Weddings & Booze Rumination

I shot my first wedding earlier this month and I'm lucky that I had the opportunity to shoot a wedding of my own family that wouldn't have had a photographer present. I took comfort knowing that ANY photos I got would be considered icing. That being said it was fun taking the job seriously, dressing fancy and flying to Kelowna with all my photo gear. I tried some different techniques, and got some really beautiful moments. However as the night progressed I thought it appropriate to indulge in libations, after all I wasn't doing this job for money, and I'm part of the family. This didn't help my success ratio. I'm definitely glad I learned this lesson early: drinking and taking photographs turn me into an amateur. My ratio of good photos suffers dramatically, and half of the keepers are more like snapshots than Photographs (with a capital p). From now on, I'll be approaching each assignment like a yoga class. No booze, meditation, warrior, present in each moment, breath.