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I know I’m late to all the parties here.
Unlike leb, I don’t live in the Keys, lol. So where I am, it’s slacks and nice shirt, lightweight as possible but still looking nice.
I was at a wedding last year that was shot by two women together. The first was dressed nice with the black slacks and a solid color none-too-bright blouse and also wore sensible, all black, shoes; accessorized but not too much. Didn’t stand out and was comfortable for her all day on her feet.
Her partner however, wore like these pants that were black, granted, but not so nice, maybe jeans? Or something like that, and they were capris. You know, short pants women in the states wear? She wore sandals which I thought looked really distasteful, they were not overly nice sandals – almost rugged, and her blouse was okay but very bright colored. I mean, I’m a guy, but I noticed it because it seemed to stand out to me, that they seemed complete opposites on the professional scale. That and they were both in some of the backgrounds of my reception snapshots, haha.
And then came the equipment. They both had similar shooting equipment and it was obvious to me that they had higher-end consumer dSLRs (not full frame) but while the first woman had clearly put more time and effort into her equipment and carried two bodies, had one on a camera flip bracket, her partner was using a single body with kit lens and her bracket was a flash flip. Something about this flash flip, it looked very cheap and trashy and it kept flipping and flying around like it needed to be tightened, not to mention just watching her shoot I’ll bet every shot had to be corrected to be straight.
I was watching people though, watching them and I had to laugh a few times because the guests were clearly thinking that the first woman was the only “real” photographer and who knows what they thought the partner was, some of the people wouldn’t give the partner time of day and I think that some of the bridal party hadn’t seen her before the ceremony either and they were kinda like wtf and didn’t listen to a thing she said. They were also different in personality and behavior which we all were but the first really carried herself like a professional and the other was getting raised eyebrows from guests and scowls behind her back from at least one bridesmaid. One might think second shooter but I got their card and they were equal partners. It was just bizarre, imo, to see two that should have collaborated more, to see one so professional and the other looking like a hack. I wonder how they worked together.
But while equipment isn’t everything – depends on what you do with it, as we all know – it certainly shows how much time and effort you put into your profession. Even both of them with second-rate equipment, you could tell who really took it seriously. And I did see the whole gallery to the wedding, they handed out cards for guests to view everything later, the pictures were good. Not the greatest thing since sliced bread, but not fauxtog quality either.