assisting opportunity

This afternoon I had the opportunity to join my coworker on a wedding photo shoot. He does wedding photography on the side and knows I share an interest in it. This is the first time I've attended a wedding as photo assistant/secondary photographer. Pretty cool not knowing anything about the wedding and learning on the fly. Due to the time constraint - Mike wasn't able to show me some field tips but I did get the opportunity to play around with different lenses and settings on my own. Mike had his own photo assistant who fluffed dresses and held onto the reflectors (really boring for her - felt bad as she had to stand around for many hours and not do too much). It was also good to learn about lighting and reflectors - in case I ever aspire to buy one...not likely the case right now.

The wedding was for Jennifer & Tim. That's about all we knew before coming to the site. We were pretty much astonished by the location - behind a trailer in a field in Langley. Hmm...a bit to "rustic" for my taste but made it even more interesting. After scoping out the area and doing a couple of walkarounds - I swapped out my dress shoes for a pair of runners (luckily I had a pair in the car). The ground was uneven and muddy - not good for leather shoes. The weather held out and with not too much resistant from the wedding party - we finished the photos in a timely manner. The bride was more excited about the pictures than the groom - he must have been tired or just a plain out grumpy guy. I got the task of keeping the wedding party entertained with candids, etc while the bride/groom did their "formal" shots. I really enjoyed talking to some of the family and guests. Lol - I'm pretty friendly and because I wasn't the primary photographer, I wasn't focused on following the bride around before the start of the wedding. Ample time to joke around with the little old ladies. :-) The ring boy and flower girl were absolutely adorable!

After a couple of hours I called it a day and left Mike to stay with the band-of-bandits to finish off the rest of the pictures. We would have loved to do more fun or artist shots but lack of cooperation from the wedding party proved to be challenging. Can we say "drama"?! Lol - lets just say that between super unhappy kids (which belonged to the wedding party), a semi-chained up pitbull and an emotional bridesmaid who was going through some kind of breakup that day - we came out with over 10GB of photos. MUCH more than the couple had signed up for. Lol - good deal for them. Because the experience was good for both Mike and I - we might team up for another gig soon. Of course - it's all for Mike to coordinate as I'm basically doing this for experience and he's the one getting paid! I'll load the pictures another day as it's time for bed!