Well, I got the color work back from the lab today for
Saturday's wedding. All went very well, except...
I lost 20-25 formals.
Somehow, the flashes didn't fire correctly so I had a bunch of
blank frames. I'm testing my equipment setup to try and figure
out what went wrong. Before the wedding I completely verified
my setup and made sure that I was getting full-frame flash
through the back of an empty camera. However, something strange
happened. Once I figure out WHAT went wrong, I'll let everybody
know. I did need to replace the batteries in the OM-4 AND the
flash right after the formals were done--maybe that was all
related. Hmmm.
All isn't lost, though. As a contigency for this very
possibility I backed up the absolutely critical shots on the
IS3. So, wedding party shot is perfect (although on Portra
400VC) and the lighting is more "typical on-camera wedding pro)
instead of nice studio flash lighting. What I'm missing is the
Bride with Parents, Groom with Parents, Bride and Groom with
parents, Bride with attendants and Bride with groomsmen and some
Bride and Groom shots. You know, those shots we always take,
but nobody ever orders reprints of. I DID get the "entire
family" shots in spades--hehehe, plenty of reprints there.
The rest of the wedding photographs are very good. The ceremony
pictures are among my best ever. Several "formals" taken
outside down by a lake turned out far better than any of the
church shots anyway. I'm not overly concerned (after all, the
couple was pretty ignorant to what the formals were all about
anyway: "can't you just shoot the wedding?"). I've got my
"critical 18" so nothing really important was lost.
I've got some cool shots which I know will yield far more
reprint requests than the three or four 5x7 reprints I lost.
Most of the proofs of the individual-formals get given away and
result in no reprints. Momma will still be steaming.
I haven't processed the Delta 400 yet, but probably will
tonight.
If I ever needed a reminder of how important it is to back up
the critical pictures, this is it. I explained to everybody
during the formals that I'll shoot some pictures with two
cameras for the odd chance of a damaged roll during processing
or equipment failure. Never really expected it to happen to me.
Even without the missing pictures, I still have 148 color shots
and some B&W shots to work with. More than the 100-150 that I
normally tell them to expect.
AG-Schnozz
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