Have you ever screwed up a wedding shoot?

[londonandlawson]

What happened? I am only an amateurish noob but even as a professional i wouldn't want to take on a wedding

[tim]

I've missed two or three shots I wanted in five years, and neither was critical. I think that's pretty good. Being organised is pretty essential.

[Peacefield]

Me, too. Nothing disasterous; just a few shots missed here or there. Or a shot that would've been much improved if I was standing other than where I was. Nothing that anyone ever missed; or at least they never mentioned so to me.

The closest I came to a problem was running out of flash cards at a time I had a full weddding party (17 people in total) outside for portraits and my assistant was elsewhere with my supply of cards. I just tamped down to a lower RAW until he returned so even that wasn't a problem.

[cchooks]

I have shot over 1000 weddings/events and in all that time only had one problem. Once I was deadly, deadly sick, I mean 103 temp, and throwing up all over. I remember little of the 50th anniversary. I had an E-shoot in the morning outdoors, and went to the 50th with the same settings. My lab saved me pretty much, the shots were not great but the groups were small and I was in tight enough that the exposure was good enough to get me some semi-semi enough shots.

David

[RDKirk]

Nearly. Fortunately, I was shooting alternately with two cameras. One of them had a problem that did not reveal itself during shooting.

[dynamitetony]

long time ago i took on a job that was above my expertise level

made a bit of a mess of it.

it made me make sure i learnt from my mistakes and never let that happen again

you know when you have the skills and experience to take on a full wedding on your own/ (and you know when you dont)

[madhatter04]

Yes.. by relying on my partner to get some critical shots when she only wanted to use her 16-35 L for everything. Lesson learned: work alone.

[shannyD]

luckily i was only the second shooter.. But i didnt know the 85l i had rented was front focusing the way it was.. even stopped down to f5 a lot of the times.

i jus couldnt tell on my screen because they looked ok on the screen till i got them home.

out of something like 700 images, i got maybe 100 keepers.. i was pretty peeved.

i should have rented it much further in advance so i could have seen this problem sooner.

shan

[joshr03]

I just shot my first wedding, I wouldn't say I screwed it up but I definitely didn't do as well as I hoped I would. Everything moved much quicker than I expected, I got far less keepers than I wanted. Although I captured the important shots, I didn't do it well. I agreed to the shoot for a friend because they didn't have the budget for a pro. The reception lighting was terrible, I had to overpower it with my flash which was on camera because I forgot my oc-e3 on the way out. I'm so disappointed in myself right now and I'm dreading going through the pictures, I hope I have enough shots for the album.

[Peacefield]

ShannyD is reminding me of one thanks to the 85mm lens. I had just gotten my shiney new 85L 1.2 and was looking for pretty much any excuse to shoot with it during the next wedding. I knew it had a reputation for being a slow focuser but I guess didn't consider how that would manifest itself. I had it mounted along with a flash to catch the family, bridal party, and couple making their entrance into the banquet hall. Well, in that dark space, the lens NEVER found focus which means the camera woudn't fire. It took me a while to realize what was going wrong and then another little while to take the flash and throw it on one of my other cameras and begin shooting. By then, we were half way through the bridal party. Not the worst that could happen, but it was a real sinking feeling while it was all going down.

[Cosha]

I said no to a wedding for these reasons :D

I am a amature, that can only taking amature pictures, my camera has advance settings, this does not make me a pro! :D

[picturecrazy]

Yeah... card failures. Lost some shots. It sucks.

[DarenM]

In the old days..forgot to set the shutter speed to x synch, therefor..no pictures at all..and in those days, you couldnt chimp, film would spoil if you opened the back.

[bnlearle]

Nothing... yet!

[picturecrazy]

In the old days..forgot to set the shutter speed to x synch, therefor..no pictures at all..and in those days, you couldnt chimp, film would spoil if you opened the back.

damn, are we going back that far? Once the film wasn't loaded quite right and I thought I was advancing the film but I was just exposing the same piece over and over again.

