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]
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