Weekend bridal show recap, followed by a bit of a rant

This past weekend was one of rushing hither and yon, the highlight of which was spending Sunday in my hometown at the Columbus Bridal Expo. The Wife and I were there, of course, representing Lisa On Location photography. The Wife had a mighty impressive display set up, complete with gallery wraps and a flat-screen television playing a dazzling slideshow of her wedding-themed "Greatest Hits." As was not entirely unexpected, the parade of perspective brides "oohed" and "aahed" over The Wife's inventive and eye-catching trash the dress portraits. Those shots really stand out, and The Wife even blogged about it. She spoke with pretty much every bride that came through, the only exceptions being those who regretfully admitted they'd already book a photographer prior to the wedding show.

For me, however, there was added incentive in participating in this particular wedding fair. You see, despite growing up in Columbus, I'd never set foot inside the historic Stafford Opera House before--the venue of said expo. Hard to believe, I know, but all the years I was growing up in Columbus, the Opera House was always in a state of perpetual restoration, with fund raisers being the norm. It was until 1990 that the decades-long restoration was complete and the venue opened for performances. I was eager to see what the inside looked like, and I have to say I came away impressed. First of all, the second-floor theatre is much larger than it appears from the outside. Secondly, it's not anywhere near as ornate as, say, the Majestic Theatre in San Antonio, but it's got a restrained elegance all its own. I can imagine photographing a wedding reception here would be quite fun.

Overall, I was impressed by the quality and quantity of the vendors who turned out to this event. There were impressively upscale venues and caterers and florists and even a wow-your-socks-off destination wedding provider. But one element utterly baffled me--the number of photographers there selling wedding packages who had absolutely no wedding experience. Now don't get me wrong--there's plenty of weddings in this world to go around, and The Wife and I generally try to go out of our way to meet other wedding photographers, network, trade war stories and compare notes. But wedding photography isn't something you just jump into on a whim, because if you screw it up, you have botched someone's wedding day. There ain't no mulligans, folks. Consider that The Wife has 20 years of photographic experience, having cut her teeth on film and spent many, many hours in chemical-laden dark rooms prior to making the switch to digital imaging. And how, even then, she attended multiple weddings as a second shooter to learn the ropes before daring to book even a single wedding on her own. And invested considerable amounts of money into professional level equipment--including backup equipment--to ensure she could do the job right, and continue to do the job even if some disaster befell her primary camera. And how she continues to work to better herself as a photographer, studying and learning constantly (as evidenced by her recent ass-kickery during the PPA certification exam) and her memberships in Professional Photographers of America, Wedding and Portrait Photographers International and the Texas Professional Photographers Association. She's got her state business operating permit, pays her sales taxes quarterly and has insurance and indemnification.

Contrast this with one photographer who was proudly showing off their equipment, which consisted of a Canon Rebel, pop-up flash and a kit lens. Now I don't want to come off as a snob or anything, but I see a huge train wreck in someone's future, akin to this sad episode of Judge Joe Brown:



The first wedding The Wife ever shot as the primary photographer, the officiant came up before the ceremony and announced she wouldn't allow any photography. At all. The bride and groom had attended months of pre-marital counseling with this pastor, and not once did this little tidbit come up. Yet The Wife, with her years of photojournalism background and experience as a wedding second shooter, was able to calm down a livid bride and groom, recreate the "forbidden" shots after the fact, produce a stunning wedding album and save the day. Far more common is the officiant who allows photography, but not flash in poorly-lit church interiors. In these instances, The Wife's knowledge of ISO, aperture and shutter speed allows her to manually adjust the settings to capture the shot. Of course, she's using expensive "fast" glass with a wide aperture that allows the camera to take in more light, and also her beloved Canon 5D mark II, which has a full-frame sensor that captures gorgeous color as well as offering amazing low-light performance. Then for the reception she breaks out the shoe-mount speedlites for either off-camera lighting triggered by remotes, or on-camera bounce flash with an array of specialty diffusers to choose from. She's used my Canon Rebel as a backup body in the past, and while it is wholly capable of taking fine photographs, it has very clear limitations, even when coupled with fast, professional lenses (which an inexpensive kit lens is not). I am utterly and completely baffled as to why anyone would trust something as important as wedding photos to someone with little or no wedding experience, but moreso, how anyone so ill-equipped and inexperienced could offer themselves up as a professional to trusting brides. Honestly, it boggles the mind.

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Chicken Ranch Central

Weekend in review

Wow. Had a very, very busy weekend. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

This was the weekend of the Comal County Fair. We took the kids to the parade Friday, and also the petting zoo and other assorted fair things. I entered a bottle of my blueberry mead, which was an utter failure as such--having absolutely no flavor of blueberry in it--yet was surprisingly pleasant to drink as a plain mead with a slightly purplish cast to the liquid. I was rewarded with a red ribbon, which is my best showing ever, with my prickly pear and holiday spice entries both earning third place ribbons in years past. Sunday I took the Bug and Fairy Girl to the midway, paid a small fortune to get them wristbands, and let them ride pretty much everything there all afternoon. I was exhausted by the end, and that was just from watching.

