Why hire a professional photographer?

If you ask a friend to take your wedding photograpghs you will get holiday snap quality. They may be good on one section of your wedding, with the people they know, but they will not capture the full story.

For the modern bride who is likely to want a more informal reportage or documentary style of photography, the fact that it looks easy is a trap that it's all too tempting to fall into. Bad documentary is awfull. It's just backs of heads and closed eyes. But in the right hands it can be glorious! Documentary does not mean failing to think about the images. A good photographer is thinking, creating and looking all the time, but no-one is aware of this creative process bubbling-away inside the photographer's head. It's about knowing when to dip-in and tease the best out of people and knowing instinctively when to draw back. That is a skill you normally only acquire with experience. A good wedding photographer knows how to read people so that they feel comfortable. You are often photographing them without them even being aware of it. But you are also doing this quickly and spontaneously. When you hire a professional photographer you are buying their professional expertise. That also includes expertise in processing standards, film quality and the quality of the camara. Everyone now has a digital camera, but a professional's will be head-and-shoulders above a conventional one.

Good photographers can think outside the box and an event as a whole. It's their job to get wonderful, stylish pictures. They need to seek those perfect shots. They also react to the atmosphere of the event and they read when they can get right in there with the camara and how intimate they can be with the bride and groom.  Some couples don't are private and don't want to share those moments with the camera, others waht the photographer to capture everything.A good and experienced wedding photographer will know how to read a couple and react accordingly.

Your guests will take some great photographs, but they won't be consistently good. Therefore, resist the amateur's offer. There are no short-cuts or cost-saving devices to great wedding photography. You must immediately seek-out a professional photographer!