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The second shooter is there to take shots of these people at the wedding. The second shooter needs to ensure that most or preferably all of the guests are included in shots taken on the day particularly the parents and immediate family of both the Bride and Groom. Who knows, it could be one of them paying the photography bill – as such you can understand why they want a shot with themselves in it.

Just because these could seem like ’snapshots’ doesn’t mean they don’t require some careful attention, thought or planning either. Whilst some things can be fixed later by PP’ing (like removing the last remnants of the curry sandwhich out of Aunt Millie’s mouth) The main photographer will not have planned or budgeted much time to process these photos, so they should be as right as possible – in the camera. 

By having taken the time to find out who’s who among the guests, the second shooter can record those lovely candid moments like when the bride shares a moment with her mother and grandmother or her sister.

But, at the end of the day, the assistant shooter does what is asked for by the lead photographer. Typically the assistant should be given some memory cards at the start of the session, given a quick introduction to members of the bridal party, have the immediate family identified and told of any special guests or required photos to take. When required the assistant should be there to hold thing; flashes, reflectors, whatever.

At the end of the session, the memory cards are then handed over to the main photographer, and that’s it, the wedding is finished with. No need to process images, no need to chase things up. Just shoot for a few hours and move on.

A friend living in the UK has MS. Seeing her in pain and seeing her loose some of her mobility is painful for me too. A different kind of pain, one borne of compassion but also frustration. Frustration at not being able to do anything to help.

The other day I got an email from Sophie Addison, at first it looked like spam, I don’t know Sophie. The email explained that she had MS and that she was doing some fund raising for the MS Society of Canada. She wanted me to donate one of my pictures for inclusion into a book she is publishing.

The book is to be titled ‘White for MS’ will be Sophie’s second fund raising book. The first book “It’s a beautiful world …. Photographers for a cause” is available for purchase at here. Sophie is also taking part in a fund raising walk – something I should do myself, I need the walk and MS research most certainly needs the funds.

If you want to get in touch with Sophie you can email her – sophie.addison@live.com or just drop by her Flickr site where you can see images from her first book.

If you want to know more about Multiple Sclerosis, a good place to start learning is Wikipedia. Contacts for some of the MS Societies are Australia, Canada, The UK and The US. If you want me to include a link for the MS Society in your country, please email me the details.

My toys

Of course, photography, like most obsessions is costly – there all these *toys* made by manufacturers who want to sell them to ME. Of course, being the sucker, I buy them. This is my current crop of toys.

Why do we buy them? Do they make us take better pictures? Do they limit us from achieving our most creative and glorious limits.

Strangely the way to take better photos is to pick up a camera. Which one? – Any one, the nearest one and just go out and point it things, push the little button then repeat. Taking better photos is all about just taking photos and lots of them. Then learn to recognise which ones are rubbish and throw them away. In time, try to reduce the number that are rubbish. Try to imagine what your photo will look like before you press the button. Compare what the photo looks like to what you you thought it would look like. Throw away those that don’t achieve the look.

So that’s how to take better photos. It has nothing to do with cameras, lenses or flashes. Yeah, right – next I’ll claim it has nothing to do with software either. BTW I use ViewNX, CaptureNX2, ThumbsPlus, Photoshop CS3 and a few other things too.

Kodachrome
You give us those nice bright colors
You give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah!
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph – Paul Simon – Kodachrome

Wedding dresses are usually created with so much care and love, worn once, cleaned then put in a little box at the bottom of the wardrobe collecting dust for twenty years. or more. Perhaps from time to time a bride may want to take the dress out from it’s dusty prison, marvel at it, perhaps even try it on to relive some of the glory from *that* day.

I guess that’s better from designing and making a dress with the intention of using it mulitiple times. How many weddings would you like to have? Just six? Will the dress start to look *worn* after three or four uses?

For some reason best known to Americans, it has become trendy to trash the wedding dress. Some time after the wedding, maybe a year later, the dress is taken from it’s dusty wardrobe and trashed. Yup, it’s time to get dressed and go mud wrestling. Or perhaps just jump in the river? What fun !!

When we were kids in Maidstone, Sharon
I went to every wedding in that little town
To see the tears and the kisses
And the pretty lady in the white lace wedding gown
And walking home on the railroad tracks
Or swinging on the playground swing
Love stimulated my illusions
More than anything – Joni Mitchell - Song for Sharon