The Perfect Wedding Photography Mix?!

Field Reports & Anecdotal Experience Men's Pheromone Advice & Field Reports
1

Today I was attending a wedding rehearsal. I’m shooting this wedding tomorrow, but today I attended the rehearsal and I wanted it to go well. Never shot a wedding before. So I turned to my trusty calcalaterer. It indicated, within about 20 minutes of crunching numbers, that the best mix I could wear would be 3 sprays of PS-R0x and 3 drops of “regular” A314. (I also have Royal Oil A314.)

So, not thinking much of it, I put on three sprays and three drops, and went about getting ready. I was kinda nervous, and didn’t really think about the pheromones.

Wow. Score another hit for the calculator. Brilliant results. I got there before anyone else, and started doing light meter readings, taking notes, doing test shots, etc. Then the organist comes in, and starts practicing. I introduce myself. He’s plainly gay, and he has this completely puzzled look on his face for a minute while shaking my hand. Then he starts asking me questions that indicate that he thinks very highly of me as a professional… now, I dress professionally when I do paid work, but this was a bit much. He never met me before. Before he could talk much, he got called away.

Then the Maid of Honor gets there, and she starts asking me all kinds of questions. She’s a portraitst too, but she’s a painter. When the mones hit her, she starts asking me all kinds of questions about makeup, as if I’m an expert on makeup. She asks me if the bride should wear day makeup or night makeup. Arabawho?

But without a second thought, I answered, “Well, we have these overhead tungsten lights, and we want to make sure the directional lights don’t produce dark shadows as she’s passing under them even using a flash, but we also don’t want her to have too bright a layer under her eyes. The wedding ceremony itself doesn’t allow flash, so we want to focus entirely on natural light looking best, but we have to consider the color temperature. This is not just tungsten, this is also sunlight, and that’s a mix of orange and blue lights, so we have to be careful. And the cheek rouge she’s wearing is a couple steps too brown, it would look better if it were more pink or maybe coral… and the cheek to eye blend isn’t very good, the line of demarkation between the two color wise is way too obvious. We want her to look like she’s wearing no makeup, and have the makeup give her a vivacity that enhances her in a youthful way.” (The bride to be is around 50 years old, but properly made up, would look around 40.)

It came out of me not from a “I know about makeup” perspective, cause I don’t… it was an analysis of her face from a photographer’s point of view, noticing the small details and considering color, lighting direction, color temperature, etcetera. But it so impressed the Maid of Honor, that she decided I had to be present to direct the makeup artist tomorrow. lol

Then she told the bride to be what I had said, and this so impressed the bride and groom to be that afterwards, they invited me to dinner, on them, at the yacht club where the reception will be held.

Then they introduced me, repeatedly as “their friend”, and the world’s best photographer, and the tone of the latter was only slightly in jest. They then spent hours regaling me with conversation about how they respected me, how I impressed them, and suggestions and tips on how to set up and run a wedding photography business from the client’s perspective. Now tell me that the pheromones weren’t giving me confidence, authority, and gobs of respect!

It wasn’t immediately that I noticed all this, but on the way home, with time to think, I realized it… they love me! They respect me, they are impressed by me, and uh-oh… they have heightened expectations now! This is my first wedding photography job, and I was planning to under-promise and over-deliver. That won’t be so simple now.

Of course, not all of this is the pheromones. It helps that I dress well, am considerate and polite, and I know that my job is to please the bride to be, even though she constantly tells me she wants me to decide because “it’s my career and portfolio”.

“No, it’s your wedding. I’m here to serve you. It’s not about what I get out of this.” I had to tell her that three times!

This is an unbelievable mix for respect, status and authority… as well it should be, given that both components are designed to give that effect, but from different directions. Together, they are A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

Can’t wait to see what adjustments the calculator suggests for tomorrow!

2

Report #2: The day of the wedding.

The wedding was yesterday, the 24th of October. I again ran the calcs and this time the new variables produced a new result. This time, the best results were indicated from 3 drops of regular A314 nd 2 sprays TUTH. That kind of surprised me, because usually I wear 4 drops of A314 with 2 sprays of TUTH (better buffering effect) but… okay…

So I put on three drops of A314 and 2 sprays of TUTH. One drop to backs of hands, one drop to goatee, and one split between the sides of my neck. The TUTH went to my forearms, which were covered by my long sleeve button down dress shirt.

Effects were definitely less confident and less “I am the answerer of all questions, come to me for all answers and follow me in all things” than yesterday. The wedding day did produce some interesting results, however.

First port of call was the mall. Bride to be wanted me to work with the makeup artist in enhancing her makeup over the previous day’s results, and she also wanted the photography to begin with her getting ready. So I was scheduled to meet her at the mall at 11:45 am, but I had to get there at 11:30 am to ask permission from the mall manager and the shop manager. I was expecting to be turned down, but the combination of professional dress, the pheromones, the shiny business card and the confidence from the mix made them seem like they really wanted to please me… and I got permission from the mall manager within 15 seconds. The store manager gave me permission so fast I had to wonder if I had even opened my mouth to ask for it yet.