Another time I was shooting Kodak HIE film and forgot to use the IR focusing offsets and took a whole bunch of out of focus F/1.4 IR photos.

And I can't count how many times I dropped the darn roll when pulling it out of the camera. Many close calls almost into mud puddles, sewage drains, and lakes/rivers.

I'm so glad to be shooting digital now.

[Mike]

I broke my finger last year a week before a wedding - I had surgery on it 3 days later and couldn't hold a camera properly. I had to find a replacement shooter pdq!

[AngelaDuncanPhotography]

I forgot to pose the groom with groomsman shot during the formals. Although, I was working with a coordinator who was reading the list to me - but I was getting paid, she wasn't.

They were upset, but also good friends of mine so it was understood as human error. I was mortified when I realized it as I was dumping images that night after the wedding.

[AlexMoPhotography]

At a wedding I shot in October, I kept walking back and forth to get good shots during a ceremony.

One of the guests got my attention, so I came over to him. He whispered to me that I almost walked backwards into the pool several times. Yikes!

[Peacefield]

I almost walked backwards into the pool several times. Yikes!

Certainly, not on that scale; nothing catastrophic, but far too often, I step on the bride's veil or train.

[PaulaLynn]

I am an amature. I shoot with an xti. I have done 4 weddings to date. Each and every time I shoot a wedding, I always come back saying "DAMMMMIT!!!! I SOOOO SUCK! Time to throw in the towel and NEVER do this again!" I shoot again though because oddly enough, the client is always happy... LOL. I think most times we are more critical of ourselves than we need to be, as long as we continue to learn from our "mistakes" we will continue to get better.

My biggest screw ups include;
1. Ran out of space on my card just as they were exchanging rings, left my extra's in the car (first wedding)... ****! PANIC! No prob, switched to JPEG... all good. Lesson learned; DON'T BE A DUMMASS! LOL

2. Last wedding; did not get pic of sister/groom signing register. Bride has actually asked for that pic, told her, sorry, JP stood up and I could not get around her to get the pic, Bride dissapointed, but what can you do? Lesson learned; STAGE SHOOT AFTERWARDS

Each and every time someone asks me to shoot a wedding, I break out into a cold sweat, but I always say yes because the only way I can improve is to first do it wrong.

[ryant35]

I shot my first wedding this past September for a friend who couldn't afford a pro. They did hire a pro for 3 hours that was a friend of the bride's mom, but tried to cut him back to 1 hour, but signed a contract. This took some of the pressure off for the actual ceremony and the posed shots afterwards.

So what I did wrong and how a learned:

-I rented a second 40D, grip, & 580EXii so I had the exact same setup for each lens to avoid a learning curve. Too bad the camera store only has the 580EXi. - I forgot to look up the manual and check out the custom function settings to turn of the focus assist, so I had to switch flashes between cameras in low light. Learned - READ THE MANUAL! I already knew this but it didn't occur to me this time.

-I took the steps to sync the time on the 2 camera bodies with the EOS Utility software. Too bad the software doesn't sync the DAY TOO! so after the wedding when all my photos where out of order I noticed the rented body had the wrong date! Learned - Check more carefully!

- I had this great photo idea between the hotel where the bride was getting ready and her selected shooting location, but after 3pm the bridal party would be in the dark shade of a high rise and the background was still very brightly lit. So the plan was to shoot a 1pm, but everybody was late. I didn't have time to shoot more than a couple of shots since the bride was worried about getting to her own wedding on time. I was too far for flash and didn't turn up the power high enough. I did fix the shot in post by desaturating the background a leaving the girls in color. Every body loved it. Learned - Don't just drive by and look, bring a model and try the shot in the tough lighting conditions.

- Bride was late and refused to walk any farther to the selected shooting locations, and to shoot with buildings and restaurant signs in the corners of my shots. Learned - Don't let the bride sit and relax and waste time?... I guess. She was a friend so maybe I could have pushed harder. Not much I could do about this.

