PHOTOGRAPHY – An Amateur’s Perspective
(Abhishek Uppal)

I consider myself a pretty good amateur photographer. I’ve taken a couple of classes, I have a nice Canon and, if you didn’t budget for a professional photographer at your wedding, I’m the friend you might call to take pictures.

So when SF Chronicle sent me to the late-winter wedding of Vicky Wu and Chris Nicoll to shoot alongside Joey Hong, a local award-winning team of two brothers who have been shooting commercial, fashion and wedding photography for more than eight years, I was curious to see how well I could keep up with a seasoned pro.

From the moment we started shooting in the bride and groom’s hotel room, I was floored. “Vicky, look down at your shoulders…put a gentle smile on your lips. Chris, look straight at my lens-no, smile. Relax your forehead.” Joey’s attention to such minute detail went way beyond “Say cheese” and brought out the couple’s absolute best. He knew how to manipulate the room’s light and reflective surfaces in ways I never would have dreamed of; transforming what I thought was an unremarkable setting into a photo studio with endless possibilities.

Joey commanded family portraits with a gentle control and confidence that only comes from years of experience. He had the right flashes and steadiness of hand for getting great dance photos, while I snapped shot after blurry shot in a mild panic that my precious memory space was quickly dwindling. I was giving it my best, and in a few instances it showed: an inside shot of Vicky simply glowing in the window’s natural light; a close-up in the sunlight where the couple wore the sweetest smiles. But when those spontaneous moments that are here and gone in the blink of an eye happened, Joey caught them with lightning speed, while I lost many of them to improper focus or exposure.

I now disagree more than ever with the digital-age adage that “now everyone is a photographer.” Tens of thousands of dollars in education, equipment and experience separate me from the pros.

“Photography is a very equipment-intensive business, and the equipment is expensive,” says Scott Squire, with 10 years of experience. To each wedding, he and his partner bring six or seven top-drawer lenses, a handful of strobes, three camera bodies, one backup and innumerable accessories. (In contrast, if my equipment had failed, my backup would have been my camera phone.)

Vicky and Chris would have been pretty disappointed if I had been their only photographer. If anyone ever does ask me to take pictures at their wedding, I’ll be happy to show up with my Canon, and I may even take the best disposable-camera shots of the whole night. I just hope someone like Joey is there, too.