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Is portraiture and wedding photography the most common type?

It can be so many different things to so many different artists. For me, the past 40 years have been woven around a core of photography as an art form. More of a May Pole dance than anything else. Other things have gotten woven in as well, marriage, kids, jobs, travel, basketball, wilderness, and all. Photography is still the core, but the kids are inseparatably tightly woven in, and of course there are loose ends all over (divorce and such).

One of the jobs that got woven into it all was 24 years as a darkroom tech at a university. Funny, I never saw it as a photo job, although I ran/maintained a darkroom and other photo facilities for 125 students a semester. Perhaps because it was half time, 10 month a year (full benefits, though), and more inspiring than tiring when it came to photography. Or I just saw it as a way have having my own huge darkroom that I did not have to pay for heating, water, and all that sort of stuff. The students could be 'bothersome' late at night wanting help and slowing my own work down...but generally they did it because they knew I enjoyed helping. I kicked everyone out at mid-night except the most self-sufficient anyway.

My Boys, Fern Canyon, 8x10, Carbon print
 

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I've shot a couple of weddings as favors, as a PJ I covered a few weddings as news, and portraitures for a story, but pass on shooting a wedding or portraitures for income. First when I am not shooting a wedding for family and friends I would become bored, second I don't have a talent for either type of photography, pay isn't enough to give up a Saturday, and last I don't have a studio.
 
vedostuu said:
I agree that that is a bit boldly said. I would guess it has meant something else before. Like welfare / happiness / well-being.

If you truly truly love what you do, money might not be important at all.
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You can't heat the house with hapiness nor eat it.

You can see it with the pandemic, "middle of the road" singers don't make a single euro.
 
Ernst-Jan said:
You can't heat the house with hapiness nor eat it.

You can see it with the pandemic, "middle of the road" singers don't make a single euro.
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I know exactly what you mean!
I wish there was more too. ... we all need a fire in our belly. ...

 
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I go out of my way to ensure that there are no people in my photographs, so I definitely don’t do wedding or portraiture, but then again, I have no desire to make money with my cameras.

A little anecdote—~20 years ago I was self employed in video production. I had got into it shooting symposia for a non profit. I moved from that to doing training videos for businesses. What I loved was that if you told the business your price they didn’t bat an eye. If it was too much they just went with someone else. The job was defined in a statement of work, and if at the last minute the business wanted something different, then it was a change order with a dollar figure attached.

Someone suggested doing weddings, so I decided to give it a try—wow, what a different experience. They’d keep going back on what they wanted, they’d change things literally every day, and expect those changes to be free. And, while I had already lowered my rate since I didn’t expect people to pay the business rate, it was still a constant drum beat of “too expensive” and trying to sneak changes in without increasing their cost. The whole experience soured me on people. I went back to doing just businesses, and never did another wedding again (and never will, though I’m mostly out of that field these days.)
 
A long time ago, when I was kind of a “successful skateboarding photographer” (whatever that means), a friend of my brother’s thought about this “great” business idea: wedding planning and organization... the whole damn thing, with predefined “packages” and the possibility of “customizations” that would cost extra.

Photography was an important part of that and I was the photographer they knew. So this guy invited me to work for him. I refused, telling him I had never done it. A friend of his was going to get married and he told me: “go there, take pictures and let’s see what you get”. He paid for the film and development and I went to the party as a guest (I only had to shoot the ceremony). Of course — and thank God! — there was a real wedding photographer doing the real job and I took extreme care to avoid getting in his way. I remember he had two Rolleis loaded with 220 film. I used my Nikon F3 and my trusty old Metz 60 CT-1, both of which I still have.

The photos were really good, at least the lighting and framing/composition... but I clicked the kiss a little too early and got a handful of blinking eyes and open mouths. If I was the only photographer there, I’m sure I would not be here to tell this story.

I never tried shooting a wedding again.
 
fdonadio said:
I never tried shooting a wedding again.
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I said that too after shooting weddings and mitzvahs for friends..
then a friend and I concocted this idea to shoot weddings with box cameras
and he'd be shooting them with his 8mm / super 8 movie camera.. sadly he moved away before we found interest parties.
last one he shot on super8 ( I think? ) he told me this story about how he did all this work and gave the
bride and groom this labor of love ... and the mother in law or mother or someone blurted out
"this looks like someone's home movie".
the lady didn't get it but that was the aesthetic he was going for
 
When I was younger I shot weddings, bar/bad mitzvahs, etc. part time. It was work. It paid for my Mamiya TLR outfit and made me some money, but it was a distinctly different experience than taking my camera out and and shooting whatever I wanted. If you can get in with a quality professional photographer who will teach you to do it right, and pay you enough to make it worth it, it could be a good side gig. But go in to the weddings with a set package (we will take these specific N shots), then get out. If you spend your entire weekends all day at other peoples weddings, you may find your hobby gone.
 
