Just the “Facts”

So I’ve waited a while to post about this because I wanted the storm to pass before stirring the pot.  A few months ago, we and some of our wedding colleagues were approached by a local news stations to be interviewed on how the “bad economy” has affected the wedding industry in our area.  When the day came for the crew to arrive, I decided to split at the last minute because I didn’t have any bad news to report and I got this feeling that the interviewer was looking for a specific doom and gloom angle.  Plus the camera makes me look fat.

Sadly, I was right. (on both counts)

When I returned and spoke with the other folks who were interviewed, they confirmed that the interviewer was asking questions specifically related to how bad things were.  Any time someone mentioned that in their experience and interactions with their clients, things were not as bad as the media suggests, the interviewer shrugged it off indicating that any possible good news was just not convincing right now.  So instead of going out to report the news (which wasn’t all that bad by the way) the people at the news station wrote a story that fed on the public’s fears and went out to find some convincing looking people to support that story regardless of facts.  It’s like the news was sponsored by Prozac and their job was to keep people completely depressed.

I don’t watch the news any more.  It’s just another reality show gone bad.

If it’s a big story, I’ll hear about it.  I heard about Ed, Farrah, Michael and Billy.  I’m sure I’ll hear if we go to war with Korea or Iran.  Either way I will keep doing what I’m doing and wish the best for everyone.  When mom said that everything on TV was pretend, I had no idea it meant EVERYTHING on TV was pretend.  Apparently so.

Stephanie & Jonah’s *E* Session

Yes it has been a while since I blogged, I know.  This spring has been non stop so there will be much to share in the future.

This *E* Session was a blast!  Stephanie and Jonah drove down to the beach for the afternoon and ended up driving back soaking wet and sandy.  Yep, it was that fun.  Even my shoes floated away for a bit.  We shot until there was literally no more light.

Flashes of Hope

Last week I had the good fortune to work with Kim & Nancy from Flashes of Hope.  We were at the Children’s center at UNC Hospital.  For those who have not seen the previous posts, Flashes of Hope is an organization that uses professional photographers to create uplifting portraits of children with life threatening illnesses and their families free of charge.  All of these children were at the hospital going through treatments and often their appearance has already changed or is about to.  Flashes of hope believes that it’s important to celebrate this appearance change as part of the healing process.

The kids are in various stages of their treatments and for some you would never know they were sick.  Some love the camera, and have a thousand ways to express themselves.  Others are scared, and tired of feeling bad.  To many of them, “getting your picture taken” means going into the lab for more x-rays or scans which is not a happy thing for them.  I have found that if you work it hard enough you can get them to open up a bit.  Sometimes it takes bubbles though.

I think this is one of my favorites from the day.  We worked hard for this smile, and now it lives forever.

This girl had it going on.  She has watched all the High School Musical movies and had the routine down.

These are not intended to be just portraits of the kids.  Family involvement is a big part of the healing process and I want the images to reflect that the people around them care and are there for them.

More from Dana & Michael’s *E* Session

Dana & Michael Sitting in a Tree…

I did not realize it, but I had a whole tree theme going in yesterday’s *E* Session.  Dana and Michael were great and so were the surroundings.  Upon looking at the images as they were loading in this morning I thought to myself: “wow, I worked the environment hard”

I’m not sure if I was perhaps still celebrating earth day, or high on the pollen, but we had a good time and created some fun images for them.  There are lots more, but these are the few that stood out.  Check back next week to see more from this session.

Kristin & Brian- Lexington, NC

Can I get an Amen!?!  This is what it’s all about!  Great day, great place, awesome people, and us with our cameras.  The location was Childress Vinyards, and Kristin, Brian and their families had a blast.  I’ll skip the blog chatter (does anyone read that anyway?) and get right to the images.

Pumpkin Update

This will be the last pumpkin update until Halloween, but based on the last comment left on the previous post I wanted to show that even though this stuff might look a bit gross at first, it quickly changes to lush green-ness.  Here’s what it looks like this morning with nothing visible but the stem!

Spring

This has nothing to do with photography but it’s cool and I had to share.  I’m all about the compost pile.  I don’t get it when I see my neighbors bag up their grass clippings and put them out to the curb for trash pickup.  After thanksgiving I put our halloween pumpkin near the pile and just left it.  After a few months of winter it had turned white and deflated.

I happened to look closely at it yesterday and the skin that is usually orange has become translucent and essentially become a little greenhouse for all of the new seed sprouts, protecting them from the cold.  The growth is busting through and soon my back yard will be a Charlie Brown pumpkin patch.  Ahh the magic of nature.

Nikki & Matt’s *E* Session

As promised, more from the west coast.  We started out at Stanford where Nikki is finishing up her studies, then on to misty, foggy San Francisco where the weather changed about every five minutes and kept things interesting.  From there we went over the mountain to the coolest little beach town and shot a little more before stopping for dinner.  All in all it was a great day!

“Hey, Let’s try this!”

I don’t typically write blog posts like this, but I just can’t keep it to myself.

I happened to be in a local camera shop last Friday looking for a camera part.  It was taking me a while to find what I was looking for and there were several other people being helped so I walked around a bit.  One of the customers was a lady who brought her camera in to have the sales person help her with the settings.  She explained that she had a photo shoot the next day and it was going to be in a dark place.  So I’m thinking OK, her kid is having a birthday party or something and she wants good snap shots, that’s cool.  Then she said the thing that made my blood go cold.  She said:  “The place is dark and the ceilings are high, and I’m sure I’ll have to get really close to the bride and groom during the ceremony so that they show up.”

Say what?  Can she be serious?  Is this for real?  As the sales guy explains what color settings she should use for good skin tones and that she could just point her flash and that “should be fine” (his words), I’m over there freaking out on the inside.  Knowing full well that this lady was going to leave her house the next day and go screw up someone’s wedding photos.

I kind of had to leave at that point.  I felt weird, like I was an accessory or witness to something bad that was about to go down.  Most of all though, I was completely offended that this person had such a casual attitude about the major event that she had been hired to photograph.  I felt bad for the bride and groom for about a minute until I realized that they hired her for some reason.  Maybe it was a good deal, maybe she’s a friend, maybe their standards are low, whatever the case, I’m sure they got what they paid for.

Then a few other things ran through my head that got me even more annoyed.

First of all, weddings don’t just come up all of the sudden.  No one calls you on a Thursday and says “hey our wedding is Saturday are you available?”  This person probably had months to work out her technical issues, shoot tests under similar lighting conditions and get it right, but she chose to think about it the day before the shoot.

Second, why would you go to the place that sold you the camera to get photography lessons?  Nothing against the sales people, they are cool people, but while they might know a fair amount about the equipment itself, they don’t shoot weddings for a living and can’t really speak to that experience.

Third, I know what we do is not rocket science, but it does take hard work, dedication and several years of experience before you’re even kind of good at it.  This mentality I see of getting a fancy camera, a template web site and being a wedding photographer in three easy steps is bringing me down.  We don’t compete with those people, so I’m not worried about that, but it’s sad to see the profession that you’ve poured your entire adult life into cheapened like that.

Fourth, can I even list a fourth? After three points it kind of seems like maybe there really is no point and that I’m just rambling.  So what’s the point of me ranting like this?  Well, it makes me feel a little better, and hopefully you are wiser than you were a few paragraphs ago, and if you are looking for a wedding photographer please interview the crap out of them to be sure they are competent before putting your wedding day in their hands.