GoldenRivet
03-19-15, 05:01 AM
Planning a wedding? Or know someone who is?
Here’s my advice on something to avoid based on my recent personal experience…
Lots of folks think it’s a cute idea to put a disposable camera at every table during the reception. An event filled with joy for the bride and groom and the idea is that each guest at the table will pass around the camera and try to capture an image of the evening that the bride and groom will forever cherish in their hearts.
This is a huge mistake for a number of reasons.
Professional photographers capture images that invoke specific feelings in the viewer. Their images are crisp and clean utilizing natural or artificial light in ways that capture vivid color, and sharp contrasts. The subject of the images is almost always taken from a flattering angle that make even the most wrinkled up old leper take on an artistic, poetic and dignified look; the wisdom in their leathery, toothless face forever emulsified in immortality. Not only do they have an eye for their art, they are usually carry equipment worth thousands of dollars, purpose built for the single objective of capturing the very best images possible. Thankfully we hired one, and she did a wonderful job on all fronts. But we also chose to put the little disposable cameras at each reception table because someone – and I’m not naming names here – but someone who is a female and had an awful lot to do with marrying me decided it would be artsy fartsy cute to do that.
Now, the images captured by the disposable cameras on the reception tables have two things going against them. First, they are not worth thousands of dollars, they are worth about $6 a piece at Walmart and when it comes to image quality, you get what you pay for. Second… 8 year olds.
Yes I said 8 year olds. Picture this scenario, seated at every table at your reception are 6 to 10 adults. Aunts, uncles, cousins, moms, dads… all seated there enjoying their choice of chicken or beef engaged in adult conversation. Now, when I say adult conversation, I don’t mean your aunt and uncle are working out the finer scheduling details of a swinger’s swap with your maid of honor and your friend from work… Or… I mean they could be, I don’t know your aunt and uncle. I just mean they aren’t talking about hoops on a stick or hop scotch or SpongeBob – you know, whatever the hell 8 year olds talk about at the dinner table. Throw a margarita or a glass of champagne or a beer in front of them. They are having a good time. In between shoving Beef Medallion Filet into their mouths, one or two members of the table have managed to successfully snap a decent picture of you shoving Beef Medallion Filet into your bride’s mouth for the first time ever. Now the problem with aunts and uncles and cousins and moms and dads all thrown into a table is that the odds favor at least one of them having a kid or two.
So, when the kids try to join into the adult conversation with their constant pestering about this weird food, or complaining about the fact that they have been detached from their PlayStation or internet for more than an hour and a half, what’s the first thing the parents at the table are going to do to complete “operation: go away kid you bother me”?
For you slow guessers I’ll just go ahead and tell you… they grab the camera, hand it to little Billy and little Sally, and tell them to piss off and go find something to take a picture of. So, this is exactly what they do. Unbeknownst to you and your bride, every little Billy and little Sally multiplied times about 80% of the tables at your reception has now absconded into obscurity into locations unknown with a camera on a mission to take pictures of everything they consider significant.
You go on, not knowing this for weeks… or maybe it’s been busy since the honeymoon, perhaps you had a lot of work to catch up on with your time off and your honey do list item of getting this film developed sits on the back burner for a while, until one day you take all 15 or 20 of these disposable cameras to the 1 hour photo and have them developed. An hour passes and you go back to the 1 hour photo and eagerly collect the dozen or more envelopes of film, you swipe the bank card to the tune of $200 snatch the receipt and hurry home to join your bride in looking through the envelopes filled with hidden treasures that surely wait.
Your smile turns to a grin as you file through the first few images. Slowly this grin becomes just a mouth, finally the mouth evolves into an outright lip synch to that hit song “you gotta be kidding”. What you have here is $200 worth of pictures from a disposable camera capturing such artful images as:
“the grass” – a thought provoking look straight down toward two size 3 feet standing on a patch of brown grass.
“human eye” – a cunning, cerebral reimagining of the extreme close-up of someone’s eyeball.
“icky Bug” – a scientific and technical adventure into the slightly out of focus world of a random insect.
“moon” – an otherworldly image defined by complete blackness punctuated by a pea sized, blurred glowing dot
“Night on Bald Mountain” – bringing forth images of the fantasia short by the same name, we take a detailed look at the top of great gam-gam’s head
“Rover” – an introspective view of a pile of dog crap that will change your take on the world
Should I go on? Yes, you just spent a third of your car payment this month for a 3 inch high stack of pictures of bugs, elbows, eyes, lips, dog turds and random lights stretched across the image because some kid thought he could make a movie by moving the camera fast. For every meaningful picture of your grandmother, your mom and your bride group hugging in front of a massive rose bush with the clock hanging in the back ground reminding us of what little time we have left with these people… you get eight or ten extreme close-ups of some fat kid’s wiggly tooth.
So when your bride to be suggests that you put these cute artsy fartsy disposable cameras at the tables for the reception guests to snap a picture… read her this little story and tell her how much more meaningful it would be to do the opposite of putting cute artsy fartsy disposable cameras at the tables for the reception guests to snap a picture.
