February 11th, 2011:

Yesterday, while rummaging through my closet on a hunt for some old Legos or something, I came across some prints I had made from the very first wedding I ever shot – buried under all sorts of random stuff that builds up through 30 years of life. I called Felicia over and we sat there and just thumbing through the tactile feel of prints and I began reminiscing of the first wedding day I ever shot.

It was about 7 years ago and I had one camera – which used film, a flash, and one mid range zoom lens (a 28mm-135mm).  At the time I was bartending and Paige (the bride) was one of the servers at the restaurant where I worked at getting people intoxicated.   It was a few weeks before her and Chris’ wedding, while she was sitting at my bar, we got talking about her wedding day when I naively said I would happily come out and shoot their big day for free…  She knew I had never shot a wedding before, but the price was right, and she had already known me for a while and we had a rapport built up.

In the weeks that followed I began reading/researching every scrap of information I could find on wedding photography, I talked to a family friend who was a wedding photographer and asked his advice, I practiced,  and I ordered the film.

10 rolls.

360 images.

That’s it.

Today that number is incomprehensible – I shoot 360 frames in 30 minutes at a wedding nowadays, but I still remember the stress vividly, that I had to make every image count – because that’s all I could afford to shoot.  It cost roughly $17 per roll to buy and develop the film, so I was already spending $170 on film and developing, and I just couldn’t spend anymore (at the time I had just bought my first house and still had a car payment as well – on a bartenders tips.)

So, every image had to count.  Everytime I hit that shutter, I spent $0.47.   In addition, I didn’t have a LCD screen on the back of a camera to let me know what I was getting.  For all I knew, I could be horribly overexposing every picture or getting too much camera shake – creating soft images, on any number of other errors that could have been slipping my mind in the strain of the moment.  I was stressed the whole day – but I just kept smiling and shooting. By the last hour of the evening, I had shot 9 1/2 rolls, all the events were done.  With 18 pictures remaining, I accepted a vodka+tonic that Paige brought over to me from the bar (we worked together and she knew my drink) – and she profusely thanked me…

… Which just made the next 3 days even worse as I waited for the lab to develop everything.   When I finally went back, I didn’t even leave the lab – I just stood at the counter opening roll after roll of 4″x6″ prints that were properly exposed and (for the most part) sharp.  I was thrilled, the bride and groom overjoyed, but the number one thing I remember for that first wedding was the stress and the knot in my stomach which sat there the entire day.

It feels almost surreal looking back at these pictures now, after creating a career of shooting weddings – That was the day that started it all.  I realize how different it is to shoot film versus digital, and I can also see how much I have grown, how I have created my own style of imagery which speaks to me and my couples, and the confidence I now have in controlling the camera and the situations that arise at weddings.  I am thankful that I was offered this opportunity, but more importantly, I am thankful that my stomach is no longer ripped to shreds every weekend when I head out to capture my couples’ wedding days.