My Stint as a Wedding Photographer

I started to take my creative endeavors (slightly) more seriously in High School. At that time, it felt as though there were many former students around me that were trying new things and trying to find themselves. For the most part I don’t miss High School, but going back to that time and physical body would present so many opportunities. Anyways, back then, there were two things that I started to fall in love with around the same time: photography and playing the guitar. 

As for the guitar playing, I graduated onto being more of a bass player, but that’s a story for another time. As a photographer, however, I really grew to enjoy it over a very short time. I had a photography class in my Sophomore and Junior years in high school and really enjoyed both years of it with Miss Kim. Lots of people hated, I mean HATED that class because she treated it less like an elective and more like an actual college-level class where you needed to apply yourself and put forward a lot of effort. It was one of my favorite classes in high school by far and probably substantially helped me move more towards having a fulfilling creative career.

During the last year of high school my parents graciously gifted me my first DSLR camera, a Canon Rebel XT with the 18-55mm kit lens. To me it was truly everything, until I quickly realized how limiting that little 18-55 lens was and forked out some serious (for me ) cash on another lens, a Quantaray 18-200mm lens which only exacerbated the problem. I had actually gone out with my family on trips just to take pictures at sunset on weekends and after school, and even got a chance to go on a photography-focused museum trip in Europe during the first summer of college.

That European trip was something else, I tell you. We went for 2.5 weeks around Rome, Florence, Venice, Paris, Bruges, Bern, and Amsterdam. For me as a 19 year old, I did a little too much partying but I had a great opportunity to take some amazing pictures! That was a big staple in my photography hobby, which made me want to expand that more into potentially a full-time career of some sort. I didn’t know how yet, but I knew I loved doing it.

Well, that was until I took another real photography class at University level - it was an intro class with the attitude of a Master’s in Fine Arts attitude. After that class it started to really slide downhill for my drive into photography, and I started to look elsewhere for what my degree was going to be in. While I had met some great people and did occasionally enjoy it the instructor never seemed to really get behind my work. I spent more time on that class than for any other that semester and nothing ever seemed to impress him. While holding my college outcome on one class might be a bit much, it made me really rethink my love for photography.

While I was occasionally enjoying film photography after that class, my friend Brandon from high school decided to reach out about how he was doing wedding photography on the side from his friend’s aunt. She had her own business in professional photography and would occasionally have some lower-level clients she would throw to us to try out from time to time. Not super consistent, and the pay barely covered the cost of lenses and my time for editing, but overall it was a great experience in trying something out professionally on the side.

@bpudiquet and I from back when I had an Android phone and more comfortably fit into medium-sized shirts.

I have done a total of 10 wedding gigs (they were not always a full wedding, but still just as stressful) but I learned more about honing my craft, communication, punctuality, and that at the time I was far too introverted/shy/quiet to try to organize a bunch of people on the most special day of their life. I also quickly learned that there are some things you need to just be able to say “no” to.

There was another client I would occasionally do photos for, Teddy’s Bigger Burger. They’re a west coast/Hawaii chain that sells burgers that will put you to sleep just thinking about how heavy they are but it wasn’t a bad gig. It was the first and last food photography gig I’ve ever had and it was definitely a fun experience to take photos of fries, shakes, TONS of burgers (sometimes 10+ in one morning), and toward the end breakfast food, and being in my early 20’s I would just eat as much as I could as it was free food. Even though it was usually around 9-10 in the morning before they opened. RIP to Ted of Teddy’s Bigger Burgers, I learned a ton from that first “real” job out of college!