ASU - Photography

My second job while going to ASU was wedding photographer. After high school I continued to get more interested in photography and eventually went from just taking photos to developing and printing. At first I used this commercial darkroom in Tempe, where ASU is located, where you paid to use all their equipment. What I remember most about the place is that they played nothing but music from the ‘50s. I hated it. 

Over time I traded my Zeiss camera for a Minolta SLR so I could finally use lenses like everyone else, and Dr. C___, my logic professor, gave me his old enlarger so I could start printing at home (I was living at my parent’s at this point).

My parents had their own bathroom, but I used the full bathroom that turned out to be perfect for converting into a darkroom. It didn’t have any windows, it did have a ventilation fan, and best of all, it had a long, tiled counter with the basin at one end so I could lay out my developing trays right next to the basin. It only took a couple minutes each time to convert it into a working darkroom. Once I got started I didn’t want to stop (and have to put everything back the way it usually was) so I would work late into the night and end up with enlarged prints drying on every flat-ish surface in the house. I may not have been a “great” photographer but I was proficient both at taking and printing photographs.

This was an era of coffee houses that encouraged live entertainment -- mostly folk, bluegrass, or pop-rock solo or small group acts. I started photographing at some of these little clubs because it was fun and the music was often quite good. (It was also a great opportunity for me to photograph pretty girls, who I was too shy to approach otherwise). I would give copies to the artists -- a win-win if ever there was one as they loved seeing themselves and I loved people enjoying my pictures. And then a funny thing happened... one of the people in this musical set decided to get married.

At this point I had only taken pictures at one wedding. My mother’s bosses’ beautiful and brilliant daughter got married and we were invited and I was encouraged to take pictures. With beginners luck, I happened to nail this phenomenal shot at the end of the ceremony with the bride laughing while exchanging a look with her father. It was probably the best candid shot I ever took. Anyway, the musicians asked me to photograph their wedding and I said, "sure."

In a group like this, once the wedding ball starts rolling the Newtonian laws of physics kick in and it keeps rolling. I started doing all their weddings and then people at these weddings would see me or be referred by the happy newlyweds, and the next thing I knew I was working most weekends. It didn’t hurt that I was cheap since I was just making it up as I went along.

I came up with a system that worked very well for me: I carried two 35mm cameras (the little Zeiss rangefinder my cousin had given me in Chicago, and my Minolta) and I had a nice flash on a little rig I could switch from camera to camera. With two cameras, I usually didn’t have to re-load film which was time consuming. (I did have to change batteries, though.) I also hit on the notion of never focusing my cameras while shooting the candids at the reception -- instead I just set my camera and flash to about five feet and moved MYSELF so that the distance was right.

I only recall one screw up and no one else seemed to notice, or at any rate I never heard about it. At one reception I ran out of film just as the bride was about to throw the bouquet... so I just kept shooting. There are always so many pictures anyway, and I always figured they might be divorced before anyone noticed they were missing something.

The last wedding I remember photographing was in a chapel on the ASU campus. The reason I remember it is that I had had food poisoning the day before the rehearsal and had barely stopped throwing up when I had to soldier in for the wedding. 

What I learned from photographing weddings was that young people have no control over what happens at their wedding. Middle aged people seem to have some control, but time after time I listened to the bride and groom describe the wedding they wanted me to photograph only to show up weeks later to find a completely different situation.