A friend of mine is getting married and asked me to photograph it. I said NO because A. I'm an amateur with no experience, training, or skill and B. I don't want the pressure of it. Then as it turns out he basically can't afford a pro photographer so his choices are either I photograph it, or he gets someone else to do it with a point & shoot camera. Kinda sad, I know.

How much does a pro cost, and how do I find one? If the cost ends up being out of the wedding-gift range, would I still be stupid to do it then?

 

heres a cool idea,

Buy a bunch of disposable cameras and hand them out to the guest (hopefully there aren't a lot of guest). Hand them out during the ceremony and the reception... Towards the end of the day place a bag or box where guest can return the cameras. Develop them and you have hundreds of photos from different people, its a fun way to keep your guest entertained.

Along with that you can always snap photos too with a SLR. They know they won't be professional done, but it will be 100x better than some random guy with a point and shoot camera.


my gf's mother did this at her wedding and I was surprised and the hundreds of photos that came out really good and cute at the wedding.

 

Yes.



Even though i'm an amateur (5 months into it) there are a lot of expectations of me when I pull out the white lens and big body.

 

Awesome idea, thanks

 

My advice is that if you have to question it, you obviously already have reservations about doing it. I wouldn't do an event by myself unless I was 100% ready for the task.

 

That is a great idea

I'm with Ubetit - if you don't feel comfortable, don't do it.

 

wedding photos are spendy!

When I got married last year my photog cost us $1500, and that was severly discounted cause he is good friends of the family. One of my groomsmens wife brought his Nikon D80 with a SB600 flash. She is by far no pro, but her shots actualy came out better than the pro's! Our 8x10 in the living room is her photo LOL.

And we also did the hand out camera thing. That turned out real nice as well

 

You certainly don't have to do it. I always recommend a pro but some folks can't afford it. As an avid amateur I've done it for many friends over the years at their request (and usually as a wedding gift) but I like that disposable camera suggestion! My step-son is getting married in December and they are getting a pro with my blessing. I'll do a bunch of fill-photos for them but the definition of pro is getting the money shots every time.

Given that it costs me somewhere between $100 & $200 to print out samples (ink & paper) and make an set of enlargements, plus five hours or so processing labor (not to mention the shoot time), plus equipment wear-and-tear, it seems very reasonable to me that a cheap pro can still charge >$1,000 and the common rate is more than double that.

 

maybe your can do some keyshots. like 10 photos, cake, rings, kiss etc.

 

I say do it. Just be up front and let them know you will do your best. After all you are helping out, that can be your wedding gift to them. I did my sister in laws with the help of Eric9107. We never did any wedding or anything close to something like that but between us we had about 400 pics. After going through there were some bad ones that got deleted and some really good ones that could easily end up on a wall.

Lighting was the biggest challenge. I browsed Fred Miranda's site, the weeding section prior and that gave me a lot of good ideas.

Just my 2cents