A few weeks ago, a videographer friend of mine did a wedding. He usually produces very professional, high quality work, but unfortunately, the bride and groom had also hired a DJ service that videotaped the ceremony to show at the reception. To the bride and groom's surprise the microphone for the DJ's video interfered with the sound of my friend's video and ruined the quality. My advice to my customers and to other brides and grooms is to let a professional do his job. There was no reason for another videographer to be there at the wedding and negatively effect the work of the professional who was hired for the day.
Also, be wary of videographers who claim to be photographers as well. It is important to be the master of your own trade. A videographer, while he/she may have mastered the production of high quality video is not necessarily a good photographer, and vice versa.
A few years ago, I had a third photographer whom I was training to shoot weddings. I had him follow me around and shoot what I was shooting, just to get a feel for it, but overall these were my concepts that he was shooting. This photographer unbeknownst to me, gave the images that he took to a videography company, in hopes of getting more work. The videography company then took the images that he gave them and made them into a sample wedding album. This album, with my concepts in it, they would show to their customers as an example of the skills of their photographers! So be aware, things aren't what they seem, and you get what you pay for.
Next month, I will be talking about infrared photography.