- Missed the groom's first reaction, so did the other pro... oops. I did get the father of the bride with tears in his eyes as requested. Learned - Be assertive and get where I need to be and not worry about walking in front of guests.

- Cake cutting shots are too dark, shooting too fast and not chimping enough. There was a patio cover with white lattice but it wasn't enough to bounce. Only my flash had my Stofen diffuser on it and I couldn't rent another... Learned - I should have switched flashes & checked my shots sooner.

I guess that's about it, I'm still pretty happy with my results.

[picsofmykids]

For my first wedding I was getting ready to take pics of the rings with a flower before the service and I dropped his and it rolled across the tile floor. Oh my goodness I felt terrible, didn't really phase the groomsmen standing around watching me do the pics LOL! It rolled under a couple rows of chairs and everything yikes! I was happy to take the pics and give the rings back to the groomsmen

[tim]

At a wedding I shot in October, I kept walking back and forth to get good shots during a ceremony.

One of the guests got my attention, so I came over to him. He whispered to me that I almost walked backwards into the pool several times. Yikes!

I stepped into a lake once during a ceremony. It wasn't deep so I didn't fall, but some of the guests heard. I just took it out and kept shooting with one wet foot! Someone mentioned later they were impressed that I didn't seem to even miss a beat!

I am an amature. I shoot with an xti. I have done 4 weddings to date. Each and every time I shoot a wedding, I always come back saying "DAMMMMIT!!!! I SOOOO SUCK!

I felt like that for the first two years I photographed weddings. I've gotten better at judging so now I only feel like it when it's deserved.

[RT McAllister]

Yes.. by relying on my partner to get some critical shots when she only wanted to use her 16-35 L for everything. Lesson learned: work alone.

Ha! As a second shooter I think I've covered by boss' arse more than once. :D But that certainly doesn't qualify me to go solo. Quite frankly, it scares the crap out of me and I'd probably get sued by my first client.

I did wedding video for 7 years before I did this as a 2nd and always thought photographers had it easy (less gear to carry, less time in post, first ones to leave the reception, more money). You guys that do this for a living are freaking nuts and if you haven't made it to age 50 yet I hope you get there. :D

I am still totally mystified by all the careful orchestration you guys need to do to pull this off. Not to mention the technical expertise this job requires. For now, I'm just satisfied with being told what to do.

[sando]

Forgot to take a ring shot on the last wedding. No biggie, but it's a nice shot to have.

[bric-a-brac]

Yes.. by relying on my partner to get some critical shots when she only wanted to use her 16-35 L for everything. Lesson learned: work alone.

nononono friend, you've got it all wrong. working with a 2nd shooter is wonderful, your approach is just all wrong. just don't tell them they're a 2nd shooter. tell them they're an assistant. proceed as follows:

DON'T: expect worthwhile images from them. just show up under the assumption that they're going to leave all their batteries at home or use a slice of cheese for a CF card or something else dumb. I don't trust 2nd shooters for any photography. If I tell them I want a specific shot from "over there," it's really just an ego soothing euphemism for don't stand "here" while I'm thinking/working/hitting on an attractive bridesmaid. I treat any useable images out of an assistant's camera as a personal bonus.

DO: utilize your new labor force! a "2nd shooter" is great at carrying stuff and getting me coffee. They also make excellent light stands.

[RT McAllister]

a "2nd shooter" is great at carrying stuff and getting me coffee.Hey! RT does not do coffee. (I might hurt someone).

They also make excellent light stands.Which end goes on the floor? I always forget. :o

[Dunedan]

Forgot to take a ring shot on the last wedding. No biggie, but it's a nice shot to have.

That is a really easy one to recreate though.

