u/No_ThatGuy3

I'm fairly new to wedding photography and have been second shooter for a few and shot several family weddings myself. I mostly do portrait photography in studio and occasionally outdoors but I really enjoy doing weddings. I recently did a wedding where it seemed like everything went wrong. There was no coordinator. The venue was poorly lit and the preacher forbid flash during the ceremony (understandably), for lighting I'm talking only string lights and a few wall scones with rough cut lumber walls and ceilings, no windows. It was probably an excellent hay barn but not much of a venue when in comes to photos. I brought some lighting from my studio and suspended it from a loft and got the alter lit well enough to shoot. That was aggravating but whatever, not a big deal. Let me start this next part by saying that I'm a stickler for keeping a schedule, if I'm not 15 minutes early I'm considering myself late so I've been there since 11AM setting up lighting and helping and testing my angles and metering different spots. So, the wedding party that was scheduled to be ready for photos at 2pm still wasn't dressed at 4pm for the 5pm wedding, and by not dressed I mean they haven't even gotten their clothes out of the bags and one dude is still at the barber shop for some reason. The bride didn't even show up until a little after 4:30pm. She's in a dead run trying to push for photos before the wedding despite myself and my assistant trying to talk her into waiting until after at this point. We rush through a few solo of her at her insistence where frankly she wouldn't barley hold a pose long enough to focus before demanding the wedding start (understandable and why we wanted to just shoot after the ceremony). The ceremony goes on mostly according to plan other than some parties missing their music cues and afterwards she's demanding we do all the photos in about 15 minutes so food can be served while simultaneously not holding still or listening to ANY directions. Despite my assistant physically posing people at one point nobody would hold a pose long enough to focus. Every instant I took a breath to think of the next pose, or more of how to verbalize my vision in the simplest of terms hoping they can understand I'm met with "come on, be snapping". I get maybe four half way decent photos of the couple before she starts calling over the entire wedding for a group photo. Not the wedding party, the entire wedding. Like 80+ people and insists they all stand in a straight single file line. I try to explain "To fit everyone in one shot you're not going to be able to make out any faces and it will be a horrible photo, please lets do it in smaller groups or do multiple rows." To which I'm met with disapproval so I end up standing 40+ yards away and just snapping a few to appease them. In the time it took to corral the couple back to some props they specifically requested half the bridesmaids have changed clothes and the groomsmen are eating despite myself and my assistant repeatedly telling everybody to go stand in a certain area for a few moments for more photos. The bride refuses to do any of the instructed poses and instead does her own thing and tries to instruct on what angles to take the photo from, which are frankly less than flattering and definitely not my style. I do it anyway because I want them to be happy and at this point I'm just burning up film so I can be done.

I do film photography, as in my entire business is based and marketed around the fact that I shoot film and process it myself. The name is even ______ Film Photography, I shot 12 rolls of 36 exp Portra 800 and two rolls of Cinistill 800T along with a roll of 36 exp Fujifilm 400. It's been a week and I haven't even brought myself to develop it yet. My assistant shot everything in digital as a safety net. For nearly every shot they stood behind or beside me and shot simultaneously and in the brief times it took me to change rolls the bride is telling my assistant to keep shooting. Mind you my assistant is not a professional photographer and has zero wedding experience, barely any experience at all really (they repeatedly told everyone involved this). I set their camera up and had them just mirror me so they didn't know what to do without me. I run two identical cameras so I don't have to change rolls during the ceremony, this changing rolls was all while doing poses afterwards. Which anyone whom knows anything about film photography should expect when hiring someone using film. I've gotten it down to less than a minute and a half to change a roll so it's not like I'm dicking around for five minutes. Most of my photos are candids of the wedding reception and of people playing the games and dancing after the couple stopped cooperating in favor of food so I know I've got some awesome shots of people playing horseshoes and dancing but not so much of the wedding couple in their nice clothes.

By the end of the night we'd been there over 11 hours and after the berating and constant hustling (after waiting several hours past the scheduled time on people to show up) I've at least temporarily lost all confidence in my skills. I haven't even looked at the digital photos yet as I'm certain they're disappointing.

My question is, are all weddings this horrible and I've just been lucky up to this point being the second shooter or was this an exceptionally bad situation? Am I to blame for being somewhat inexperienced in weddings and expecting the schedule to be followed? How would you handle this, and going forward how can I better avoid such situations?

