An interesting question, but do most people really care?
To be honest, for most of the time if you are taking a picture with your new i.phone or Samsung phone camera and you are only using the image for instagram, facebook or other social media platforms then a straight picture taken from these camera phones won’t look much different to a top of the range professional camera. If you ask many pro photographers if they would hire a photographer to capture their vacation or engagement shoot, many of them would just go for the simple phone camera pictures including myself. I personally wouldn’t waist my money on hiring a photographer to capture pictures of me and my girlfriend on vacation, the cost of hotels and flights is enough money spent already. I also don’t put pictures of myself and family all over my walls and I don’t go on social media showing everyone pictures of my private life. I find it alarming that people get obsessed with likes and followers and a need to be loved and admired, it’s an addiction that is horrifying to me.
But if you were to ask me what would I use to capture an epic picture that will be blown up huge on a wall for everyone to see that just blows people away with it’s clarity, it’s depth of field with a gorgeous creamy bokeh lens, then I would most certainly know what I wanted and expected to be inside a photographers camera bag. I would expect a wide variety of prime fast lenses, from wide 16mm to at least 300mm, that would be able to capture most situations. So when comparing your phone camera and a pro, top of the range camera side by side when blown up to a large print, you will see the difference in sharpness, pixelation and depth of field quality and color, in fact there would be absolutely no comparison at all, a pro camera would be leaps ahead of the phone camera on a large print.
Someone once asked me if I were to have a wedding on Maui what would it be like? They ask me this because I have photographed thousand of stunning, breath taking weddings on Maui and around the world of all sizes, some were large million dollar Indian weddings lasting for four days and others were nice and simple beach weddings on Maui, Oahu, Kauai, Big Island.
My answer is always the same, I wouldn’t get married, “seriously”, I would save my money and travel to stunning locations with my girlfriend, eat good food and explore the culture and history of the places we visit. I personally don’t believe you need a piece of paper in your hand to be told or prove that you love somebody. If I had to choose what wedding I would have then I would probably pick a very intimate small wedding early in the morning on a very private beach or hill with impressive views and none religious ceremony. Then have close friends at a table eating really good food and celebrate the day with good people and family around me.
I mean no disrespect but have always found many weddings (not all of course) to be hilarious most of the time, with gigantic wedding cakes that nobody eats, beautiful flowers pulled from mother earths beautiful garden soil, now wilting away, wedding dresses hanging off brides that doesn’t fit her properly, that she well probably never wear again, bridal hair styles all pulled back, tight and un-natural looking and very uncomfortable, making them feel unrelaxed. Then Paying for hundreds of guests who many of them really don’t care about you or your family, and the biggest mind blowing experience is the next day, when it’s all over, and you can’t even remember what happened for being too drunk the night before. The one thing you do know is you are broke from paying for that huge unnecessary wedding that you will probably never look at the pictures ever again after the first month. Some of my clients unfortunately got a divorce weeks after their marriage, some had kids and divorced, but some are thankfully still together and it’s wonderful to see them happy with their family as they always come back for more pictures years later. Thank you to all of you for keeping in touch. Many clients buy wedding coffee table books or family books that we put together for them here at the studio and they do cherish them for life. So hopefully you are one of these people who respect and look after each other forever in love.
What I do like about weddings is meeting the couple and enjoying photographing them together being in love and sharing their intimate moments together. I like people, I am a people person and photographing them can be like being in a movie, where I am directing this wonderful scene of two people in love through this camera lens. It can be a truly magical experience to be a part of this special occasion, I like to celebrate the couples love for each other and not all the the other details of the wedding or event. I have photographed some breath taking moments of couples together in love, in all kinds of locations around the world and I am truly blessed to be a part of this special moment captured in time forever.
Because of my experience in the professional field, We are very particular about who works for our top team of excellent photographers on Maui at 808 pictures, we certainly make sure they have the right personality and the right kind of experience that gets the job done with excellence.
