Delivering The Goods

NOTE: David Higginbotham is my friend, former accomplice at The Decatur Daily and now my sometime employer. He works a day job shooting for the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville and then freelances in weddings and portraits. Dave may well be the very best wedding photographer in North Alabama. Then again, I am somewhat biased since he helps me pay the bills! Just kidding. I work for David as a second shooter on weddings and it is always an education for me to see him work.

Hi guys….Dave again.

You guys tell me if any of this sounds familiar. You walk into a place where you’ve never shot before and have to figure out how to make good photos out of bad light. You meet a bunch of people you’ve never met and try to establish a rapport that will yield good photos. You have enormous pressure to produce good photos because this isn’t something you can take a mulligan on. As soon as you develop a plan everything changes….you have to adapt on the spot because nothing is slowing down or stopping for you. It sounds like almost every day as a newspaper photographer right? Well it’s also pretty similar to shooting weddings. I worked as a photojournalist at newspapers for 7 years. I didn’t realize it at the time but the day to day challenges and experiences of being a newspaper photographer prepare you for almost anything you will deal with as any other kind of photographer. That’s what I loved about it. You walk in everyday to a stack of assignments that are different than the day before. Now I’m not certain about this….but I would be willing to bet that the guy who came up with the phrase “…trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear” was a newspaper photographer. That or he was a silk purse maker with a supplier problem. We had another phrase for it that involved polishing something….but the idea is the same. The bottom line is this….as Cosby as touched on a million times on this blog….our job is to make good photos out of whatever situation we are given….good or bad. Whether you are a newspaper photographer….an annual report photographer…or any other kind of photographer!

My transition from the newspaper world to the world of NASA/wedding/portrait photographer was fairly easy. It’s all about creating good images. Maybe I should say it’s all about figuring out how to make good images. Here’s an example of what I mean….

During the exit of the bride and groom from this wedding Cosby and I had very few decisions to make.

David's view of the exit.

Cosby's view of the exit.

Sometimes the light and the subjects are just there in front of you and your only job is to click the shutter….well…and focus.

Then there is this exit of a bride and groom……we were faced with a dark alley behind a reception venue. Lit by just the ambient of a few street lamps…the light was crummy. We could have tossed a flash on top of the camera and nuked the happy couple accordingly….but that would have made God sad. Ok….God didn’t care how we lit this photo but considering the words that might have come out of our mouths when we saw the results of shooting it with on camera flash…I’d say we prevented God from being sad. Long way home…but you get my point.

David's view of the dungeon exit.

Cosby's view of the dungeon exit.

We made the quick decision to put two SB strobes on a couple of columns and one SB on the balcony above them. This decision may not be directly tied to working at a newspaper but it is tied to our ability as photographers to problem solve while under the gun.

Now….remember what I said about putting your flash on camera and nuking the couple as they exited? I’m going to hop on my soapbox for a minute. People pay us money to create quality images for them. The way I look at it is if somebody pays me to do something I better offer them something they can’t necessarily do themselves. We hire plumbers, electricians, and other skilled tradespeople to work for us because it is usually something we don’t have the ability to do ourselves. We need to be diligent as professional photographers to make sure we are working hard to provide our clients/employers/etc… with the highest quality we can. Is on camera flash always a bad idea? Well….I can’t say always….but it is a lot of the time. Is it the best we can provide? Absolutely not. Put in the extra effort and make your pictures stand out from all the others that were shot by everyone else at the same event.

I’m off my soapbox now.

To see more of David’s work go to davidhphotography.com.