Current Photography Trend to Be Wary Of

[cougs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nathanielthompsonphoto my brides aren't models, they just look like they are

NICE!

[Evan Baines]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lolkitteh As a relatively "serious" amateur photographer (that is nowhere near pro) I'd have to concur with this viewpoint. I thought the original post was somewhat alarmist and somewhat distorts the value of the images obtained from "workshops". I personally have attended some photography workshops and while some of the images obtained from them are under the guidance of the instructor, the majority of them are taken "from the lens of the student". That is, the images taken do actually reflect the artistry of the photographer taking the shot. Thus, I somewhat disagree that workshop shots are simply "point there, and shoot" to get a great shot. Photography is a far more complicated art than that. No reputable workshop (that I've ever heard of) is ever constructed to just give people good shots; the point of them is to teach students to take good shots on their own. I also think it would be pretty difficult to replicate a "live" wedding shot in a workshop without it being fairly obvious to the observer. Nevertheless, the simple question of whether a photo was from an actual wedding or not should clear up the confusion, and is a worthwhile question to ask.

Have you been to a professional wedding photography workshop? Many of them really do enable students to "re-shoot" the instructors shots. Some of the instructors will caution students about using the images in the portfolio, but no real efforts are made to ensure that the students won't abuse the images obtained.

Perhaps I came off as a bit alarmist, but I know of at least five studios in my local market using workshop photos as "marquee" images on their websites. I wanted to get the word out because this is becoming a real issue.

[SunBride]

I agree with the advice of asking to see several examples of complete weddings they have shot. I notice most photographers don't post this on their site. My photographer did. In fact she posts pretty much all the photos from every wedding she shoots. So you know really really well what you are getting. But I know most photographers just have a selection of their best images on their websites. Then people expect that all their photos will be that good, when in reality only a very small number of their photos might be and the rest might just be average.