Sunday:
Backstory: I'm a photographer by trade. I took a B&W photo class in high school with a visionary of a professor, got into landscape/nature photography, founded a photo business the summer after my senior year of high school (2010), and went from there. I've transitioned from nature photographer, to sports photographer, to photojournalist, to portrait photographer, and now work primarily as a fashion/beauty photographer, though I still shoot all other genres when the jobs roll along/when I feel like it. I've also shot weddings, which are a blast and a combination of many of the above styles/skills, with the added bonus of people wrangling. Seriously: everyone wants formal portraits with the family and bridal party after weddings, but NO ONE wants to pose for them. Not ever. Hence, the people wrangling.
Today was the wedding of a friend of mine, Z. Firstly, congratulations Z! Your wedding was a beautiful one, and impeccably well organized, particularly for a college wedding. I am so honored that you asked me to photograph it, and I had a blast doing it!
For a photographer, weddings are some of the most fun but also most exhausting shoots. They are never shorter than 6 hours worth of work (from preparation to reception, etc), there is inevitably drama of some kind, family wrangling to get formal portraits done is always a mix of a headache and a nervous breakdown, and then there is what happens after the day is over: post. "Post" or post-production work, refers to the selecting/editing/color correcting/cropping/retouching process that photographers go through after each shoot. Every photographer does it differently, and shoots vary in length and in the type of editing required afterward, but weddings are both very long and very editing intensive. They are doozies. As a result, they usually pay the bills pretty well (unless they are friends and family, and then they don't).
The other thing that wedding guests might forget about photographers at weddings? They need to look nice. Double standard aside, if you are a guy, it matters a little less. But a female photographer at a wedding? Lord, we need to be dressed and makeup-ed to the nines. And we need to do this some several hours before the wedding actually starts, since our wedding day starts when the bride first begins to get ready. You get the picture. This often means we wear dresses, which can be expository affairs if the wind blows and your hands are busy with camera. This also often means heels.
The wedding was a blast. It was also 8.5 hours worth of work, netting some 1300 photos. I thought myself reasonably well dressed and decently well makeup-ed (the makeup process gets a lot more interesting and requires a lot more strategy when a camera is mashed up against one's face for the better part of a day), and I even still looked sort of okay by the time I staggered back to my room and checked a mirror (though my friend said I had the eyes of a drug addict. Thanks buddy). But my oh my, were my feet tired. The heels that I chose were in the neighborhood of 4 inches, and I've actually walked all around NYC in them because they are so comfortable. What I forgot was that any pair of heels, let alone 4-inchers, become a lot less comfortable when one is carrying 25 lbs of gear for nearly 9 straight hours, without many breaks for sitting, and including several dashes after the bride/groom/wedding party/various guests. Woah. I only remembered this in the evening, when my work was done, and the adrenaline rush had faded. I'm grateful that I love my work well enough not to have noticed before then.
When I got home, grinning from the beauty of the day and from a feeling of contentment with a good day's work, I changed out of my fancy clothes, into some sweatpants, and resolutely set out for the library. This is the perfect encapsulation of my life: I switch back and forth between working professional and student, sometimes on a minute to minute basis. I'm at lunch with friends, discussing class, when a client calls about a shoot, and I book a bus ticket to NYC. It's how my life goes these days, but you know what? For as crazy and disorganized as it can be, I love it. I love the juxtaposition between my two worlds, and how each reminds me of my appreciation for the other one. Upon my arrival at the (computer science) library, where I was meeting a friend to do homework, I sat down on the couch and promptly fell asleep. For 12 straight hours. My friend, who we'll call V, said that he tried to wake me once or twice, but it wasn't working, so he went to bed on the other couch and let me sleep through till this (Monday) morning, when he was finally successful in waking me. Thanks V! Better late than never!
Until tomorrow,
Maggie
Backstory: I'm a photographer by trade. I took a B&W photo class in high school with a visionary of a professor, got into landscape/nature photography, founded a photo business the summer after my senior year of high school (2010), and went from there. I've transitioned from nature photographer, to sports photographer, to photojournalist, to portrait photographer, and now work primarily as a fashion/beauty photographer, though I still shoot all other genres when the jobs roll along/when I feel like it. I've also shot weddings, which are a blast and a combination of many of the above styles/skills, with the added bonus of people wrangling. Seriously: everyone wants formal portraits with the family and bridal party after weddings, but NO ONE wants to pose for them. Not ever. Hence, the people wrangling.
Today was the wedding of a friend of mine, Z. Firstly, congratulations Z! Your wedding was a beautiful one, and impeccably well organized, particularly for a college wedding. I am so honored that you asked me to photograph it, and I had a blast doing it!
For a photographer, weddings are some of the most fun but also most exhausting shoots. They are never shorter than 6 hours worth of work (from preparation to reception, etc), there is inevitably drama of some kind, family wrangling to get formal portraits done is always a mix of a headache and a nervous breakdown, and then there is what happens after the day is over: post. "Post" or post-production work, refers to the selecting/editing/color correcting/cropping/retouching process that photographers go through after each shoot. Every photographer does it differently, and shoots vary in length and in the type of editing required afterward, but weddings are both very long and very editing intensive. They are doozies. As a result, they usually pay the bills pretty well (unless they are friends and family, and then they don't).
The other thing that wedding guests might forget about photographers at weddings? They need to look nice. Double standard aside, if you are a guy, it matters a little less. But a female photographer at a wedding? Lord, we need to be dressed and makeup-ed to the nines. And we need to do this some several hours before the wedding actually starts, since our wedding day starts when the bride first begins to get ready. You get the picture. This often means we wear dresses, which can be expository affairs if the wind blows and your hands are busy with camera. This also often means heels.
The wedding was a blast. It was also 8.5 hours worth of work, netting some 1300 photos. I thought myself reasonably well dressed and decently well makeup-ed (the makeup process gets a lot more interesting and requires a lot more strategy when a camera is mashed up against one's face for the better part of a day), and I even still looked sort of okay by the time I staggered back to my room and checked a mirror (though my friend said I had the eyes of a drug addict. Thanks buddy). But my oh my, were my feet tired. The heels that I chose were in the neighborhood of 4 inches, and I've actually walked all around NYC in them because they are so comfortable. What I forgot was that any pair of heels, let alone 4-inchers, become a lot less comfortable when one is carrying 25 lbs of gear for nearly 9 straight hours, without many breaks for sitting, and including several dashes after the bride/groom/wedding party/various guests. Woah. I only remembered this in the evening, when my work was done, and the adrenaline rush had faded. I'm grateful that I love my work well enough not to have noticed before then.
When I got home, grinning from the beauty of the day and from a feeling of contentment with a good day's work, I changed out of my fancy clothes, into some sweatpants, and resolutely set out for the library. This is the perfect encapsulation of my life: I switch back and forth between working professional and student, sometimes on a minute to minute basis. I'm at lunch with friends, discussing class, when a client calls about a shoot, and I book a bus ticket to NYC. It's how my life goes these days, but you know what? For as crazy and disorganized as it can be, I love it. I love the juxtaposition between my two worlds, and how each reminds me of my appreciation for the other one. Upon my arrival at the (computer science) library, where I was meeting a friend to do homework, I sat down on the couch and promptly fell asleep. For 12 straight hours. My friend, who we'll call V, said that he tried to wake me once or twice, but it wasn't working, so he went to bed on the other couch and let me sleep through till this (Monday) morning, when he was finally successful in waking me. Thanks V! Better late than never!
Until tomorrow,
Maggie
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