WHEN THINGS GO WRONG
THE NOT MY FAULT SCENARIO! — The worst feeling in the world is when the indoor flash pictures were ruined. The outside shots all shot in P mode and RAW seemed to work. After ten hours in Photoshop they worked wonderfully.
The storm is developing. We have a new shooter with stress, a low powered flash, untested and unfamiliar with, a dark room he never figured, mirrors, chandeliers and green walls. He had never seen the Church or lighting during the day or with the in-house lighting turned on and the people are moving! Think about that they move around, how unprofessional of them
That's why we developed the Anti-Blamesmanship Spray for Wedding Shooters. One simple spray and they will forget everything wrong you did. Brought to you by the same company that made Blamesmanship for Golf so successful. Thousands of golfers who couldn’t find their balls used Blamesmanship successfully.
Spray yourself and won't remember why you took the job. Here for your benefit are the most commonly used
expressions of blamesmanship. These are common blames, only one or two are needed to hopefully prevent a lawsuit. The order is it was a People, God, Location and Planners. Then spray them and they'll forget you.
THE PEOPLE BLAME —
Blame the (Please pick one) Bride, the Reverend, the Priest, the Rabbi, the Imam, the Witch Doctor, Mother-in-law, the Caterer, the Church layout, the Wedding Coordinator, the DJ, your helper.
THE GODLY OFFENSE BLAME — The weather, too much sun, wind, and the stars, global warming, the internet lost the pictures and the abominable snow man. Its God's Will! (God Wills printed on 80 lb. stock are available from Moses printing 235 E 17th Street, NYC, NY)
THE LOCATION BLAME — Blame the location for not allowing you to take over the place and interrupt the entire occasion because this is your day to explore your craft. After all the Priest could of paused when doing the Communion for you to blast his eyeballs out. “I feel sorry for the couple getting married. If they don't care enough to do the wedding right then what is the rest of the marriage gonna be like? Well, grain of salt here, and excuses
KILL THE WEDDING PLANNER SCENARIO! — Quote: “I simply finished taking all the shots at that wedding and decided I would not accept any further bookings from that planner. I guess weddings are stressful for many people involved in the event, including planners. Wedding planners are a dime a dozen, so I didn’t loose any sleep over not doing any more business with this particular planner!”
SYNOPSIS — As far as rejecting or accepting work from a specific wedding planner, I wouldn't make too much of an issue over it. Depends on where you live, they talk amongst themselves and if your local or town is small enough, you'll bury yourself. It is just like you'd be apt to warn another photographer about that planner. That changes the expression “talk is cheap, intro talk or excuses are expensive”. This could be a really dumb arrogant move.
JUST PART OF THE GAME — I truly feel up to ninety percent of the problems that pop at Weddings are not the Bride, Groom or anyone else’s fault. And that many of these problems can be avoided by an effort on behalf of the photographer. Newer shooters without experience have just walked into a minefield. Well maybe tap danced through a minefield is a better (and my favorite) metaphor. It’s just the nature of the beast and the learning curve. I place things that go wrong at a Wedding into two specific categories.
REAL PROBLEMS — These are things you can't control. These are beyond the scope of mortal man and acts of God. P-O-O-R- RESULTS occur from things you didn't control. Or you got lazy or took it for granted, or didn’t care.
PLANNING AND ANALOGY — You have to take the time and the initiative to coordinate and plan with the rest of the folks involved and know every nuance of what’s about to happen during the planning stages. If they don't or haven't done this, it's your job to wake the "stick" (carnival employee phrase for the wielder or boss officiate or planner) for the information. Everyone else brings something to the Wedding, the photographer is the only one that HAS to bring something home from the wedding!
ORGANIZATION — You have to know what is to be where and when and put all the parts into play that involves your part of the occasion. It's nice to make a list of all the things that went wrong that effected your work but as Michael Brown head of FEMA got blasted for “ You can blast the bureaucracy, but good management is what overcomes adversity”. He was a Bush appointment, something about “Birds of a feather, flock together”. Is a DORK a bird?
That’s what they pay a pro for. Newbies fail because they just don’t have the instinct of the pros to ward off the problems. By having an organization and a chain of command in place problems become “lets handle this" and be done.
OPPORTUNITIES — Weddings are great places for referrals and I talk about it a lot in several articles. They are great opportunities for you to show the clients you know what you are doing and to impress and solicit potential business. You are on stage as well as the Bride and Groom at a wedding. Just don’t get imbibed, jump on the dance floor and rip your clothes off while doing an Elvis impersonation.
RECON - TIME TO ADAPT, IMPROVISE and OVERCOME — I can't believe how many weddings get shot and all we hear is " I was told no flash when I got there; the light was really bad; I didn't know the reception was in the Church basement and they only had two 60 watt bulbs”, whatever. If you walked in blind you are the one that failed the exam.
Don’t blame the Bride, not the Groom and not the Planner. Knowing the turf, location, possible problems with lighting, position, and the mechanics of your gear is your responsibility. No one else to blame in a one man business is there, so we blame the folks who hired us or who we had to work with. Why didn’t you get off your bottom and check out the church and reception hall weeks before the wedding.