This is similar to my experience.
One additional benefit back then is that the business license gave me access to professional pricing and additional trade related services from my pro lab. It was a great experience to be able to work with them to efficiently and effectively produce product that pleased paying customers.
So much of what labs used to do now falls on the shoulders of photographers or their staff.
 
MattKing said:
Who understands mothers of the bride!?
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Well, I can’t say I understand everything about artists, but it’s way easier than understanding brides and their mothers, especially during the wedding.
 
Certainly the most overrated. In some cultures families spend fortune on wedding images. But to be honest I don't blame them. Since wedding also known as a 'Woman day' is an elaborate social function with the primary aim of making everyone give a woman as much attention for as long as possible. Who then doesn't love to see heavily filtered pale plastic images of her.
 
fdonadio said:
Who understands artists?
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obviously not that lady cause when he recounted the story I said " too cool " and he said that
he was like " yea that was the point" and I was like duh, and he was like uh huh, ... it was a pretty good laugh .
 

This is a beautiful portrait, thank you for sharing.


Yes, I would say that wedding photographers are the majority of professional photographers nowadays, while there are less commercial portrait photographers because most common people with digital cameras don't really see the point in forking out money to have their portrait taken on a "normal" day. Editorial portrait photographers still exist, but editorial doesn't pay as much as it used to, so they normally also do other work. Then there are sport photographers and fashion and advertising photographers. Photojournalists also tend to struggle nowadays unless they are big names (and even then it's not easy, even Magnum photographers often don't have enough work and resort to teaching).
Are you asking because you'd be interested in opening a photography business/working as a professional photographer?
 
jnantz said:
obviously not that lady cause when he recounted the story I said " too cool " and he said that he was like " yea that was the point" and I was like duh, and he was like uh huh, ... it was a pretty good laugh .
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I hope you understood what I meant with my comment, but I’m further explaining it, for the sake of clarity and for the other people that might be confused by it.

It was just a rhetorical question, meant as a joke. But, in fact, I agree with the opinion that most people don’t understand artists or even art itself.

Let me illustrate that. I once shot some portraits of the son of a friend, a months old baby. I shot some “really close close-ups”, cutting the top of the head and, sometimes, the chin. The baby had these beautiful, bright blue eyes and, in these photos, that was the element I wanted to value. In the end, I was criticized for “cutting the top of the head off”, in a way like they meant it was unacceptable, like I had done something wrong and was not a good photographer. I’m happy that it wasn’t a paid job; I took the photos as a gift to them. Just imagine what would have happened if they had paid for it!
 

no worries from me, and I totally understood where you are coming from
I just wanted to give you the blow by blow re-interpretation of my memory of our coffee/tea meeting when I witnessed the funny recounting what happened.
I take the stance that most people are like "Margaret Dumont" in a Marx Brothers movie, completely befuddled.
 

Now I’m gonna have to watch it!
 
Unless you are starving and still want to enjoy your photography I would recommend you avoid shooting weddings like poison because of the enormous amount of worry and stress involved is not worth the financial rewards involved.
 

Try real estate. hahah.
 
Ko.Fe. said:
Try real estate. hahah.
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I had a lady-friend who was a real estate agent. Fortunately she was also an artist and knew not to ask me to be her photographer. I did not have the digital equipment, but she probably knew better than to ask a tree and rock guy to photograph a bathroom. "No, honey, we don't need it in 8x10...and I need it by this afternoon."
 
After the wedding you have to deal with the bride's mother. Most painful experience I've ever gone through. Nobody will like the pictures. They'll all want their money back. If you want to go through the pain you need to be an apprentice to a highly successful wedding photographer for at least 2 years. BTW I've done weddings for free - after they've agreed to higher a professional photographer. This includes my daughter's wedding. I've reached the conclusion why they like mine is because it was FREE.
 

One of my colleagues has quit job in broadcast vendor and resurfaced years later as mansions and yachts photog with drone pilot certificate. Nobody needs any film in this industry, obviously.
 
While I was in college, one of the guys in the dorm got engaged. He ask me to take the wedding photographs. He was of the heavy persuasion, and was the bride to be and both families. I shot the before, during and after the wedding ceremony photographs. I made sure that there were no round or square objects in the foreground or background. In the darkroom I made prints with the easel tilted at various angles and found the perfect position. I then printed all the photographs and made three albums, one for the couple and each family. Everyone loved the photographs and said that no one else had ever taken "a photograph of the real them". The orders came in from all over the families and guests. I made enough money on that one wedding to pay for a year of tuition, room, board and books. That was my experience, YMMV.
 
I think that wedding photography and portrait photography are the most popular types of photoshoots when you take orders. Most often, people order portraits for themselves, video portraits, or something like that. But there is also a lot of order for advertising. Advertising images are always different. These can be pictures of a building, an amusement park, pictures of a city, famous restaurants, or pictures of goods on the shelves. In any case, don't worry that your works in the portfolio will all be the same. However, what you do best you will always be ordered more often because people assuming that your best work is your chip and your favorite type of photoshoot
 
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