Hey guys,
So today I was surfing the waves of the web and I came across a wicked article by Krystal Wynn on bridepop.com, the link to the article is below but here is a slightly abridged version for you to peruse.. Enjoy!
~ 3 Reasons to Hire a Professional Photographer~
When planning a wedding everyone is looking to save money and while a saving of £500 seems like a great thing in the immediate term, whether you spend it now or later doesn’t really matter. However what will matter are the memories from your wedding day and how well they are captured.
It may seem like an attractive offer to use an amateur, after all they are almost always cheaper and they seem to know what they are doing right? Well in a word, no. This may sound like a blatant smear campaign coming from professional photographers but having been amateurs ourselves I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I would not have wanted to shoot a wedding at that stage of my career. There is too much at stake: loss of precious memories, friendships, money and reputation…. it just isn’t worth the risk.
So here are 3 good reasons for hiring a professional:
~ uno ~ Professionals have all of the gear:
Forget the cameras, lenses, flashes and all of the other shiny toys, because realistically anyone can buy those at the local jessops.
It’s the mind behind the machine that counts more. Professionals know how to get a good shot and know when to get them. They can read a situation and follow the flow of the day so they can capture all of the special moments. Professionals will also be able to work with whatever situations crop up, that includes having back up and contingency plans in place for any unplanned eventualities.
~ dos ~ Professionals have the Time they need
A wedding is a big deal. It’s eight or more hard-core hours of shooting with very little time to collect your thoughts and figure out what to do next. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. In an eight-hour wedding, your photographer will capture anywhere from 1500 to 2500 images. That is a huge number. Have you ever gone on holiday and taken that many photos? It’s a lot of photographs to deal with. And while you probably didn’t do much with the photos from your vacation, your photographer will need to meticulously comb through all the photographs one by one, removing the duds and tweaking and processing the rest.
For an amateur with established workflow to keep him organized and on-track (and motivated, I must add. Trust me, it’s hard!), it probably will be a long time before you see your wedding photos. Three to four months might be optimistic. After all, they have jobs, families and lives to attend to. A professional, on the other hand, has an established workflow, will have budgeted his time, and will be able to deliver your photographs in their best condition, and in a timely manner.
~ tres ~ Professionals have plenty of Experience
Your wedding day will be a complex event with a lot of moving parts. Your photographer, while capturing images of you and your spouse getting ready, will have to find time to snatch shots of the details—like your rings, dress, shoes, jewelry and decorations. When you have finished getting ready, he’ll have to shift gears immediately into the ceremony where he’ll need to remember where he can and can’t go without disrupting the ceremony and distracting the guests who are trying to focus on the commitment you’re making. Then, almost instantly, he’ll have to arrange and pose a big collection of people he doesn’t know and who aren’t accustomed to being photographed and really just want to party. And, he’ll need to do it in the 50 or so minutes available. When that’s over, he’ll have to change gears again to shoot in a variety of shifting light situations where the ‘auto’ mode on the camera is woefully inadequate.
There are countless things that could go differently than expected. What if the DJ brings some dance floor lighting effects? The professional photographer knows how to make his equipment meet the challenge. An amateur might not. What about a guest with a camera fighting for your attention too? The professional knows how to handle them gracefully without sacrificing the images you’ve paid him to create. What if the wedding planner hasn’t warned him that you’re about to cut the cake? The professional will be ready and forceful enough to wedge through the crowd to catch it in time. As an amateur, I had a great deal of difficulty with that sort of situation. As a professional, I’m not at all shy about it.
But the topic of experience goes even farther. The professional will be all over the place, capturing images of a huge array of people. If the amateur photographer is a friend, other friends of his probably will be at your wedding also. Most amateurs will be drawn to spend a lot of the time in the company of, or near, the people they know. This often results in a huge number of photographs of a few particular people, and the loss of other images that may be more important to you. Even if the professional you hire is a friend, his experience will keep him on track, not distracted by guests he knows.
Additionally, professionals will see their attendance at your wedding as a service to you. Some amateurs may not. If the amateur sees himself as a guest, rather than as a vendor adding to your total wedding experience, you may end up without some images you wished you had. The amateur photographer might also be unacquainted with important wedding vendor etiquette. This could range from very minor things, too much bigger problems (Though it’s far from typical, as a child, I attended a wedding where an amateur photographer, a friend the bride thought was ready for the challenge, became intoxicated and there were no usable images! Snapshots by other guests are all that she has.) The professional, on the other hand, fully understands why he is there and he will act accordingly.
You may not have considered these things, but the professional has.
~ in conclusion ~
There are lots of ways and places to save money on your wedding. But don’t risk losing something you’re going to cherish for the rest of your life. Save on the cake, or the flowers, or the decorations, or the food—the things that will be gone the very next day and forgotten in a week by almost all of your guests. But trust the important, life long things to a professional who fully grasps the importance of the job.
Every professional was once an amateur with a lot to learn. If making mistakes is key to learning, you don’t want your wedding day being the classroom. Instead, if you have a friend who wishes to build a portfolio or get into the game, ask your professional photographer to allow him to shoot as well. With a little coordination between your professional photographer and your amateur friend, you can rest easy knowing the photography is under control and you can feel good about giving your friend a chance to gain experience he might not otherwise get.
After all, friendships are important and you don’t want something like bad images, or worse, no images, destroying them. Hire a professional, and set you mind at ease. On this matter, anyway.
Article from bridepop.com at:
http://bridepop.com/advice/professional-for-wedding-photography/
