Rosy path for the budding photographer

Yes, rosy, and sometimes golden. If you haven't picked up my puns yet, I'm talking about weddings, wedding photography to be precise.  Typically, a wedding is a very important part of someone's life. A phase when some lose their freedom, friends and/or pets, and some lose their virginity—which definitely in no way is a bad thing.

To the people who think you can just ask your friend who happens to have a DSLR to snap a few pictures and don't need a professional photographer, keep in mind: You'll regret this decision when this friend goes to the loo, and you miss the only chance to take a picture with your wife's hot friend who happens to live abroad. Anyway, it's quite obvious why someone would want to preserve special moments from their wedding, making way for a booming career opportunity for aspiring photographers.

Why opt for wedding photography?

Weddings are seasonal, like fruits. Think of it like this, bears work extremely hard to gather food for their hibernation period; you will be doing the same. Frenzy of weddings in the winter mean you are only obligated to work 30 to 40 days in a year. You'll obviously put in a lot more hours throughout the rest of the year, but that is the number of days that have a higher workload. The best part, you have the freedom to be wherever you want when you don't have a wedding to shoot, leaving out time for other interests or businesses to take care of.

Photographers from Bangladesh. From left: Faisal Xiko, Jobayer Hossain Shuvo, Rifat Shakhawat Hossain, Khondker Nasif Akhter, and M.H. Shuvo

How to be better that just another guy with a camera?

We had a chat with Rifat Shakhawat Hossain from Weddings Inc. and this is what he had to say about why wedding photography is a fairly easy way to fatter pockets and how to be good at it.

You can't "spray and pray" and win in the wedding industry. Weddings don't have the luxury of re-shoots or do-overs, you can't just tell a couple to repeat a ritual just because your photo was out-of-focus. You need to be able to handle the responsibility, because nailing such critical shots are more important than taking more than necessary pictures of some girl or guy you found pretty.

Photographers seeking for a career in this field should earn a formal degree in photography. This will help you get some know-how in posing techniques, proper lighting setups and insights on how to make yourself stand-out in the plethora of photographers.

Hands-on training by Lito Sy during the day-long workshop

Maestro organised a 4-day long conference and workshop in Dhaka and Chittagong not much long ago. Qualifications for WPPA International membership were held where 14 participants made it through. Renowned WPPI masters of wedding photography and some amazing wedding photographers from Bangladesh shared nifty tips and tricks along their expertise and experience in the industry. Two workshops conducted by Lito Sy (one of the top 30 wedding photographers in Asia) and Nik Pekridis (brand ambassador for Nikon) allowed the attendees to get first hand training in posing techniques, composition and post-processing tips among many other aspects.

Once you have acquired the necessary skills, add your own signature style to it. Stand out, and look for inspiration in other sectors of photography. The wedding industry can get quite monotonous, it's easy to ride the trend train through to success, but trends are like cats, fickle. Once the winds change, you're yesterday's news.