So I spent the next couple hours shooting her getting a pedicure, manicure and makeup done. Not always very exciting work, but work nonetheless, and I was quite happy to be doing it, thank you.

While I was there, I was getting eyes from a good portion of the women at the spa where she was doing this. With one exception, they were all middle aged women, and that one exception was a daughter, must have been about 17 years old, and she could not keep her eyes off me.

I clean up okay when I dress up, but I think it had to be the pheromones because I am very obviously out of her league age-wise. Had the circumstances been a little different, I might have invited her to model for me… she had a look that I like for my models. But, I was forced to suffer her lustful gazes all morning, while being unable to even pay attention to it. Which I am sure she was glad for, actually.

I got a number of hits from the middle aged women in the rooms I was in, as expected with a mix like that, lots of IOIs and staring and conversation. The make-up staff, however, was significantly younger than the manicure/pedicure staff, and they seemed almost entirely unaffected aside from a tendency to profusely apologize for being in my way - when, in fact, I was in theirs. The make-up artist took my suggestions with interest, and we produced a bride-to-be with close to perfect make-up.

From there I followed bride-to-be to her friend’s house, where she had her hair done. Snap snap snap, snap snap. Trying to photograph four women in a bathroom not much bigger than a shower stall while facing into a mirror, without getting myself or my flash in the mirror. What fun… but the woman doing her hair turned to me and asked me if I thought her eye makeup needed to be blended a bit more at the top, and to my surprise, she had noticed a detail I had not. I looked at it, and agreed with her that indeed it did. But this woman is a professional artist of many years, and she had many excellent examples of her artwork littering the room right outside the bathroom. She was clearly deferring to me and my judgment.

We got to the church late because the bride to be was late and wanted images from outside the house before we left. So much for groom pics… the first pics of him were done about 30 seconds before the wedding started. lol

When we got there, the nerves really started. First wedding gig, no help. I’ve spent months learning everything I can about how to do this, and interviewed everyone I could find with experience, and spent a lot of time mastering my camera for low light… but even with the pheromone induced confidence, I was shaking. Not badly, but shaking at all, when working in very low light without a tripod and no time to brace, is BAAAADDDD. Fortunately, I was so focused on the task at hand that the shaking was minimal and disappeared shortly after it began.

After the wedding, things started to go downhill a bit. My lack of experience started showing, and I lost control of the situation, instead of leading I ended up following the more experienced people present. No biggie, since it was my first wedding, but the pheromones didn’t overcome that. I think it was probably better that they didn’t, because I learned a few things.

Then I grabbed control again and did some shots away from everyone else, and from there we went to the reception hall. I ran into the reception room ahead of them, and said, “They’re here!” to a room full of people I had only met for a few seconds at this point (this wedding really went crazy fast), and from that point on it was a whirlwind of camera wear and tear. I got several respect hits from the bride and groom, and several respect hits from the wait staff, and a large number of the guests as well. Everyone - even the kids - loved me, except one woman, who hated having her picture taken. I tried to shoot her flash off, but even with image stabilization turned on at ISO 6400 shooting a shutter speed of 1/80th of a second on a 135 mm lens is hairy when you’re moving fast in what amounts to candlelight.

So the effects of the pheromones seem to have been mainly self effects in the form of confidence. Just 6 months ago, I don’t think I could have pulled off shooting a wedding alone, never mind my first wedding. A314 and TUTH are powerful confidence builders. Now I just have to sort through 1,586 pictures…

3

Always a pleasure reading your exploits, catlord. Especially when assisted by this wondrous and mythical calculator of yours :stuck_out_tongue:

I won’t bother asking for it, as I know many have tried. :smiley:

I’m quite puzzled by your use of -none in this situation, though. I would’ve expected that you wanted to stay away from it. A -rone more dependant vibe, I thought, would have been what you’re after, rather than a -none dominating one.

What sort of effect were you wanting to give off when you went in there?

4

To be honest, I allowed the calculator to select the mix - I did not have any input aside from the few variables I specified.

I was rather surprised by the amount of androstenone indicated, as well. However, I have come to trust my calculator, and have discovered that I am going to regret disregarding it in 9.5 out of 10 cases. So I used what it showed me.

Understand, however, that 3 drops of A314 and 2 sprays of TUTH is well balanced, as long as I keep moving. Sitting in my own cloud while preparing for the day, I was beginning to become a bit aggressive, but with all the movement and trying to be in two places at once all the time, the mix was ideal for the balance confidence and forcefulness it granted me, which helped me get the job done.

All in all, I am very pleased with the results.