Everyone's a photographer

[Sevo]

This is bad for the traditional professional wedding photographer, but good for everyone else.

At least hereabouts "traditional professional wedding photographer" is pretty much the lowest life form in the trade - it is pretty safe to say that half the wedding guests are doing a better job on their cell phones that these scumbags (whose main job otherwise was doing mug shots, and whose only qualification up to a decade ago used to be one of Hitler's guild protection laws which gave them an exclusive privilege to photograph in registrars' offices).

[Jay DeFehr]

Brian, as usual, I disagree with almost everything you've written, and find your arrogant, smug tone particularly grating.

Our society as a whole is becoming one in which quality in any form is being devalued.

I agree, in principle, but not in your absolute terms, and not in this context.

If you're education (educated?), articulate, etc, you're an "elite" and that's a bad thing.

italics mine.

Unless you're applying for a job, in which case it's becoming a required thing.

Everyone is celebrity or has an attitude that they are because in the old days being a celebrity meant that you were celebrated for having accomplished something. Not anymore. Now the bigger the train wreck that is your life, the easier it is to become a celebrity.

How old are the old days to which you refer? Celebrity and scandal have gone side by side for as long as there has been either.

The reason why there are people who will accept a piss poor photo is simply because they are ignorant.

Syntactical problems aside, the above is as good an example of your arrogance as any. Clearly, there are people who disagree with you about what makes a photo "piss poor", but instead of considering their opinions, it's more convenient to label them ignorant. Classy!

If you look at wedding albums from the 1940's, 1950's, 1960's, they're beautiful.

The above would be more convincing if none of us had actually seen wedding albums from the 40s-60s. I think it's more accurate to say the quality of wedding albums during that period varied- a lot. That being the case, your point is lost.

Experience is a very relative thing.

Here, I agree completely!

That level of experience evolved because the requirements and competitiveness kept increasing. You were forced to get better just to survive. But now the required quality level in so many fields is dropping, and it is purely price that matters. Give me good enough that's cheap instead of give me something great that costs more. And in that world the photo poser can survive and the master photographer will struggle.

The above cuts to the core of your misunderstanding. In consumer products, quality is defined by the consumer, not by the producer, and the producer who fails to understand that will be marginalized by those who do. The U.S. was once the world's largest producer of radios- fine vacuum tube radios in beautiful wooden cases. We invented the transistor, but sold the patent to Sanyo because transistor radios were deemed to be of too low quality to compete with vacuum tube radios. I think you see where this is going; if everyone had the same ideas about quality you share with the vacuum tube radio makers, there would be no iPods. You can argue all you like about the superior quality of vacuum tube radios relative to iPods, but the world has settled the question in terms of what is valued by the consumer, which is what ultimately drives production. Thinking of wedding photography in terms of fine art is a mistake only photographers who misunderstand their role are likely to make.

The truly professional photographer has a facility, a studio to pay for. Has vastly more gear than the poser, because many jobs have differing requirements and the perfect tool is required for each and there has to be redundancy on gear because missing a deadline because of faulty equipment is not acceptable. The poser needs none of this. They have their day job, and while a blown assignment may make them feel bad, they'll still have a roof over their heads. For the professional blown jobs threatens their very ability to provide shelter and food for their family and they risk all they have worked for.

The above, including your arrogant use of the term "poser" is a good explanation of why the photographers you describe as "truly professional" are an endangered species.Chalk it up to the cognitive surplus, but the amateur is displacing the pro in more fields than I can list here. You can be as bitter, nostalgiac, or angry about it as you like, but it's not personal. The world has changed, and the professional wedding photographer's role in it has been diminished- not eliminated, but certainly diminished. Yet, people continue to be married, and like almost every conceivable event in their lives, their weddings are documented with photos, and increasingly, with videos made increasingly by themselves or people close to them. This hardly seems a tragedy to me.

[Jay DeFehr]

sevo,

Professional wedding photog's do seem to have a bad reputation, and many have earned theirs, but I don't want to disparage the trade absolutely. I know some PWP's who maintain the highest degree of professionalism and integrity, and who are highly skilled photographers, but none of the above makes them immune to the changes in the world I described in my previous post.

[Marko]

Anyone who's getting ready for their third marriage should know by then not to waste their money on a professional wedding photographer. Even I learned that. There is no album for the third, just some nice photographs made by a good friend. : - )

I agree.

But then again, what are the chances of someone getting ready to repeat the same big mistake for the third time would realize they shouldn't repeat a small one?

Purely theoretically speaking, of course. I'm still on my first marriage, which is also the number of weddings I shot. I tend to learn fast.

[Greg Blank]

Actually some of the better paying gigs were the second timers, or older folks that were getting rehitched. They didn't have the money the first go around -etc. Two of my favorites involved other photographers and I was chosen because I did B&W silver printing and my own color enlarging.

[Ed Kelsey]

Brian, as usual, I disagree with almost everything you've written, and find your arrogant, smug tone particularly grating.

As usual these kind of comments point more to the one making them than who they are aimed at. I saw nothing arrogant or smug at all.

[CantikFotos]

[Jay DeFehr]

As usual these kind of comments point more to the one making them than who they are aimed at. I saw nothing arrogant or smug at all.

Well, Ed, we're not all equally perceptive.

[Robert Hughes]

My teenage stepson has a dynamite electric guitar that cost a lot, and he's even pretty good on it. Does that make him a professional musician? He just bought 25 tickets from the local coffeehouse to sell to his friends at a modest markup, so yes, I suppose. He might even make enough to pay for gas to and from his show.

So he's not a real pro. OTOH he's a teenager - in 10 years he may be giving me his spare Bentley.

[Robert Hughes]

"I hope their memory card breaks on the 499th Shot!... Why don't they go wait tables, or work at a call center?"

Hitler Reacting to EVERYONE being Professional Photographers