The Challenge of Amateur Photographers at Destination Weddings
Many amateur photographers are eager to travel for destination weddings. They most likely won’t charge you for their services if you pay for their travel expenses. This may seem tempting to someone who is on a strict budget and even for someone that just wants to save money, however, hiring someone with experience in destination weddings will be one less headache for many reasons.
A lot of destination wedding packages at resorts add in their resort photographer, so be sure to check your contract. There is sometimes a fee of $800 or more if you decide not to use the resort photographer. If your package comes with a resort photographer, but you decide to fly in a hired photographer, then the resort photographer will need to know in advance. This also means that your hired photographer will need to connect with the resort photographer at some point and work together to give you the best pictures. Amateur photographers may not have the professional skills to work around the resort photographer and still take great shots. It may be difficult for them not to accidentally capture the resort photographer in their shots. An experienced and professional photographer will know how to work around them, allowing the resort photographer to think they have the lead.
If your package comes with a resort photographer, it may still be a good idea to hire a photographer. Why? Usually the resort photographer wears many hats. Their occupation usually isn’t photography as they are often doing multiple jobs unrelated to taking pictures and retouching them. If so, then they aren’t really considered amateur photographers, but instead they’re essentially novices. Normally, you would spend time with your photographer going over the type of shots you want for your wedding. This may not be the case when using the resort photographer as they may be unfamiliar with the process. They may leave you in the dark about what you’re actually getting if you’re unable to see examples of their photos. You will also need to find out if they have retouching skills and/or if retouching is part of your package. A hired professional would be able to answer those questions before you hire them or get to the destination, especially if they have the experience.
When hiring a photographer you definitely want someone that’s experienced with traveling with expensive equipment. Amateurphotographers won’t know that they are targets when they travel with too many equipment pieces or even just their professional-looking camera bag. It would be a terrible and almost un-fixable situation if they were robbed while in another country. Even if they aren’t seen with the bags, over the course of the week, people will notice them as the person with the large expensive camera. Experienced photographers know which lens to bring, how many pieces to bring and how to separate their equipment so that if they are robbed, they won’t lose everything and will still be able to take quality pictures at your wedding.
In addition to quality pictures, you want someone that has professional etiquette. Once you map out when, where, and how long they are taking photos, photographers will want to enjoy their trip too. You are most likely going to be courteous and invite your traveling photographer to enjoy some of the festivities with you, that’s if they aren’t supposed to be working. You don’t want immature and amateur photographers to take you up on your offer and be hungover the next day. This is true if the wedding is the next day or not. You don’t want a drunken photographer at all during the stay of your wedding vacation. It’s important to find someone who knows how to wisely handle the situation. Some photographers will know that after the wedding they should keep to themselves unless invited directly by you, the paying customer. Amateur photographers may take an invite from the wedding party as a hint that you’re okay with them partying with you. Professional photographers know that your expectation of them is high and they want you to recommend them for future events.
Speaking of high expectations, one of the worst things that can happen is for a photographer to lose all of their footage. Professional photographers will know to upload their photos to a cloud via the wifi at the resort. Amateur photographers may try to keep all of their pictures on an sd card and potentially lose the photos. They may even remove them from the sd card and put it on their laptops, but that’s still a risky situation. Uploading everything to a cloud based system is the easiest and most reliable thing to do.
With all the things that can go wrong, hiring a professional photographers can make some of the challenges a breeze. Anything that can make your planning experience easier is a no brainer. Hiring a professional can make planning an easier quest to conquer and at least take one thing off your plate. Carpe Diem Design Studio has experience traveling and is willing and ready to help you plan the best wedding possible. Email us at dblake@carpediemdesignstudio today for more information.