Saturday The Wife had a wedding in Lago Vista. A very nice wedding. We dropped the kids off at the Nama's in Bastrop, and I drove over to the wedding venue (note: If wanting to get from Point A to Point B in Lago Vista, just give it up. It's not possible in that Byzantine maze of roads). My job for this wedding, as it is for all of The Wife's larger weddings, was to back her up as second shooter. She was armed with her newest toy, the 5D mark II camera, and I would be using her 50D with my Rebel as the emergency backup. By the end of the night she would've done just as well leaving me home. I struggled with the 50D, as the settings which are so intuitive to me on my Rebel XTi don't produce the same results on the 50D. I was getting horrible over-exposures and inconsistent strobe illumination. Exposure compensation kept getting accidentally altered. I couldn't adjust the settings in the dark, as the control layout is different from what I'm used to. None of the shots I normally pride myself on--the groomsmen, reception candid shots, infrared images of the venue--came out. In six hours of shooting, I'd wager I got maybe a dozen keepers. That's pathetic by any measure. It all comes from my not being familiar with the 50D's quirks and tendencies when shooting (I hope) rather than any inherent incompetence on my part. At least, that's what I'm telling myself. Fortunately for all concerned, The Wife knocked it out of the park, as usual. She got a wealth of stunning images, despite having to reshoot some of my assigned shots during my long night of crash-and-burn. This is why you hire a professional photographer for important events, rather than a semi-competent amateur.

Last but not least, upon returning home, we discovered that Windows 7 is a very clever program. So clever, in fact, that it will figure out a way to download the latest so-called "Critical update" even when you've told it not to. That same critical update that's crashed the computer on startup five times over the past two weeks, in fact, forcing us to recover the use of said computer via System Restore. But this must have offended Windows 7 in some manner, because it went through the trouble of deleting all of our previously-established system restore points this time, forcing us to to a complete and total reinstallation of every piece of software. Ouch. And certain programs and drivers, which worked fine before, is not being rejected by Windows 7 as not worthy of being recognized. Seriously, it's contempt is tangible. We're now 24 hours and counting on the grand reinstall adventure, and The Wife still can't get the monitor color calibration to work. We haven't even tried to get our Photoshop plugins going. Wouldn't it be nice if Microsoft spent more time designing an operating system that, you know, operated with the software we need instead of automatically assuming the user is a dolt and would much rather prefer to watch dancing paperclips or whatever.

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So... the wedding

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: If someone suggests that simultaneously being in a wedding, riding herd on three kids and photographing said wedding in an official capacity is a good idea... it isn't. Can't say as I recommend that degree of multitasking. It's Wednesday, and I'm still exhausted.

The wedding itself was very nice. My brother John and his bride Tami were perfect hosts. More importantly, they enjoyed themselves. With all the stress they were under planning this thing in the months leading up to it, there was real concern they'd have a heart attack, mental breakdown or both. But starting Friday with the rehearsal, they were in full-on blissful enjoyment mode. Which is the way it should be. All of our extended families were there (and got along) and friends and acquaintances from all over attended, having themselves a grand old time from what I could tell. I ate and drank and fixed flat tires and chased little ones and on more than one occasion I slipped away from the wedding party to take pictures. Here's one I'm particularly pleased with, of the ceremony inside the new St. Mary's Catholic Church in Fredericksburg.



I also managed to work in a few infrared photographs. No, none of the wedding party--we're not ready for something like that yet--but I got this nifty false-color image of the old St. Mary's Catholic Church in Fredericksburg, significant in the fact that this is where John proposed to Tami.



I'd like to point out that the old church was build in 1861, while the new church was "only" built in 1908. They're both mighty impressive buildings. The entire wedding gallery can be viewed at Lisa On Location.

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The Wife's new business cards

The lovely and talented Wife has new lovely and talented business cards. She shot the art herself, and did the design work. A mighty fine looking business card is the result. I look at this, and think to myself, "Self, who in their right mind wouldn't beg her to shoot their wedding?" Not too many people.



That's "Lisa on Location" photography, folks, in case you missed the subtle, subliminal hints...

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Wedding crashers

This past weekend we had a wedding shoot. The Wife, who has opened up her own photography studio, Lisa On Location, has some weddings scheduled on the horizon. The trouble is, despite quite a few bridal and engagement shoots, she's never shot a live wedding. So I touched base with our old buddy http://www.andersphoto.com>Don and he agreed to let her tag along as a second shooter.

To make a long story short, at the last minute plans changed and I was free to go along as well. A third shooter, if you will. That was overkill for this wedding--it was a small affair in a tiny church--but opportunity is opportunity, and it gave us both the chance to watch Don's people management skills, which are unsurpassed.

Since I was literally the third wheel, I had to function with what was available. The Wife had the fast Tamron zoom and Speedlite flash, which left me shooting with the fastest lens I own, the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 mark I, natural light only. Let me tell you, that was a challenge. The 50mm was perfect for some of the shots, but many times I desperately needed a zoom to go wider or longer in the narrow confines of that country church. I shot aperture priority, wide-open, but realized halfway through the ceremony that some shots had shutter speeds as slow as 1/15 of a second, which practically guarantees blur from camera shake. Grr. On the LCD screen on the back of my camera the images looked fine--it wasn't until I blew them up that the shake became obvious. So I set the camera to full manual and finish out the wedding.

I was convince that out of the 200-plus shots I'd taken, the vast majority would be worthless. Imagine my delight when I found far more usable shots than expected. Now, I didn't get as many keepers as Don or The Wife, but I did better than anticipated. Set me up with a fast zoom lens and I'd do some serious damage. I still need to go through and edit my "keepers" though, so we'll see if I'm still as positive after I've slaved away on Photoshop for a while.

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