I Shot a Wedding
I shot a wedding once after I graduated college and haven’t done one since. That was way back in 2000. The wedding I shot was for a childhood friend and I just shot video. No photos, which I was fine with. I don’t think I even had a photo camera at the time. I had just graduated with a degree in Broadcast Journalism so I needed some sort of video portfolio other than what I had done in college to show potential employers and clients. I even hired an assistant! I told him, you shoot that, I’ll shoot this. I can’t even remember where the other camera came from that my buddy used. I think I have only helped a friend one other time with a wedding and again it was for video only.
Sixteen years later I was asked to shoot a wedding for a friend of the family…Shelley and her at the time fiancé, now husband, John. My thinking was, “I’m not a photographer…I shoot a lot of video with a DSLR, which is primarily a photo camera, but I’m mostly a video guy.” Then the thoughts of, “What if I goof and ruin their wedding memories forever?” I didn’t want to be that guy, but I said yes anyway because Shelley and John are sweethearts. Why not give it a shot? I have a nice camera that I have access to and I know how to take a photo, so let’s do it. Hopefully I wouldn’t ruin their day!
On a sidenote, I have a GoPro camera, so I found a $10 attachment that attaches a GoPro to the cameras ‘hot shoe’ which is usually reserved for a flash. So I was equipped to shoot video while shooting photos. Next level stuff! So Shelley and John will get a video of the wedding as well!
Long story short, the wedding took place without a hitch and was a beautiful event. The photos turned out great, but then now I have 600+ photos to go through and color correct! What? Thankfully I have an Adobe Creative Cloud account so I have access to Adobe Lightroom, which is built for batch processing photos. So happy to have found that solution early on. I was able to export hundreds of photos at once using Lightroom’s export feature into separate folders as to not overwrite the originals. Huge timesaver. Now I understand why photographers use it!
I even got a free meal out of it! I went to the reception to get some final shots and Shelley’s Dad asked that I stay for dinner. I did and am glad because I’m still thinking about the squash and broccoli pasta from The Good Table. Also got to speak with Shelley’s Uncle Earl who shared a few stories…one about when he met his wife 47 years ago before he was sent to Vietnam! I’m looking forward to the big party in September when I get to show them the final video…and maybe see Uncle Earl and the rest of the family. Hi Roger.
I’m not a full time wedding shooter as of yet, but maybe won’t hesitate as much when asked next time.