Offering service for free to gain experience

Quick question.

I am considering offering my time for free to shoot a couple of weddings. This would be purely for the experience and practice. Costs to the client would be print costs and expenses only.

Do you think this is a wise route to try my hand and weddings and can you forsee any major problems.

it would be made clear that i was a newbie looking for the practice with no gurantees.

Thanks for any thoughts..

why not see if you can work with someone who is experianced for free??

Not being a Pro, but having been around for a while, I think you would be better off offering your services to a Professional, it would probably be better for your health.
The shooting of a wedding is usually a once in a life time event and even if you point out the reason you are doing it for free there will still be expectations from the B & G and other people involved in the Wedding.
If for some reason things don't turn out or turn out badly it will affect any future chances for work once you get better.
The other thing is that once you do it for free there will be the expectation that it will always be free or very cheap. People will want to take advantage and charging what the job should be worth will be difficult in the future.
Your time is too valuable to give it away for nothing, so think of the best way to invest it.

Wayne

yes, there are major problems w/ this. if you have never shot a wedding, you could ruin someones entire memory of their biggest day. you cannot go back and shoot a wedding and it is not something you should just go start and practice on.

find a pro and inquire about being an intern for a few weddings. listen to everything they say but more importantly, watch how they work. obvserve how they interact and don't interact w/ people at the wedding and then ask to review the photos w/ them so you can see what they shot

weddings are extremely fast pased with extremely high expectations from the couple who will want everything to be nearly perfect

I agree. I can't see how doing it for free can be of any benefit. If you have even minimal skills then you should charge for them. If you don't have any then you don't have any business being there. Atleast not by your self. I like the one posters idea of assisting a pro. Far more beneficial in learning the ins and outs.

Jon, don't do it, please. You could completely ruin the most important day in two peoples lives. Do not use weddings or similar one-off events to practice on. Additionally you could spoil any chance in having a carreer in photography by starting with a bad reputation with potential clients and with other photographers because you work for free.

Go and talk to some local pro wedding photographers about working for them, even for free. You will get a lot of experience working with professionals. Don't forget to take your portfolio to show them some of your work.