From the Wedding Tip Series, providing a new piece of advice every Wednesday to help brides get the most out of their wedding photography. This Wednesday, we are proud to unveil tip six:
“Tell Uncle Bob to leave his camera at home!”
In the wedding industry, we call any photographer who is NOT the hired photographer for the event, but shooting as if they were, an “Uncle Bob.” With basic digital camera technology now well within the reach of a much larger consumer market, more and more people are out there shooting weddings or portraits on the side of their day jobs and calling themselves “professional photographers.”
This means that you never know when your wedding will provide the perfect opportunity for one of your guests to play professional photographer and try to build up a wedding portfolio. Or maybe they just really like taking pictures as a hobby, and they want to get some practice in. Either way, allowing them to do this will be great for them and very bad for you, as it will compromise your hired professional photographer’s ability to do his or her job. The easiest way to avoid this situation, is to just tell your known photographer hobbyist guests to leave their SLRs at home or, if they must shoot, advise them in advance that they should be respectful of the photographer you have hired for the event, and avoid doing any of the following:
1.) Stepping into the aisle during the ceremony at any point. This may block your photographer’s view at key moments, causing them to miss important shots. They should also avoid standing in their seats or off to the side of the proceedings, because if they are anywhere other than sitting in their seats, they are likely to be in the photos of the primary or secondary shooter if you have hired one. See the photo examples of these situations by an anonymous photographer (yes, that’s part of a guest’s suit in the picture on the right!).
2.) Shooting during the bride-and-groom photos or the group formals. When there are multiple shooters during this portion of the day, the people being photographed get confused where to look. Do they look at the photographer’s camera or Uncle Bob’s? If Uncle Bob calls for their attention, some of them will feel obligated to look at him or her. Then neither the hired photographer’s shots or Uncle Bob’s come out because half the people are looking at one camera and the other half are looking at the other. See photo examples by William Eng of these scenarios.
3.) Stepping onto the dance floor during the first dances. The thing that makes first dances such an amazing photo opportunity is that the photographer is really able to isolate the couple from the rest of the crowd and get an amazing, romantic shot. Allowing anyone else on the dance floor during this period limits the shots your photographer is able to capture, or great photo opportunities can be ruined. See the photo by Red Gecko Studio as the perfect example of what can happen to an otherwise good shot.
Generally speaking, please have your guests respect your photographer’s presence as the hired professionals for your event and refrain from compromising your photographer’s ability to do his or her job. Also, please remember, if you’re one of my brides, it’s in your contract that anyone not employed by my company found acting in the capacity of a professional photographer will be asked to stop shooting at your event.