I Survived

For the last two months I've been studying what is required of a wedding photographer -- all in preparation for taking the wedding shots I'd agreed to do for free.

First, there were a lot of things going for me. The bride and groom were adorable and very concerned about not asking for too much. My goal was to have as close to a paid engagement as possible. From what I've read, the fact that I had a realistic, understanding bride was really lucky. I loved her.

Since I was learning how to do this all for the first time, I was thrilled when they suggested meeting a week before to get some formal portraits. The bride had no worries about her groom seeing her in her dress before the wedding, and since I've been doing headshots for the past year, I knew that whatever else happened, we'd have some good portraits. That shoot, which took about four hours including the trip down to Michigan Avenue was exhausting, but very educational.

And when I was finished I went to the nearest Barnes & Nobel and bought two more wedding photo books. Then, during the next week I continued to read and get more and more depressed.

I only have one camera, and according to the books even that camera is woefully inadequate. I've been haunting a photographer's website and posting questions, and all of the answers have been derisive. The general consensus was that I was insane to try to handle an entire wedding by myself with one camera. What if it failed? I'd ruin this once-in-a-lifetime day. How could I be so stupid and heartless?

So, the day came and was to begin at 10:00 in a beauty salon in the southwest suburbs. That part of the shoot was fine. The chapel, according to Mapquest, was thirty-seven minutes away.

The long and short of the story is that I HATE Mapquest. The thirty-seven minute drive actually took me ninety. I arrived at the chapel for the thirty-minute ceremony fifteen minutes late. As I pulled into the parking lot I was actually hyperventilating. I forced myself to take a few deep breaths and I assembled my camera. I flipped it on.

The LCD screen remained dark. I ripped it open and switched out the battery. Still dark. There was nothing to do but grab the tripod and run. As I approached the garden, the coordinator gave me the most evil glare ever generated by a living human. I dropped my bag and tripod and just started shooting, with no idea if the camera would function or not. After about five clicks, something fell into place and the camera began recording shots.

That's when I took my first breath.

The shots of the actual ceremony are not great. I need a longer telephoto lens to get the shots I want. Once the ceremony was finished, the coordinator informed me that I had twenty minutes to complete the formal portraits. And as I tried to set up the tripod, I discovered that it was broken. I had to shoot free hand. Not my strong suit. So, with every set up I did five or six takes. There was no time to check the quality of the shots or get fancy with composition. All I could do was herd people around and shoot.

Oh, did I mention that the bride's family made their first trip from Taiwan for the wedding. They spoke no English. And the groom's family was Mexican. Although they spoke English, there was a lot of awkward tension between the families. And there I was in the middle of it all trying to get a decent snapshot.

Thankfully, I've been through the ceremony shots and have about thirty good prints. That's more than I need for my website. And I posted them on my photographer's website for comments and got "not bad." Coming from that crowd, that's high praise.