*sigh* it seems like Uncle Bob could be winning the wedding photography wars…
In the UK, couples are ditching wedding photographers in favor of amateurs and GoPros; at least that’s what a report from Amateur Photographer is stating. So rather than paying an experienced professional, they’re going for friends, friends of friends, relatives, and essentially crowd sourcing their wedding using hashtags on Instagram.
It’s a sign of the times; but honestly, we should have seen this coming.
One of the biggest things that a wedding photographer tries to convince a couple of is the fact that with them, they’re not just paying for a photography. Instead, they’re getting a full fledged service of people skills, professionalism when it comes to editing (mostly) an engagement package, maybe prints that can’t be rivaled, etc. But judging from how weddings have evolved in the past couple of years, it appears that we should have seen this coming.
What am I talking about? The global state of economy lent itself to couples being more creative, having smaller weddings that are more intimate, and with more of an alternative DIY style. I’ve been to them, you’ve been to them, we’ve all seen them as much different from everything else out there. Planners have been thrown out, catering is sometimes done by families who cook loads of food, etc. Of course, all of this depends on the ethnicity of the weddings, religion being involved, etc. But more and more are doing this without the involvement of religion.
Tie all of this together with the growth of social media. Everyone is a photographer (not necessarily a good one) and by using Instagram, everyone can shoot a photo, upload it to Instagram using a hashtag to curate the wedding album, and then later on the couple can show off their images really easily. Professional photographers can combat that by using web-ready cameras to port an image from their camera, to their phone and then to the hashtag. But sadly, they haven’t been doing that despite there being times during a wedding when it’s perfectly fine to do so. Unfortunately, people don’t prize photography in general as much as they should. To that end, photographers should be marketing themselves more as artists who use photos more than anything.
Sounds pretty hipster to you? I’ve gotten emails about this: but that’s how the world goes.