Here’s my advice on something to avoid based on my recent personal experience…
Lots of folks think it’s a cute idea to put a disposable camera at every table during the reception. An event filled with joy for the bride and groom and the idea is that each guest at the table will pass around the camera and try to capture an image of the evening that the bride and groom will forever cherish in their hearts.
This is a huge mistake for a number of reasons.
Professional photographers capture images that invoke specific feelings in the viewer. Their images are crisp and clean utilizing natural or artificial light in ways that capture vivid color, and sharp contrasts. The subject of the images is almost always taken from a flattering angle that make even the most wrinkled up old leper take on an artistic, poetic and dignified look; the wisdom in their leathery, toothless face forever emulsified in immortality. Not only do they have an eye for their art, they are usually carry equipment worth thousands of dollars, purpose built for the single objective of capturing the very best images possible. Thankfully we hired one, and she did a wonderful job on all fronts. But we also chose to put the little disposable cameras at each reception table because someone – and I’m not naming names here – but someone who is a female and had an awful lot to do with marrying me decided it would be artsy fartsy cute to do that.
Now, the images captured by the disposable cameras on the reception tables have two things going against them. First, they are not worth thousands of dollars, they are worth about $6 a piece at Walmart and when it comes to image quality, you get what you pay for. Second… 8 year olds.
Yes I said 8 year olds. Picture this scenario, seated at every table at your reception are 6 to 10 adults. Aunts, uncles, cousins, moms, dads… all seated there enjoying their choice of chicken or beef engaged in adult conversation. Now, when I say adult conversation, I don’t mean your aunt and uncle are working out the finer scheduling details of a swinger’s swap with your maid of honor and your friend from work… Or… I mean they could be, I don’t know your aunt and uncle. I just mean they aren’t talking about hoops on a stick or hop scotch or SpongeBob – you know, whatever the hell 8 year olds talk about at the dinner table. Throw a margarita or a glass of champagne or a beer in front of them. They are having a good time. In between shoving Beef Medallion Filet into their mouths, one or two members of the table have managed to successfully snap a decent picture of you shoving Beef Medallion Filet into your bride’s mouth for the first time ever. Now the problem with aunts and uncles and cousins and moms and dads all thrown into a table is that the odds favor at least one of them having a kid or two.
So, when the kids try to join into the adult conversation with their constant pestering about this weird food, or complaining about the fact that they have been detached from their PlayStation or internet for more than an hour and a half, what’s the first thing the parents at the table are going to do to complete “operation: go away kid you bother me”?
For you slow guessers I’ll just go ahead and tell you… they grab the camera, hand it to little Billy and little Sally, and tell them to piss off and go find something to take a picture of. So, this is exactly what they do. Unbeknownst to you and your bride, every little Billy and little Sally multiplied times about 80% of the tables at your reception has now absconded into obscurity into locations unknown with a camera on a mission to take pictures of everything they consider significant.
You go on, not knowing this for weeks… or maybe it’s been busy since the honeymoon, perhaps you had a lot of work to catch up on with your time off and your honey do list item of getting this film developed sits on the back burner for a while, until one day you take all 15 or 20 of these disposable cameras to the 1 hour photo and have them developed. An hour passes and you go back to the 1 hour photo and eagerly collect the dozen or more envelopes of film, you swipe the bank card to the tune of $200 snatch the receipt and hurry home to join your bride in looking through the envelopes filled with hidden treasures that surely wait.
Your smile turns to a grin as you file through the first few images. Slowly this grin becomes just a mouth, finally the mouth evolves into an outright lip synch to that hit song “you gotta be kidding”. What you have here is $200 worth of pictures from a disposable camera capturing such artful images as:
“the grass” – a thought provoking look straight down toward two size 3 feet standing on a patch of brown grass.
“human eye” – a cunning, cerebral reimagining of the extreme close-up of someone’s eyeball.
“icky Bug” – a scientific and technical adventure into the slightly out of focus world of a random insect.
“moon” – an otherworldly image defined by complete blackness punctuated by a pea sized, blurred glowing dot
“Night on Bald Mountain” – bringing forth images of the fantasia short by the same name, we take a detailed look at the top of great gam-gam’s head
“Rover” – an introspective view of a pile of dog crap that will change your take on the world
Should I go on? Yes, you just spent a third of your car payment this month for a 3 inch high stack of pictures of bugs, elbows, eyes, lips, dog turds and random lights stretched across the image because some kid thought he could make a movie by moving the camera fast. For every meaningful picture of your grandmother, your mom and your bride group hugging in front of a massive rose bush with the clock hanging in the back ground reminding us of what little time we have left with these people… you get eight or ten extreme close-ups of some fat kid’s wiggly tooth.
So when your bride to be suggests that you put these cute artsy fartsy disposable cameras at the tables for the reception guests to snap a picture… read her this little story and tell her how much more meaningful it would be to do the opposite of putting cute artsy fartsy disposable cameras at the tables for the reception guests to snap a picture.