Thanks for your great comment Chris. I agree 99% with everything you said. Personally, I would never consider shooting a wedding until I felt comfortable enough with my equipment to do it. There are many ways a newbie can get up to speed, not the least of which assisting for someone else, or being a second shooter.

But as I said in my post, a more well-balanced review of this would be to point out exactly what you said, while at the same time acknowledging the parts the make sense. People are acting like this is meant to be some kind of comprehensive education. It’s not. It’s more like a keynote presentation from a 1-hour WPPI seminar. Would you base your whole business on ONE 1-hour WPPI seminar? Or course not. It would be one piece of the puzzle. As Steven Seymour commented, give newbies some credit for being intelligent enough to collect data points from all the resources out there and make their best decision. Ot as Lydia commented: take what you like and throw out what you don’t.

IMHO, no matter how you cut it, the level of drama and reaction to this “keynote presentation” was blown way out of proportion. That’s my main beef.

Thanks again for your input. It was really great.

First, the few sentences you wrote about Joe’s use of program mode. Joe knows exactly how his metering system works. If he knows that something will be over or under exposed in P, he uses the exposure lock to find an accurate exposure close to his subject, recomposes, and shoots. The point is that he knows how his camera works, and does it very quickly. Joe uses skill and experience to make the P mode work.

The second issue is the Spray and Pray being 2% of the system. How much does photography count in a photography business? Maybe the Spray and Pray should be more heavily weighted. At the end of the day, the photographs should be the most important thing. The comment about missing a moment because you are fiddling with the camera is another BS thing. You should practice until you can quickly set your exposure, using any mode that fits your style. Using P as a crutch because you don’t know your camera and the basics is complete BS. Learning to make a proper exposure seams pretty basic as a photographer. Don’t even think about shooting a wedding until you know your basics. Until you do, learn them however you can: a college class, self assignments, shooting in a studio after hours, playing in your living room, whatever it takes. Then, go shoot 50 or so weddings as a second shooter. Take on a wedding photographer as a mentor. Schlep around gear for pros. But heavens no, you should learn the basics at someone’s wedding, as the hired main photographer. It is wrong, immoral and bad for your fledgling business.

I say throw the baby out with the bathwater on this one. Newer, gullible photographers may not distinguish the OK parts of the business from the total disregard for the photography bit.

I love having your “voice” as part of the conversation Rick. I appreciate and value your input and experience.

I totally get where you’re coming from. My main point here is that the strategy that is being taken is having the opposite effect. If those in the “old timers” camp really want to affect change, drawing more attention to the Photo Systems of the world is not the way to do it. I think the best way to do it is to find the influencers in the market who are on “your side” and create the antithesis. But the more people blog, tweet and Facebook about how bad it is, the more you boost it’s SEO and it’s exposure.

This blog post is a perfect example. I had absolutely no intention on writing about The System. I was tired of the drama. I attempted to get people to get their minds OFF the drama. Within the context of THAT blog post, I was challenged to give my take on the System. Alexis hates The System, but by asking me to offer commentary, now there is another 2500+ word blog post about it, more discussion, more SEO and more exposure to the very thing he hates.

The efforts of those against The System is back-firing.

As professionals, we just need to see him for what he is… A ex-photographer who has taken his buisness in a new direction. If your a Proshooter, just dont drink the kool aide.

Ron’s right let go and lets all do what are clients pay us to do. Be the truly talented Artist we truly are.

The most important thing in this life is happiness – our own and those around us – and kindness and reason are absolutely the best ways to get there, not negativity or hatred.

Meanwhile, I don’t think much credit is being given to the newbies, the so-called “victims” of the system. There’s this assumption that they’re gullible, unable to filter out the stuff that doesn’t resonate. But that’s a patronizing position to take. I’m fairly sure if you asked them if they’re aware of alternative opinions and leaders in the industry, they’d say yes. And if you asked them why they are choosing to support this one, the System, it wouldn’t be because they want to get stinking rich really quickly – it’s simply because the quality, quantity and positiveness of the presentation is more persuasive than the alternatives.

I really hope Zack et al can come up with a worthy challenge because good competition is a wonderful thing. But they HAVE to let go of their anger first because if they let negativity become any part of it they’ve already lost.

With 20,000+ new photographers entering the profession when the thousands that followed the piper last year fail and disappear he has thousands more to pitch to. I find this approach, especially with their “Christian values” and Mother Theresa unbelievably offensive and immoral.

To counter the industry backlash Jay simply tells his followers to ignore the grumpies and old guard as they want you to fail. That’s a brilliant message for anyone to use who wants to dismiss the backlash from qualified individuals.

If it was not so destructive to our profession we “oldies” could just shake our heads and brush it off. Unfortunately though, with their sense of bravado these newbies rush out, book weddings and often really screw them up. I know of many events where the photographer was a disaster. For example, no flash and shooting off a monopod in a very dark venue. The “pro” didn’t even know enough to pump up her ISO! I hear many stories.

So, why should we “old timers” care? Speaking for myself, I care because young families are getting hurt and driven into bankruptcy by the siren song (if you buy my stuff) of overnight success.

Furthermore, for every bad experience ALL of us in this profession take a hit. The image of a professional wedding photographer never was golden but in the last few years it has become like dirt. Churches don’t trust us, brides hear horror stories from their friends and decide that a friend with a camera will do a better job for no $$$ than hiring a “pro.”

Unfortunately, because we are in an unregulated profession I don’t think there is much we can do about this.