I look at a meeting with a potential client as an educational experience. My job is to educate them on the importance of capturing their memories and their job is to educate me on what is most important to them regarding their event photography. But, every once in a while I’ll have someone ask me “Why can’t my uncle Bob take my wedding or mitzvah photos, he has a big camera?” This is a clear signal that they have no clue what the photographic craft is all about. They think that a ‘big’ camera – whatever that means – makes a professional photographer. They couldn’t be more wrong. It’s not the camera, it’s the LIGHTING! I can do the same with a $500 camera as with a $5000 camera. Yeah, the pro camera has more features and is more rugged, but take any given camera, set up the shutter speed, ISO and aperture identically to each other and the photo will be the same. A professional brings knowledge to the craft. Knowledge of lighting, exposure & composition and how all 3 work in unison to create images that look 3 dimensional rather than flat. And, I’ll give you a clue to our craft – direct lighting, however it is used, is flat out wrong. Whether it is shot through an umbrella/diffuser, raised up on a bracket, or bounced off a white card taped to the on camera strobe, it’s wrong. It’s still direct lighting. Direct lighting is flat lighting. It kills the shadows. If you don’t save/create some shadows on the faces, you won’t get any depth to the photos. People will look 2 dimensional. Just take a look at the most famous portrait photos in history. Think about it – we take a 3D subject and print a 2D representation of it on paper. I want a 3D subject to look 3D, regardless of how it’s printed! The attached 2 minute video clip of a mitzvah I did back in August shows that in order to achieve this look, you don’t need a studio with perfectly controlled lighting! You can still do it on location in a ballroom with people moving and dancing. Let’s see uncle Bob make his photos look like these! Big camera or not.
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