Photographic ramblings...

Why a Professional?

Reasons to use a seasoned professional photographer-

#1 We have back-up equipment, and back up plans.

#2 When we need to go to a back-up, you might not even realize that it happened, or ever happened. Seasoned professionals are unflappable!

#3 We can and have dealt with many unexpected situations, your “event train” stays on the rails.

#4 We DON’T have magic software to “refocus” wedding photos! I get several calls a year from people who didn’t use me, but end up wishing they had.  The calls are heartbreaking, I’m not perfect, but in 30 years of doing this I’ve only had photos “lost” once because of a stolen camera, and never a whole wedding.  Knock wood, but see #1 and #2.

#5 I’ve had customers call saying; “my files are lost”, “grandma died”  can you get me the files or send the photo of grandma to the newspaper? Sometimes the “call” and photographs are separated by years! A professional keeps assets and can respond to these requests, sometimes, same day / or same moment, and many times;”no charge”.

#6 A professional won’t get you bothered for trespassing on private property, get you in trouble with the railroad people, or endanger your child.  Barefoot photos of kids in city alleyways, where broken glass and other hazards abound, isn’t the best place to rely on for family portraits.

#7 Having an air-conditioned studio is a great place to change outfits, and even make photographs! Changing outfits in the back seat of a car, on a side-street in the city, doesn’t make a lot of sense.

#8 My business pays taxes on income, sales, and property; and I’m also insured! Sure it’s nice to get a deal, but I pay taxes on the brick and mortar of downtown Lafayette, and yes “hobby” photographers benefiting from my efforts, as a stakeholder in “our” downtown does cause me to ‘scratch my head.’  In the end someone has to pay to “keep the lights on,” and for the firetrucks, police, navy, air force, and marines. I pay my share and sometimes theirs too. Just my .2cents.

#9 We won’t waste you or your family’s time.  We show up on time, know what to do, and can make a group photo at a wedding happen in less than a couple minutes.

Photography to some extent has become easy at least to those (consumers and creators) that are leaning on digital automation, auto focus, and auto exposure the most.  I was looking as some Hipstamatic image galleries and was surprised at the quantity of interesting images.  

Professional photography and making a living through photography in the future, photographers are going to have to offer something that can not be easily obtained by the masses.   

There will always be a need for the professional image maker in assignment situations where you can't toss a once in a while photographer in and hope for the best.

I think the last decade, since 2002, has been the start of the photographic "dark age". Not to say that there is not good work being produced and with great efficiency, but that so much bad and unenlightened work in great quantities is being produced.

So many people need the photographic validation, proof that they "were", or "did". Cell phone camera self portraits of grinning minions in front of a Chicago land-mark, most often a land-mark of consumerism.  Or a photo of yourself with the sandwich you are about to consume. The food and the photograph are often nauseating.

Digital photography and its ease of distribution and non existent opportunity cost or cost of creation is the reason for this explosion of photos on the world wide virtual slide-show that is FaceBook. 

Will there be a return of the fine photograph to the brick and mortar walls of the american home?  I think the current trend in both portraiture and wedding photography is suffering from this self indulgent style of photography.  

Still more than 75% of my photographic career was spent creating images on silver halide films of all sorts. Late nights, early afternoons and frantic or missed lunch hours spent in the darkroom both processing and printing images.

The digital age arrived and I photographed my first commercial assignment for Girtz Industries with an Olympus E-10.  I remembered being worried that the flashes from the welders and plasma cutters at this manufacturing plant would ruin the sensor in the E-10.  

From the E-10 I graduated to the Fuji S2, S3 and then S5 (they never made an S4).  I became comfortable photographing weddings and all manner of assignments and subjects at Purdue University with digital equipment.  

In the studio I bought a $55,000 Dicomed back for the Hasselblad for pennies on the dollar in 2005, I graduated to a Leaf Aptus a couple years later and still the Aptus on the Hasselblad can surpass what the D700 can achieve.