Why two photographers are better than one...
I love photographing the new babies, but I also love wedding photography. Which is fortunate, because weddings on Martha’s Vineyard are popular. Who can resist our small-town charm, our cozy beaches, our historic buildings and bucolic fields.
When I photograph a wedding, I always encourage couples to consider adding not just a videographer, but a second photographer. Here’s why…
When you have a main photographer and a “second shooter,” you get two different perspectives (literally, but I’ll get to that) and two different eyes for two styles in your photographs. In my weddings, I work with photographers who are experienced artists in their own right, whose work I feel complements mine. (For the weddings in this blog, my second shooter was Jeremy Driesen.)
Having two photographers at your wedding can provide two simultaneous vantage points for a fuller story to your day. Maybe you spent years dreaming of your wedding and months planning every detail. Maybe you decided to get married on a whim and only invited your dog as witness. Whatever your day looks like, the photographs are going to hold your memories and you want them to be as big and as wide of a container for that as possible. So two photographers means we can be in two different places at the same time (for example, the bride is getting ready in one house and the groom is getting ready somewhere else)….
Or two photographers means that you can see two different angles of the same scene, like in these first look or first dance photos where we each photographed the exact same moment in two different ways. It would have been impossible to see both sides without having two photographers at work…
Or two simultaneous moments. Having two photographers means you get to see both the toast-er and the cheer; the bride looking and her parents’ faces; the bride’s smile and the faces of those she’s greeting…
My role as the photographer for your wedding is to be discrete, to get the shots you didn’t even see me getting. That means I want to be unobtrusive during your ceremony and celebration, so I can’t be racing from one side to another in a split second. My job then is to anticipate the moment, and to be in the right spot at the right time for the right moment, but since I can’t be in two literal spots at the same time, a second photographer is my orbiting partner, there to catch what I can’t because I’m on the other side of your venue and not chasing you as you process, for example…
In these examples, you can see the other photographer in the back of the frame and so it’s clear that we have captured two sides of the same coin, two angles of the same story and the same moment. Having two photographers is like getting 360 degree coverage of your wedding.
It’s impossible to say which shot angle is more important for your wedding. Which part of your celebration could be sacrificed if there is only one photographer there?
If you’re getting married soon and you want your day captured from all sides, I’d love to hear from you!