I must be a good photographer - I have a Good Camera!

I had a brief stint as a wedding photographer, in the mid 1980's, and I was recently reminded of something that happened at that time...

I was photographing the bride and groom in a church garden, in Liverpool, with low afternoon sunlight behind the couple, using a fairly inexpensive TLR (twin lens reflex) with a reasonably good lens. There was basically nothing else to the camera, and so I was using a hand held meter to take a reading close from the bride.

When I got back to the tripod, a guest (a cousin of the bride) was snapping away at the happy couple with a 35mm camera, and so I thought I'd be helpful and said "by the way, have you compensated for that backlight?"


He turned to me with a conptemptuous look on his face and, in a thick "Scouse" (Liverpool) accent said "compensated for the backlight mate? You're joking aren't ya - it's a f***ing Nikon!"

The moral of the story is that when I took the album to the bride and asked about the photographs that the cousin had taken, the reply I got was - "they all came out black!"


Lots of so-called photographers out there today have managed to rake enough cash together to buy a high-end camera, set up a website and hand out a few hundred business cards. But what business do they really have selling themselves as professional photographers, with training or experience.

Have a look at this blog that spells out the dire consequences of hiring a "photographer" with no experience or training, to do a professional job (a wedding). Scroll down to the photos - they speak for themselves - and be warned. You get what you pay for!