed that i did not get the pictures. We decided to redo them in an adjacent garden which we did. But this story is not over. I was carrying a Canon 1N and she wanted pictures of her boarding her limo. I was trying to put my 70-200 on the 1N when I dropped it on a concrete sidewalk. It bounced it hit so hard. I ran to the car and got the pictures with the Bronica also still around my neck. I then met her alone on a cliff overlooking the ocean and I shot from above with that train fully spread. The pictures were quite good with her, the train and the ocean below the cliff. We had a discussion and she was unbelievably nice as I apologized for stepping on the train in the church. The actual pictures were really very good. I got one picture order which I filled and then she called me for another. As it was my last wedding I offered her the negatives and all rights to the photographs instead of filling the order. i had never given up negatives before. She was happy and is a very gracious individual. I shudder to think of all this happening with a few of my more difficult clients. The 70-200 2.8L survived, is over twelve years old and still performing like the day I bought it. I saved all of this misfeasance for my last wedding. I had backups for backups both in MF and 35mm. Five flashes etc. </p>

[m_tt_donuts]

<p>For me, using a singh-ray blue-n-gold polarizer for the main group shot(s), it's a specialty filter that can't be simulated in Photoshop or any other way but it can murder people by doing things like turning their hair smurf blue, skin Barney purple, etc. if you're not careful.</p>

<p>Found a perfect scene to use it, tested it on my wife, easily the best picture of her in years and what it did with the scenery was gorgeous. Better, was no issues murdering her. Lined everyone up, took some group shots, everyone wanted to run off so I did a quick check of the person I'd focused, no issues, and relieved everyone. Then after the wedding while going through the images I review the whole image and realize only the person I focused wasn't murdered! Most had the mentioned smurf blue hair, Barney purple skin in places, and their clothing having blue reflections. I spent about 1 hour per person cleaning it up times more than a dozen pictures. In the end they came out fine, and the lesson(s) I took from that, it's okay to be creative but make sure you take the standards first if your creativeness fails you need something to fall back on. Lesson 2, it's one of those things I usually should've caught on the preview but I was so focused on what the filter did to the water, sky, and plants I didn't focus on the people. Now I've seen this also from others when using a star filter, they get caught up in how pretty the stars look they don't notice the stars have obliterated the couple in the picture and the couple is what matters.</p>

[green_photog]

<p>When I was doing a winter e session, the images constantly came out too dark in the LCD. I bumped up the exposure and still no help. It was then that I realized I had my sunglasses on.</p>

<p>At least that one only happened once. The one that commonly occured to me was calling the sister of the bride, the bride first thing on the day.</p>

[ed_farmer]

<p>I once bumped into the rickety little table hold the Communion Gifts in a Catholic church in Philly . . . There wine and host and broken glass all over the floor about ten minutes before the ceremony! They had everything reset and ready to go (even ANOTHER rickety little table!) in no time.<br /><br />For you Catholics . . . I lucked out and the Communion Wafers had NOT been consecrated! They were able to just sweep them up and toss them out!</p>

[marcsaint]

<p>Shooting engagement session, exposure too light -- corrected -- next exposure too dark -- corrected -- WAY too light -- corrected -- WAY too dark -- What the @##%^?? Had auto-bracketing turned on. DOH!</p>

[jon_shumpert2]

<p>I was photographing a ceremony at a catholic church. The priest is a photographer himself and has no problems with pictures being taken during the ceremony. This was a few years before digital, so I had my F100 with me for the ceremony shots. I didn't realize I was near the end of the roll and took the last shot on the roll about 1 second before he said "Let us pray". The film started rewinding just as the church fell silent. Everyone then turned around to see what the noise was and the priest just laughed at me.</p>

[rob_caswell1]

<p>I had only finished a local photography course about six/nine months prior. Was determined only to shoot manual so that is what I had learned. Aperture priority, Shutter priority etc... were still a mystery. Had never even picked up a digital camera until about two weeks prior. A wedding photog had agreed to let me start shooting (third shooter...LOL). She handed me her equipment, told me what settings she wanted and it turned out just aweful. If I had only shot manual/available light with what I knew camera I would crushed the ceremony... instead I embarrassed myself.<br>

Three years and 100 weddings later, and my final wedding.... Catholic church, 50 foot ceilings, dark winter evening, poor lighting just flat kilt me. Leading up to it, I was so burned out that I had listed my equipment on ebay the day before.... I had nearly refunded the money and quit leading up to the event, but didn't think they could find a photog in time... couldn't be that bad right? Definatly in the top three in the toughest lighting situations I ever faced (my Seiko was glowing in the dark) worse than the extremes of a noon beach wedding... I beggeg them to turn up the lights, but they were as high as they could go...worse than the first given my experience. Pitiful...</p>