[locky]

My last wedding was my worse. First I used a friends stroboframe and when viewing the pics I could see that the top half of the pics seemed dark but this was not uncommon with my screen. Well when downloaded on the computer it was worse than it looked. The flash was angled to low and almost all of my images I had to lighten the faces in the shot. Also after the wedding I was headed to the reception and my heater core went out in my truck and I had antifreeze pouring out on my floorboard and my truck started over heating about 10 miles from the reception hall. So I pulled over to let my truck cool down and there goes the wedding party passing me in the Limo. So I grabbed a gallon of windshield washing solvent I had in the back of my truck and poured that into the radiator. So now the wedding party is ahead of me by abouts 10 minutes. So I head to the hall with my truck running like crap and I see the wedding party lined up getting ready to walk into the hall. So I run just ahead of them and start clicking away. If I was 10 seconds later I would have missed the shot of the bride and groom walking into the reception.

[Mike R]

I am a amature, that can only taking amature pictures, my camera has advance settings, this does not make me a pro! :D

WRONG! Just ask Canon marketing dept. :lol:

[tim]

If I was 10 seconds later I would have missed the shot of the bride and groom walking into the reception.

I personally don't find people walking into a room very interesting, I don't always take that photo.

Sounds like you need more reliable transport. Rent a car for weddings? I did that for two years when I lived in the middle of the city and didn't own a car.

[locky]

I personally don't find people walking into a room very interesting, I don't always take that photo.

Sounds like you need more reliable transport. Rent a car for weddings? I did that for two years when I lived in the middle of the city and didn't own a car.
You give them what they want. And actually it was pretty nice with all the bubbles floating in the air.

You would think a truck less than a year old with just under 9000 miles on it that you pay $38,000 for would be a reliable vehicle. New cars do break down also. It was just a faulty heater core that was replaced under warranty.

[tim]

That sucks about the truck! Hope they've fixed it for you. My 5 year old corolla seems good, but I have the number of taxi firms and rental car companies in my phone, just in case :)

[fontanka]

Nearly. Fortunately, I was shooting alternately with two cameras. One of them had a problem that did not reveal itself during shooting.
what kind of problem?

reg the topic:
in my not taht long experience I just know one thing for sure: once in a huge while you will meet a client (usually female), who would find her way to the problem and drama, even if it's all just in her mind.

[bigarchi]

You give them what they want. And actually it was pretty nice with all the bubbles floating in the air.

You would think a truck less than a year old with just under 9000 miles on it that you pay $38,000 for would be a reliable vehicle. New cars do break down also. It was just a faulty heater core that was replaced under warranty.


sounds like a chevy! jk ;)

but seriously, i had a coworker that rented a jetta for a big meeting and it died on him on the way there, unbelievable! but rentals aren't treated very well, around here anyway.
locky- its amazing you were able to get there before they entered the reception!

[loscocco]

Recently did my first weeding and i was quite nervous but it turned out well and now i have 2 more people asking me to shoot their weddings next year.
I don't think i will do it even though they like the photos they have seen.
Erin

[bigrob]

My 5 year old corolla seems good.

Can't beat a Toyota. That's what we had in Africa when I was growing up (because they were so reliable).

That's why I have always bought Toyota as well. They may not be fancy but they work.

[111t]

I haven't had too many screwups. Knock on wood. There are certain big shots that you absolutely cannot miss. The kiss obviously. I get a lot of 'catch the moment' candid shots. If one of them doesn't turn out then oh well. In my experience people don't miss photos they haven't seen. (except the ones they specifically ask for.)

The worst screw up i ever witnessed was when i worked in a lab at a local photo store about 10 years ago. First of all let me preface this by saying that i live in a small town, and the standards here are pretty wide. There are some seasoned established pros that get the big buck work and a lot of people who are getting married that just can't afford it. The market hasn't changed much in these last years.

Anyway, we were the only serious lab within 100 miles so we got to know every level of photog out there. This one lady used a matched pair of pentax zx-10's to shoot weddings. I don't know if any of you remember but that was a fairly lightweight camera. She shot this wedding wondering why she was getting 40-41 shots per roll of portra.

