I had the recent experience of showing my client how I keep cool under pressure.
Picture this: A fun couple of hours of capturing April and Zach and their love story throughout the city… I’m excited and ready! They are coming in from Dublin, so I give them an address of a church I work at a lot that is central to where we will be shooting. Usually, I can find parking, and being that I was just meeting them there, I didn’t try to hard…. I pulled into the underground parking garage that the church uses for weddings, with the intention I was only going to be two minutes. However, inspiration got the best of me, and lol and behold, there was a great café and a few other fun locations I found…. But this was just stage one of three… we still had a few more spots to capture, and the easiest thing for them to do was to hop into my car. So we are walking back to my car, when to my extreme shock, the gate has come down and it is locked up tight! Ack! I put on my happy face, and tell them to wait here as I go to see if I can fix this problem. I walk, not run, and am taking deep breaths, knowing it will all work out. Ok, silently I am panicking, as not only is my car in there but my phone and purse. Sure I can have them drive and finish out the shoot, but how will I get home!
I walked into the church, and there is a full mass just starting without a single person that worked there other than the man on stage, I quickly left and started checking all the doors, which seem to be locked, and just as I am returning back (still walking with a smile on my face and deep breathing), a wonderful man in his cloak comes out of a nearby door. I felt like I just died and went to heaven. He was so gracious, and never scolded me on my bad judgement. Thank you sir, for coming to my rescue. But all in all, my happy couple was very impressed with my non-stressed demeanor.
Photographing weddings has taught me many things, but the most important is to not stress, there is always a back up plan.
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