Re: [Leica] wedding disaster

[tedgrant@islandnet.com (Ted Grant)]

<<<<<<<<I'm in a cranky mood thanks to my crud-filled 50 summilux experience, so
forgive my tone, but I LOVE to shoot weddings.>>>>>>>

Hi Tom,

Hey in your state after receiving a crud crap lens I'd be in a really foul
mood also., "cranky" would hardly fit! :) So I accept your comments with
sympathy.:)

I shot so many weddings when I worked for a boss who knew how to make
zillions on after sales that I had to do, during the "high season of
stupidity...getting married!" :) two a day and on some, three weddings a
Saturday.  I really wanted to be shooting the football games. :)

I was given a "shot list of what to shoot" so it was "weddings by rote" not
like a photojournalist that I became later. No gratification other than
when I souped the 4X5 sheets of film I had images.

I never met the bride and groom until they arrived at the church, the
mother-in-law? hell I had to deal with the worst of the witches! :) I'm
being polite here.

So that when I started my own business I put, "I don't do weddings!" at the
top of the list of things I don't shoot.  However, "money talks and can
make you change your mind!" I turned down dozens of them until a friend who
knew how I shot my documentary work asked me to do his wedding in similar
fashion. All I had to do was shoot the wedding, give him the film after it
was over, he'd take it to a one hour lab and get the prints done. And if I
did it, he'd pay me $2000.00 up front plus the cost of film!

Well I gave in and shot the wedding as I would any photo-essay, on 35mm,
quietly doing my thing!  Damn it was so successful I had a dozen calls
within a week to do the same thing....turned them down! It's like, "been
there...done that! Don't want to do it again!"  Besides he was a friend,
big difference.

Today I wouldn't mind tying in with some wedding guy who did all the posed
stuff and formal things, while I did "my thing in B&W". Now that would be
fun and interesting, as each one would be a challenge to make magical
images that no one knew you were shooting.

So, you got any weddings you'd like to have the "old lad along doing B&W?" :)

>>>>If you know someone who needs a wedding photographer, have them call me>> G.

Hell who knows, we could make a bundle working to-gether. :)

ted