One of the failings of the entire zx line was the advance motor would fail to advance the proper distance.

What a disaster. I don't know what she did. Some of the shots were probably salvageable. They would have had to be manually printed though as no minilab machine would recognize the overlapping frames.

LESSON: If any of your gear starts to act a little funny. Figure out what is up with it THEN AND THERE and switch to the BACKUP equipment you've brought with you. In some ways digital is better for this. It's much more likely that you'll become aware of a failure as it happens with modern gear.

[michelgauthierdesign]

I have messed up one. I would have to say 90% of the picture where bad.

Here is the situations:

1-
Out of town wedding, a couple of hour before leaving, my newborn child gets admitted to the intensive care (8days old), i could not find anyone else to replace me. (the child died the age of 10 days)

2-
Four hours of shooting, prepared and booked last minutes (one week), all done in a hotel in montreal, (civil wedding), a place that I have never been and that is 2 hours form my residence.

3-
The preparation (guys), they are 30 minutes late, 5 guys getting prepared in a hotel room that is about 200 square feet. no good light, lots and lots of stuff laying around the room, the groom is not crazy about getting himself photographed.

the preparation (girls) in the same hotel room, now about one hour late because they stopped to eat at mcdonald... some quick shoot, but the room is cramed with people and baggage from and stuff from about 10 guest now.

The formal photo (before the ceremony):
In the lobby, the couple had a <<good spot in mind>>, but lighting is horrible, decoration is bad (one leather couch, white wall and a fire extenguisher.... The couple does not want to go outside for photo and refuse to <<try>> another location 50 feet from there (wall water fountain). They are now about 90 minutes late and the formal picture had to be taken in about 15 minutes (ALL of them). I started with some test picture of the bride and groom so i can adjust the camera (both of them black, him wearing white, her wearing beige, under fluorescent lighting....), I normally start the big group and finish small, but once I got to the bride and groom alone, they said they don't want anymore picture and everyone had to go to the ceremony location...

They actually sit alone in the lobby for an additional 45 minutes, the officiant was so mad, that he actually grabbed all of his material and left, but a couple of guys got back to him and convinced him to do the ceremony.

The ceremony is a place that has about 200 people, but in place set up for 100...bad lighting, bad decoration and the couple is now about 2 hours late (again, for a 4 hour wedding shoot). The ceremony itself is short. but in front of them is the bowl of punch with all the glass...and a flower pot that is about 5 feet hight..... I had to remove the pot just to get picture.

The ceremony ends, I get a call from my wife telling me to hurry back home, my son's situation is getting worse, I am now into my 5th hour of shooting, and the bride comes to me and ask me.....<<you have to take a picture of everyone before you leave>>. I go around all table, spending about 15 second each telling them to say cheese and click (some even had food in their mouth while I took the picture.

I was embarresed to present the picture, but they did not cooperate at all for the situation. still, I intend on giving them their money back.

[Milla]

Michel G, I'm so sorry about your son :( My condolances.

[tim]

Sorry to hear about your son Michel.

Having to leave early may call for a discount, but their non co-operation doesn't. Due to circumstances beyond my control at my previous wedding (ie they just messed around) we had ten mins for wedding party photos. It's not my job to decide how to spend the time on the day, it's my job to do the best I can with the time i'm given.

[Valjoy]

So sorry to hear about your son.
Totally agree with Tim ...you just have to do the best you can with the time available, no matter what the circumstances...if they are not co operating or are running late...then they cannot expect photos to be of the quality you advertised. (This is in my contract)
cheers Val

[kLein]

Michel G, so sorry to hear that. My thoughts and prayers go out to you and your family.

I shot my first wedding last weekend and I totally missed the "first kiss" and my second shooter was a fraction of a second too late. Everything else went well. Im just hoping all the other great images will make up for it=/

[Adaptive]

- One of my very first weddings was of a black couple in a very dark church. All I had was 2 20D's and 2 580's or whatever was the best at the time 20d's were new. Needless to say i relied heavily on flash power. And flashes need batteries.. and unfortunately I only brought 1 set of batteries for each flash and both sets were already mostly drained from my shoot the day before. Talk about a wedding from hell, had to borrow batteries from one of the people working in the church half way through the ceremony... embarassing!!!!

