Long Photos

[PROLOGUE: Just so we don't get this post off to a bad start, let me say that I have a couple of favourite videographers that I like working with, and we have never ended up pushing each other's faces into the wedding cake]

I’ve written before about the relationship between videographers and photographers - two professions genetically engineered to rub each other up the wrong way. Two visual professionals looking to get the perfect shot at the same time can be taxing. Not taxing on you. Taxing on us.

One of my main concerns is keeping the video guy (I haven’t yet come across a video girl) out of my photographs. Sometimes it’s easy. Sometimes it isn’t. I’ve had to deal with videographers standing next to the priest during the marriage rite itself - and believe me, it’s always the guys with half a Sky TV outdoor broadcast unit on their shoulder lighting up the scene with 700,000 megawatts of power drawn from some kind of portable Chernobyl.

Well, all this might soon be a thing of the past. Within a couple of years, you will be able to book your photographer and your videographer from the same company.

“Big deal,” you say. You can already do that.

Sure. But you’re going to get two guys turn up. One to operate the stills camera and one to operate the video camera. That’s not what I’m talking about.

What I’m talking about is one person turning up with a camera that will take both high-quality photographs and high-quality video footage at the same time. By “high-quality”, I mean better than most digital cameras today and good enough to screen at your local multiplex. No, I am not kidding. Most of the technology exists already and even as I write this there are cameras that will take both stills and video simultaneously. The quality isn’t quite there yet, but it won’t be long.

What will this mean for future brides?

Well, conceivably, it will mean you will get both your video and your album from the same person. Almost certainly it will mean new ways of outputting the footage and images. Take a look at the video on the other end of this link for an idea of what could be done (obviously, you as a bride will be more appropriately dressed): Fast Women.

[Bet the build up to that had you wondering where the link would take you]

How you receive your wedding images and video in future is really anybody’s guess. We don’t really know until the technology arrives and the visionaries of the future get their hands on it.

Will it mean the end of the traditional album? My feeling is that albums will always have a place. Their great advantage is that they are always accessible. You don’t need anything other than your eyes to view them. The problem with more sophisticated technology is that it always moves on to something greater and better, leaving older technology in its wake. Remember floppy disks? I mean the 5 1/4 inch ones that actually were floppy. No? Not surprising. But even if you did and even if you had one, good luck finding a computer that will read it. That DVD you get from the videographer? What makes you so sure you’ll be able to play it when you’re in your eighties, or that your children and grandchildren will be able to view it? A hard copy wedding album just doesn’t have those problems. There are huge advantages to digital media, but long term they do pose some storage and retrieval challenges.

So, no, the traditional album isn’t dead yet.

But we are looking at exciting times in the photography and videography industries. And that will bring new and exciting ways for you to view your wedding photographs and moving images.

Oh, and the “Long Photos” from the title. It’s a phrase coined by the folks that run Flickr to describe videos.