I've got a shoot lined up and I'm familiar with film and my equipment but I've never used porta 800 and given the lighting and movement at the place I'm opting to use 800 vs my normal 400. Does it handle outdoor daylight without a blue tint when stopped down or should I expect some editing in that regard. I'll be bouncing back and forth from outside to inside and who knows what the weather will be when it comes time (may be full sun, may be pouring rain, or anywhere in between).

At different times I've debated my sanity and possibly being haunted. At different times we've had things go missing only to reappear and duplicates appear at random.

I lost the charger to my headlamp (flashlight) and looked everywhere for it as I use it frequently at work but charge it at home. My wife and I both searched the house to no avail. I come home that evening and it's on the kitchen counter. We don't keep things on the counter, not even small appliances, it's completely bare so it couldn't have been overlooked. My wife left before me that day and swears she didn't put it there but sure enough there it was all rolled up nice and neat.

I lost the key to our gate, it's a master lock key on a bright yellow ring that always lives in the cup holder of my truck but one day I go out in the morning and it's gone, I had used it the night prior. I searched the truck, the area near the gate, the house, the laundry and the key was nowhere to be found. About a week later I go out to the truck to leave for work and there is my key on its bright yellow ring in the cup holder.

At different times the barn door has been open in the morning when it was barred the night before. It locks from inside with a steel bar and you have to pull it towards you while inserting the bar or it won't go in. Often when the door is discovered open the bar is found removed and setting somewhere else in the barn. This is just a hay and feed barn, no animals inside it.

All the watches and analog clocks were about 5 minutes slow compared to the cell phones one morning. That was weird. Side note I usually only wear old wind up watches because battery watches seem to die within two or three months when I wear them for whatever reason so I have a small collection of wind up watches and a few quartz I've received as gifts and all were consistently off.

I spent hours last summer chasing the sound of cows through the woods thinking some got out only to get deep into the forest and have the sound stop. Looking back ot was probably some kind of bird or frog but it sounded just like cows.

Every man in my fathers line has been struck by lightning for 4 generations including myself. Not sure if that's a glitch or just weird coincidence combined with not knowing when to stop working in a storm. We've all survived but now I have a stutter and a fear of heavy rain.

My wife was cleaning her closet last week and discovered three of the same college shirts from a school she went to ten years ago. We've moved three times since then and she's only ever had one of those shirts.

I once found my identical truck an hour from home. I have a very distinct colored 69 Chevy truck that I painted myself and while driving one day I found what I thought was it in a spot I use to hike. So identical I nearly called the police thinking it was mine someone had stolen. I got out to investigate it and down to the seat cover and tires it was identical. The only thing that kept me from calling the police was being in an area without service and knowing I'd taken the carburetor off mine the week prior to rebuild. When I got home to a phone my truck was in the driveway still. I took my wife out to show her the identical one and it was gone by that time.

My wife lost her airpods, case and all so after a few weeks we bought her another pair, when we get home hers are on the kitchen table.

I heard one of my hubcaps fall off on my gravel road so I stopped to pick it up. I find the one that came off and when I walk around the truck to see which one it was they're all still there so now I have five identical 57 year old hubcaps.

I was out shooting some photos of trains and associated things over the weekend and while trying to get a shot of this 1800's train station (still in use) a vagrant kept intentionally walking into frame. I walked to the other side of the building and by the time I've got it in the angle I want he's on that side of the building too so I move back and so does he. At this point I just start to fold up the tripod and such when he starts approaching saying something about "what camera you got?" And I'm hard of hearing so it's hard to say if he was yelling because it wasn't the first time he said it or something else, it's just the first time I heard it. I tell him "Just an old film camera" and he looks disappointed/angry, says some profanity towards me and walks away, like starts walking way down the road out of sight. So in the end I set back up and got my shot I wanted.

Did I encounter a crack head camera snob looking to discuss the latest Leica or did my film camera make me too poor for a bum to rob?

Nikon FM2 for anyone curious.

I've got the idea for a series of photos I'd like to do with the subject's face blurred or distorted for artistic reasons not privacy but I want to also print this in the darkroom so I need to alter the negative itself. How would you do this? I'm thinking some sort of light solvent on a small modeling brush or maybe rub it while the emulsion is still wet. Any ideas?