- forgot to do bridal party pictures one time before (but the bride and groom didn't notice or care) but it really wasn't my fault because they wanted to spend their cocktail hour drinking, I probably could have figured out another way to get the bridal party pictures I needed but I didn't really bother to try because they were too happy drinking their brains out the entire night. Love it and hate it at the same time...

- Started the day off going to the brides house, only to find that we were starting at the brides sisters house. Good thing we got to the brides house 15 minutes ahead of schedule and the brides sisters house was only 10 minutes away... Talk about panic attack!!!

- Sent an album to the wrong address, thank god they sent it back

- Had a faulty off camera shoe cord, kept changing batteries and flashes trying to figure out why my flash was acting up.. Good thing I keep backups of my equipment. That was more of a FAIL than a wedding blooper.

- Occasionally miss kisses at the alter, not a big deal though I always get staged kisses afterwards. Don't always get the grooms reaction, it's not too commonly asked for but is becoming more popular so I usually always stage it afterwards, videographers always appreciate me taking the time to do it too because they rarely have the time to get their expressions.

- Dropped a rear lens cap in the back of the church during a quiet moment at the ceremony once. I saw it falling so I quickly reached to catch it and ducked down at the same time, so no one knew what the noise was luckily. hehehehe

- Positioned myself to get my famous shot of the groom taking off the bride garder (crouched down and to the right to get a side view of the action) when the bride turned towards me and lifted her leg in my direction i was super embarassed and red faced and stood up and tried to reposition and the brides father came over and jokingly was pretending to yell at me. Super embarrassing I think they planned that (they were my friends).

There's probably more but I can't think about it right now.

[RT McAllister]

Dropped a rear lens cap in the back of the church during a quiet moment at the ceremony once. I saw it falling so I quickly reached to catch it and ducked down at the same time, so no one knew what the noise was luckily. hehehehe:D

I had one of those memory card wallets with a flap sealed by velcro. I was changing cards during a ceremony and opened the flap really fast without thinking. Everybody within 5 pews turned to me with cold stares. Talk about wanting to crawl off somewhere and hide.

Funny how they never seem to mind the toddler that wails and screams non-stop though.

[auroraskye]

I have had a few errors that have taught me a lesson but as a whole, no huge disasters.. However.. at one of my September weddings, I was crouching down to get a ring shot during the reception and I split my pants right down the back seam. They were old slacks, about four years old, and had been worn hundreds of times. They looked fine, but the seams obviously weren't as sturdy as they once had been. Luckily, the only person to witness it was my husband (who is my second shooter). I have a sling bag, and I pulled the tank top I was wearing under my button-down, down as far as it would go, and I slung my bag around to cover my butt. I did this, carefully, the rest of the reception.. lol.. Plus, went with the B&G to a second location for post-reception photos!

If I had thought about it, I would have used my black duct tape to tape up the pants on the inside.. would have been great.. but I was totally blank LOL. I still think the whole situation is pretty hysterical and nobody at the wedding ever knew.

[KFormus]

My first paid gig I was shooting inside @ ISO1600, went out in full sun and forgot to put the ISO to 100 :oops:

Same gig, I still don't know how this happened but I had about 20 shots left on the card according to my camera. So I took about 15 more pics and then changed cards - somehow those 15 pics weren't on the card.

My second gig was a free portrait session for the same family since I messed up those 15 pics. Seems like forever ago though lol.

[Peacefield]

My first paid gig I was shooting inside @ ISO1600, went out in full sun and forgot to put the ISO to 100 :oops:

I've done that bunches of times. I also sometimes forget to go back and forth between AV and M when switching from flash to non-flash. Usually, not so big a disaster that software can't save the images, though. Just wish my brain worked better.

