37 Years of Wedding Photography

http://geoffthompsonphotographics.blogspot.com/

Helen and Rob on a recent walk in the Riverland

Congratulations Helen and Rob on your wedding anniversary. I remember this being my first wedding and as a complete novice and 37 years ago today.
I had got the photography bug while living in Darwin after my wife and I got married and lived there on a working honeymoon.
On the day of the wedding I was staying at the Bride's house,my wife's sister, and captured all the activities of preparation as we went.
We had all been putting finishing touches to the Paringa Hall  for the reception the night before.
I was using a Pentax Spotmatic 2 and had asked for a few tips from some photographer workmates and a neighbour.
I had been taking photos for 4 years at that stage of Darwin, Renmark, pet cats and our eldest son who was approaching one year at the time of this wedding. I had done some photographs of course of family gatherings and outings.

The first paid job I had done, and I am not sure this was before the wedding ,was  of a full dress rehearsal for and end of year concert for a dance school. A work colleague was the instructor.
That was a nightmare.
Armed with a standard 50 mm lens, a flimsy tripod, a manual soltron flash gun.

I knew nothing of posing but fortunately Rosalie the instructor did.

Well back to the wedding. It all went well except that I thought the minister was going to sign the register in his vestry so I had ducked around to the back of the Church and in the back door waiting for the couple to appear.
To my horror they signed in the Church proper and when I realised this raced around to the front of the Church and managed to fire off one shot. Not the best photo I had taken but I got one.

Everyone was happy with the photos and I was on my way as a wedding photographer.

The weekend after I photographed my brothers wedding and of course felt a bit more realaxed for that one.

I think in the first few years of weddings I was reasonably relaxed as I had not much idea about wedding photography and did not realise how much I didn't know. 

Over the last few years I have started to photograph weddings of the children of my first generation of couples and have had the privilege of photographing the weddings of Rob and Helen's two girls.

To have a look at a gallery of wedding shots that have appeared on this blog follow the link below the above image.

Ps As at 8/2/16. and approaching 70, I am photographing about 1 wedding a year as an assistant. Next wedding 5/3/16.