All newpaper photographers, many fashion photographers, and most wedding photographers have either switched to digital or are in the process of doing so. Digital is less forgiving of photographers mistakes, and some photographers having become comfortable over a period of many years and made a sizeable investiment in time and money in medium format camera equipment, are reluctant to start the learning and purchasing process all over again with digital equipment.

The top wedding photographers espousing a more creative approach to wedding photography, including Joe Bussink, Becker, Bambi Cantrell, and Denis Regie long ago made the switch to digital. What Sint fails to mention is that with digital equipment photographers are not limited by how many rolls of film they can carry. A traditional photographer working with mdium format equipment will be happy to end the day with 300 images. A photographer using digital equipment covering a typical wedding will end the day with over 2000 images. More moments captured, and the option to have any image in color or Black & White or both (color for mom’s book, and B&W for the bride and groom’s album).

Sint also talks about the short life of inkjet prints, though these are sprayed with a laquer to extend their life beyond the rated 25 years (which assumes they sit exposed to bright sunlight over thouse 25 years, or the problem with color negative film as it ages and becomes brittle. The commercial printers using high end Epson or HP printers produce prints with an expected life of over 75 years, and with digital it is not a problem to produce a new print if the old one hung on the wall in bright sunlight fades.

Most wedding photographers provide a copy of the high resolution digital negatives to their clients on their wedding anniversary at no charge. No conventional film based wedding photographer will give up their medium format negatives unless it is for a hefty fee.

As of 2004 when this book was published there are a number of digital cameras that produce better images than is possible with medium format film cameras. And Sint fails to mention that 95% of the brides only get an album with the most common size being a 10×10 inch with the largest picture a 8×10 print.

The most dated information and glaring omission is Sint’s coverage of wedding albums. Most brides will spend more than half the price of their wedding photography on the cost of an album, and Sint provides no mention of the digitally created albums. There is also a revolution in wedding albums that has resulted from the availability of high quality digital negatives. Coffee table book style albums that have each page printed can contain any number of images, can have artistic backgrounds, off center placement and all the other imaging one associates with modern magazines, available to the bride at less expense than she would pay for a traditional wedding album with individual prints pasted into individual and expensive mount pages. This approach enables the skilled photographer to tell the story of the wedding day instead of just present a collection of posed stiff pictures like what was done for the brides grandmother and grandfather.

Taking film negatives and having them scanned to produce digital negatives adds a great deal of expense and produces images that are inferior to “first generation” images produced by professional grade cameras available for the past several years.

If the bride takes a look at the images produced by a wedding photographer using film cameras, she will notice that the reception shots where the lighting is usually quite low, are taken using either a great deal of flash which produces an unnatural look, or were shot with grainy high speed Black & White film. The look of grainy B&W images can be quite nice but it is not something that works all the time. With the current generation of digital cameras color images can be taken in low light situations that with film cameras would require B&W film.

Digital also greatly reduces the risk of malfunctioning equipment during the wedding, and eliminates the risk of film not being delivered to the lab, or the lab incorrectly processing the film and destroying the only copy of the pictures taken during the day. The bride should be asking the photographer whether they are covered for “errors and omissions” and verify that their insurance policy is current. Having a full set of backup equipment is even more important. Wedding photographers do not get a “second take” and if one piece of gear fails they need a backup so they can keep on taking pictures.

Sint should be recommending that the bride look at the images produced by the photographers for other brides, examine the photographers’ different styles and approaches through the images they have taken for previous weddings and select one that is compatible with that of the bride. The prospective bride should look at the wedding albums actually produced to see if the end product is what she wants. What equipment the photographer used to capture the images, make the prints, and produce the album is largely irrelevant.
Rating: 2 / 5

“It is possible to get a nice set of wedding photographs without hiring a professional photographer. This sleight of hand is achieved by asking a relative or friend to take your photos for you.” (p.48 – lol)

“Another choice that is usually less costly than using a full second crew is to hire a photojournalist, or ‘PJ style,’ shooter in addition to the main photographer.” (p. 61 – excuse me, photojournalists are often the main photographers as has been the case for the past several years now, and the cost is variable – if they cost less, it’s because they don’t bait brides with a low initial fee and gouge them on prints after the fact)

“that didn’t have the sloppiness you sometimes get with pure PJ images.” (p. 61 – come on, tell us what you really think)

“medium format negatives offer an advantage over other photographic formats. When interviewing photographers, don’t forget to ask them what size film they shoot.” (p.82 – I guess somebody didn’t get the memo that medium format died years ago as far as wedding photography is concerned)

“Most of the finest photography studios in the country use medium format as their standard.” (p.83 – sweeping generalization pulled out of a rear end that was maybe true in 1980… certainly not in 2004, and you’d be laughed at if you made such a ludicrous statement in 2009)

In the last part of the book, Mr. Sint directly compares traditional photography with photojournalism. Here his bias is clear: He takes traditional photography’s drawbacks and paints them as advantages, while for the photojournalism section, he had to “ask a number of wedding photographers who specialize in this form to characterize the style” (p.108 – so clearly he has no idea himself) and then proceeds to quote a few choice responses and shoots them down one by one, proving that he is more interested in arguing semantics than presenting his audience (brides) with some real facts.

For example, he quotes from a photojournalist: ‘The camera or photographer does not intrude in any way,’ to which he responds by telling the reader, “Don’t you want to be told if there is lipstick on your teeth?”

Another photojournalist writes, ‘Subjects look best when they are natural.’ Mr. Sint’s brilliant response? “Nothing about a wedding is natural to begin with. It is not every day that a woman wears a formal gown with a six-foot train trailing behind her.”

Yet another photojournalist writes, ‘The photographer shoots strictly hand-held, existing light photos,’ to which Mr. Sint responds, “If your wedding is on a Saturday night, in a windowless catering hall with a black ceiling, shooting with no tripod and no flash will result in no pictures!” (all from p. 109)

I know what you’re thinking. I actually did look for a “relax, it’s a joke” disclaimer somewhere on p. 109. There was none. Sint was being DEAD SERIOUS. I guess the take-home message to the readers, the clueless brides of the world, is: a) photojournalists are mute, b) you and your wedding are unnatural, and c) don’t have your unnatural wedding at night in a windowless hall with a black ceiling, because no photojournalist carries a flash. Ever. In fact, the pictures from photojournalists in Associated Press and Reuters feeds, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Newsweek, and TIME that appear to be shot with flash? Photoshop. True story.

I won’t even get into the sample pictures. Suffice it to say that if you like them, you probably also think that a set up picture of the bride’s father pulling out his empty pants pockets in a feigned “I’m broke” exasperation is still funny and clever today.

In summary: If you are a bride, the information contained in this book is outdated at best, and downright misleading and wrong at worst. If you are a photographer looking to see what’s happening in today’s market, you’re better off finding out who the current top names are and seeing what they’re doing. This book’s only saving grace is that it’s pretty good comic relief if you’re bored, and have some money to flush down the toilet.
Rating: 1 / 5