I had a dream the other night night that I was photographing my first real wedding. I was so excited to be the one in charge for the first time and wanted to create the most beautiful, artistic pictures for my friend Samantha (whose maternity photos I really did shoot thanks to my BFF, Tracey, talking me up).
As the wedding started, though, I realized that I wasn’t prepared at all and hadn’t even spoken to the preacher (who was a LADY) about how close I could come to the alter, whether or not I could use flash, etc. I was going to walk up in front of the whole church full of people and ask, but just then, the bride started coming down a side aisle, and I needed to run to the other side of the church to capture her.
She was walking down alone in a short, short white cocktail dress, dancing and doing catwalk poses as she came. She stopped in front of me with one hand behind her head an one hand on her hip, and I snapped away. Just then, her one bridesmaid came down the aisle on the other side of the church, and I only got over to her in time to get just one shot of her as she neared the altar.
There was no groom to be seen, but I snapped a hundred pictures of the bride before realizing that I had been using a crappy point-and-shoot camera the entire time. I ran back to the pew where my gear was sitting and realized that no, it hadn’t even been a crappy point-and-shoot but just an external flash unit, not even attached to a camera.
I ran back to the altar and sat on the floor, determined that if I had missed all of those shots, I was going to get so many shots from an “artistic” angle to make up for them. I started shooting, but 90% of the time I pressed the shutter button, it would make the sound that the kind of doorstop on a spring makes when you pull it back and let it go. That pth-pth-pth-pth-pth sputter sound. I didn’t really care what sound it was making as long as it was getting the shots, but of course when I checked my SD card, there were only seven pictures on it from the entire wedding.
So I guess I feel more legit now that I’m having photography nightmares. That’s something.
9 Comments
You left out the part about being naked.
I’m not sure I’ll ever reach a point in my career when I don’t get so nervous I feel like I’m going to barf when shooting a wedding.
But I kind of think that might actually be a good thing. I mean, who wants ANY of their wedding vendors to be all like, “Yawn, ANOTHER wedding? Ugh, just write me a check.”
I sooooo wish you could fly down here and second-shoot (or, hell, FIRST-SHOOT) a wedding with me.
Wow, that’s a really detailed dream. Are you sure you didn’t leave out the part about being naked?
But tell me this, did she look hot in the short cocktail dress?!
Those are the very worst kinds of dreams because they seem so very real.
Too legit to quit!
Wait… it wasn’t a ‘boooiiiinnnngggg’ doorstop sound?!
Yeah. Sorry. Can’t help you out with a pth-pth-pth-pth-pth.
I’m amazed you can remember your dreams so vividly! I usually forget most of the details a few seconds after I wake up (which sucks). I am a bit sad you weren’t there to shoot our wedding, so you should definitely expect to be hired for our renewal of vows, if we make it to year 5 or 10. Hopefully, you will be so famous you’d be charging an arm and a leg by then, but will also give us a discount. ;)
Ahhhhhhhhh!!! NIGHTMARE!
You are now a pro. Congrats! Now go stock up on Tums.