I'm not a
particularly sociable type so I don't get a lot of phone calls. When
I do it nearly always takes me by surprise and I fumble with the phone controls and miss the call. This time I was half way up a palm tree, cutting off the branches that hadn't done that Confucian thing of
bending like a reed and had chosen to break like the mighty oak instead. It was from the bloke who fixes my
car. One of his Spanish customers had been complaining about the cost
of the photos for his upcoming wedding and Julian, for that's his
name, had mentioned to the customer that he knew someone with a
decent camera.
Now, as
you know, I take a lot of snaps. I like to take snaps of things with
bright colours and a lot of contrast. I've got lots of pictures of
people too but I'm not good at pictures of people. Friends take much
nicer people photos than I do. And that was my initial reaction, well
that and worrying that I'd somehow cock up taking the photos at all. Rather than saying no directly though we agreed that Julian would give the soon to be Bridegroom my phone number.
Palm tree
trimmed I set about the weeds listening to the Capitán Demo podcast.
I began to think about taking wedding photos. The pressing the
shutter button is a very small part of it. Wedding photographers do
all that ordering people about. Parents here! Get rid of that
cigarette! Mother of the bride - button up your jacket! Bridesmaids -
come here! And of course that ordering about would have to be done in Spanish. Then I thought about the ceremony and the routine. I know
the UK routine, more or less, but I've only been to one Spanish wedding
and the structure is different. How do priests feel about having the
photographer stand behind them in front of the altar? Is that what
you do anyway? Would I know where to be to get the appropriate snap? Do
Spanish couples sign the register, open the telegrams, make speeches,
dance the first dance and go off with tin cans tied to the back of
the car? Are there photos of garters and legs, do bouquets get tossed
to the expectant crowd or is that all too sexist for words? Wedding
photography has fashions. I have seen Spanish couples piling out of
cars at local beauty spots to have their photo taken with a seascape
as a backdrop but, to be honest, I have no idea what's expected. Do
they still do those blurred at the edges shots or frame the happy
couple in a heart shape? Would I be expected to be there from the
make up session at the Bride's house to the last sozzled guests
checking the beer cans for fag ends before drinking?
All of
those things aside let's presume that I managed to get some decent images on the SD
card. My guess is that there would be at least a thousand and maybe
more. Just a quick scan for the blurred, ugly and mis-framed shots
would take a while. Is there an expectation of photo shopping, of editing out double chins and spots? I never bother with my own pictures but then most of my snaps never get past the digital
format; they go on Google photos or Facebook and that's it. I've
hardly ever printed photographs since getting a digital camera.
Presumably, nowadays, you produce one of those photo-book things but,
for all I know the happy couple expect pictures on T-shirts and mugs.
How much does it cost to print photos? Which firms are reliable? Who does the photo selection
anyway? Is the photographer the arbiter of which photos get chosen or
the couple? What sort of quality, meaning what sort of cost, is
expected for the finished album? I vaguely remember that, at the one
Spanish wedding I've been to, several prints of the ceremony were
being passed around during the meal. That must mean that the
photographer had immediate access to a photo quality printer rather than relying
on BonusPrint. The more I thought about it the more I realised where
the high cost of the package offered by wedding photographers comes
from and the less interested I was in doing it.
Anyway,
when the bloke calls, I'll probably miss the call.
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I got the photo at the top of this post from Google. It said that it was labelled for non commercial re-use but, just in case it isn't the firm that took it is Retamosa Wedding Stories from Torrent in Valencia.
