Gear & Apps
Ceremony | The App That Wants to Kill the Unplugged Weddings Trend
Want to annoy a wedding photographer? There’s an app for that.
Back in my day, I walked to school in 10 feet of snow, uphill both way…oh wait, wrong article. Actually, around that time, before electricity and cell phone cameras, the trend was to put a disposable camera on every table at a wedding reception so that your guests could take photos from their vantage point. What the bride and groom usually ended up with, after spending a slight fortune on processing fees, were 600 blurry shots of your first dance, a few blurry shots of your drunk friends and about 100 shots of who knows what.
But now, with the advent of cell phone cameras replacing those high processing costs, crowdsourcing wedding photos have become easier than ever – at the collective eye roll of almost every wedding photographer out there. Though some brides and grooms have opted for the unplugged wedding, encouraging guests to experience the wedding ceremony unglued to an LCD screen, many are embracing the snap happy culture by using hashtags and now apps, to allow guests to take pictures and share them with everyone. The newest app that does this is called Ceremony, and the premise is to make it easy for wedding guests to share their photos of a wedding in one place. The premium version is only $4.99, and that allows the bride and groom to download a full resolution copy of any photo or video they choose.
This isn’t the first app of its kind, last year’s WedPics and about 10 other apps do the same thing. But for those that hoped that the unplugged wedding trend would spark faster, it doesn’t seem too likely with the advent of these new apps, hashtags, and budding photographers. It looks like most of us will have to continue to battle with the Uncle Bobs jumping in front of us with his iPad to capture the first kiss.
As a wedding photographer, am I threatened that my job is at stake due to the popularity of crowdsourcing wedding photos? Personally, I am not. Is it annoying that there will be more people vying for photos, most likely getting in my way, and jocking for position? Yes, but I see it as part and parcel to the job. Will I need to work harder to stand out, produce remarkable images, and get them uploaded (at least a couple of them) faster? Absolutely.
What do you think? Is this a wedding photographer’s worse nightmare or just another blip in the road? Comment below.
[Via Imaging Resource]
I was at à concert recently and a kid nearby spent the entire show texting. I wanted to frisbee his stupid phone into the middle of the mosh pit (which was raging), and then hurl him into the mosh pit as well. You pay good money for a ticket and spend the time texting. If I were a wedding ‘tog and had to deal with these stories, I’d probably be jailed for assault within the first week. My tolerance for rudeness is not high.
It’s gotten really sad what our camera-phone obsessed culture has done not only to weddings but human life in general. No one has any patience anymore to just enjoy moments for what they are without resisting the urge to whip out their phones and snap useless pictures with the only intent of posting them to social media sites so their “friends” can know what they are doing at that exact moment.
I weep for our future as a culture.
Signed – a wedding photographer who recently deleted his Facebook account and got rid of his smartphone and couldn’t be happier to live without them.
dang, if I wasn’t so heavily invested in social media as a form of marketing, I’d pull out too.
We sure like to record videos and take photos on our phones that we’ll never look at again.
Justin, that very thing was what kept me plugged into it for as long as I did. But after a few months of no longer owning a smartphone and not being on Facebook, I can’t even begin to describe what it has done for me mentally. It’s changed my life in so many ways and all of them for the better. And I am still continuing to get business through word of mouth.
I looked at your website and your work is great. There’s no doubt in my mind you would still be able to succeed without that world!
Best of luck.
Thanks Adam! I really like your work!
I was about to ask you if I can send you a friend request on Facebook…DOH
I was at a concert recently shooting from the pit. There was a lady in the front row who I found out shot the whole show with an iPad.
As for the weddings and cellphones and all that, I would have no problems asking someone to leave if they interfered with the hired photographer. I want great images of our day, not the bright screens of some cellphones taking pictures you will never look at again. Its one of the reason I stopped 2nd shooting weddings. My last wedding I got shoved out of the way when the first kiss happened. I shouldn’t have to worry about getting pushed to the ground by a rush of people trying to get iPad pictures.
I have a good kiss photo from a wedding I did on Friday. What’s keeping it from being a great photo are the two closet family members on both sides of the aisle, holding their cellphones up for a photo.
I’m sure those snapshots were just magical.
Exactly! I just captured a Baptism last weekend and one of the God Mother had her Iphone up pointed at the baby. It totally ruined the photo that I took of the group at that time. This is just he worst idea ever and I not worried about loosing jobs to this app because clients will never be satisfied with blurry photos taken by their guests.
This is not the first app to propose this idea. The other one is now called Crickets…lol
The worst one was the Uncle Bob in the front row by the aisle who had his Sony A7R hanging into the aisle with this Gary Fong Light Sphere.
I was able to photoshop out the light sphere, but I made sure he got to see the back of my camera with a kind reminder clear the aisle in the future.
We could write the biggest book with all these stories. Tales of a wedding photographer…
Yeah, some family members should stay in their closet.
ha, thanks Graham that was funny. I meant “closest” lol. I really wish we could edit our posts, I was hoping no one would notice.
Hanssie, it would be the saddest book lol.
Getting heckled by drunk uncles at a Vietnamese wedding is a pretty fond memory. Dinner hadn’t even been served yet!
Uncle Bob jumping in front with his iPad or iPhone is now ubiquitous regardless of the type of photography involved. I shoot primarily sports and have to request specifically the right to control the group shots, particularly of championship teams, otherwise I’m engulfed by fathers and mothers with their smart phones giving the players their own instructions.
People using iPads to photograph weddings really annoys me. They are just too intrusive. With a DSLR then the head and camera are close together but without a viewfinder the space occupied by someone taking a picture is much greater and space is at a premium when a bride is walking down a narrow aisle.
Before every ceremony, when guests are seated and the procession hasn’t started, I kindly ask the guests if anyone has an iPad they plan to take photos or video with to consult with me on the best places to be using their device during the wedding and to not put them into the air above heads because it will interfere with photography.
Secretly, I want to tell them they should leave their iPads at home lol.
I agree, I’ve have a few shots ruined by uncle bob and his iPad.
the ipad is what annoys and bothers the shot? the stupid 7-10″ tablet? not the 6′ person standing in your way, right? I want to walk over to him and elbow him in the head. people are so in trance by looking at the screen that they dont even realize where they stand. in a slow dance people stand right in the BG space and I have to walk to them and tell them to back up. people are in lala land when theyre shooting with their phones. and criminals as well. they all shoot vertical video.
quite an american phenomenon though. its happening more around the world but its mostly an american thing where you see BG walking down the isle and your shot of the bride/dad coming down the isle is infected with people cellphones in the pic.
proof that its an american phenomenon? hello ? Unplugged Wedding…a term that comes from america.