Who’s Taking Your Wedding Photos?

Comments

1. D L says:
   March 8, 2010 at 1:22 pm

   It hasn’t affected it at all. I wouldn’t shoot a wedding for all the tea in China. I suppose there are a few exceptions to that but Hef and Trump have yet to ring my phone.
2. jeannie says:
   March 8, 2010 at 1:46 pm

   I don’t shoot weddings, but it has cut into the headshots.

   But, it is offset by the increase in retouching, bacause I have to spend hours fixing the mess Uncle Bob and Sister sue made of the pix!
3. Bruce M says:
   March 8, 2010 at 1:50 pm

   I stopped doing it years ago due in part to this.
   It had become way to hard to get my images for the bride when Uncle Bob was elbowing me out of the way.. literally.. happened twice in three weeks and I had set up to take the winter off so started turning down the spring jobs unless I got $1000.00 up front.. so only did 2 in the spring and both times had Uncle Bob problems so quit..

   I was a one man show at the time and talked it over with two larger studios who would even send me clients when booked.. they were not pleased I was out but understood and one had even place on the contract a full paragraph about it and took a helper along just to step in the way and question Uncle Bob to wait till the Brides Photographer did his job.. we all learned how to break up the groups etc. very quick so they could not get a excellent image.

   Now I hear that this is happening a LOT.. PPL just do not know images quality. OR.. “we” the pro has let it slide into digital point and shoot shooting where we deserve this until “we” get our head out and offer better products again.
4. Ara57 says:
   March 8, 2010 at 2:01 pm

   The economy is so tanked around here (unemployment at a bit over 16%) that one of our established pros (a excellent photographer with a studio and tux/gown storefront) just folded up his business last month. I don’t shoot weddings full time, so I am not a excellent barometer of the trend. Although I haven’t done as many this year as last, my volume naturally fluctuates from year to year as I do no advertising and have no web presence, all my clients are WOM.

   I do know one of the upstarts who has shot for a couple of years has taken her website down, so I am assuming she is gone. My mentor, who started shooting weddings in the 1940′s said he is thrilled he is not in the business now, he doesn’t see how anyone could market photography at a high enough rate to survive in our area now days because of all the cheap digi-shooting newbies. I live in a very rural/small town area, it might be different in larger cities.

   The plain fact is, many people cannot afford a photographer, or even a huge wedding. There are more courthouse ceremonies around here lately, and more backyard BBQ types as well. So these people aren’t spending $2000 on the photographer, and probably not on the entire affair. There have always been the Uncle Bobs doing it as a favor, and there’s a place for them. The free shooters family or friend doing it as a favor for a B&G who otherwise would have no photos at all is not a problem to the professionals. Those people weren’t going to hire a professional photographer anyway.

   No, it’s not Uncle Bob who’s a problem, it’s all the new “perfessionals” with their new dSLR who charge to show up, snap all day, and burn a CD for several hundred less than the local pros. Often without adequate backup and nearly certainly with small experience and know-how. Very few of them will be in “business” very long, but there is a constant influx of them. I know of at least 3 in my area right now, not counting the one who seems to have disappeared recently. They will get a few jobs I am sure. If they are excellent they might even make a success of it, perhaps at the expense of the first several couples. The others will fail, either because of poor business skills, poor photography or people skills, or a combination.

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