I've never had a camera fail during the few wedding I've shot but did
have a odd thing happen before the last (and hopefully the LAST)
wedding I shot. I was asked to shoot, and be best man, in a wedding
in the early 70's. This was a classic starving college student
wedding - I shot a few rolls of slides and a few of b/w. Everything
went well (we're still friends). Move on a few years and I was
dating the first brides sister for a short while. Move on a few
years more and the sister gets married, then gets divorced. Now it's
the mid 80's. Sister is going to get married again. We (my wife and
I) are invited to the wedding. On the Wednesday night before the
wedding the phone rings. The brides mother is on the phone and says
'you did such a nice job on her sisters wedding, (remember, this was
almost 15 years before) would you shoot the wedding Saturday?'
Ahhhhhh, wellll, sure. (Panic in the streets, as you can probably
guess). I was in the midst of a major house remodel and was
temporarily living with my in laws. Had to find camera gear, as in
'now where did I put that Rollie?' Ended up having to make a strobe
bracket to hold the Vivitar 285, the only strobe I owned. I hadn't
shot anything with the Rollie for years so I wasn't even sure it
worked properly. I ended up shooting 5 rolls of 120 and 2 rolls of
35mm with the OM-2S (just to be sure!) I was shocked over how well
everything came out. This was a outdoor wedding and even the flash
fill looked good.
I had the film processed and the usual proof set done. I put
everything in a nice proof book, and gave the the whole thing, minus
the negs, to the brides mother, along with a price list from the
processing house (my prices, not the usual markups). They loved the
pictures and I waited for orders for prints. And waited, and waited,
and waited.. They never did ask for any more prints other than the
proof book. Almost 10 years later I gave the negs to the brides
sister (bride #1, she's a photographer but lived out of state and
couldn't make the wedding).
The stress isn't worth whatever I could make on a wedding, even if
I'm shooting for a friend. Shooting the candids at the reception is
much more fun.
Tom
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
|