[tim]

Everyone's done that, usually the shutter speed's a bit of a giveaway.

[RT McAllister]

I also sometimes forget to go back and forth between AV and M when switching from flash to non-flash.

Stupid cameras. They should know better. :D

I forget to change the white balance when going to/from flash.

[Michelle Brooks Photography]

ShannyD is reminding me of one thanks to the 85mm lens. I had just gotten my shiney new 85L 1.2 and was looking for pretty much any excuse to shoot with it during the next wedding. I knew it had a reputation for being a slow focuser but I guess didn't consider how that would manifest itself. I had it mounted along with a flash to catch the family, bridal party, and couple making their entrance into the banquet hall. Well, in that dark space, the lens NEVER found focus which means the camera woudn't fire. It took me a while to realize what was going wrong and then another little while to take the flash and throw it on one of my other cameras and begin shooting. By then, we were half way through the bridal party. Not the worst that could happen, but it was a real sinking feeling while it was all going down.
So what lens did you switch to?

[Saphire]

I havn't screwed up a wedding but I have screwed up a Masonic Ladies evening , it was many years ago shooting film.
The shoot went without a hitch and I was very pleased with the way it went, that was until I received the films back from the printers. I was horrified when I opened the packages of photos to find that the 20 rolls of film were unusable.

At the time I was only doing black and white developing and printing not colour so I had to take them to a local processing house to get them done. After a lot of upset I looked closely at the negatives only to find that it wasn't my fault after all, it was the processing house that had made the mistake, they must have used spent developer in their developing tanks. Not only were the very images very thin on the negatives, the numbers on the edges of the film were hardly visible. Anyone who has developed film knows that the edge marking are alway a deep colour if they are processed correctly.

The shop argued that I had underexposed them all when I took the photo's . I argued and argued but got nowhere. I wrote to Kodak and sent them some negatives and they confirmed that they hadn't been developed correctly either the chemical was not set at the right temperature or the developer was to old.

I explained all this to the client and gave him the photos that I could salvage in the darkroom which wasn't many, free of charge and said I would do the next evening at my own expense fortunately I managed to convince them. It was a huge relief as it could have been the end of my business .

From that day on I did all my own colour film developing and printing and had a booming business instead of just the Black and white.
I never did receive any recompense from the shop or an apology but for some reason they were shut down a few weeks later never to re-open.

[Mrsjperry]

I've missed two or three shots I wanted in five years, and neither was critical. I think that's pretty good. Being organised is pretty essential.

Must he be so perfect.

:rolleyes:

[tim]

Must he be so perfect.

Well I missed another at the last wedding I shot, the kiss.

[Mike R]

Well I missed another at the last wedding I shot, the kiss.

Does it help to talk about it? We're here for you.;)

[tim]

Like I said on another thread (or this one), no big deal. My assistant got it, but she was about two stories above them so it looks odd.

[candjphoto]

For me I had my Mark III, 5D Mark II, and classic 5D all have catastrophic failures at various points during a wedding. I was down to using my wife's backup 40D, and if that would have went down I would have had to go to the car to get a Pentax DSLR. It was crazy. I have never had problems with any of our gear before or after that one crazy night. The Mark III had error 99 that wouldn't clear no matter what. The 5D Mark II wouldn't change shutter speeds, and the classic 5D just seriously had a case of the crazies. They are all with me now and work fine after sending them in... but man... that one night taught me the value of backups.

[Mrsjperry]

How many back ups should one have?

I shoot with 2 but have 3 waiting on stand by.

[tim]

I take three cameras to a wedding, I use two and my assistant uses one. I have a spare 20D but I usually leave it at home.

[Mrsjperry]

Ahhhhh...an assistant. I have such dreams of having one, they seem so real! Then I wake up.

:(

[tim]

I photographed a wedding without my assistant today. I didn't like it so much.

[Mrsjperry]

welc:pme to my world.