Floyd Sullivan returns to our blog to discuss why a wedding photoshoot serves as the backdrop for his latest story in AHMM! Don’t miss “The Wedding Photographer” in our Sept/Oct issue, on sale now!
What horror most terrified photographer Rick Peters in “The Wedding Photographer,” my story published in the September/October issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine (AHMM)? Not finding himself involved in a murder mystery, or the dangers that faced him therein. Not at all! What really frightened him out of his wits was the threat that he would have to shoot a wedding because the wedding photographer he had recommended to the bride didn’t show up for the ceremony.
Over the course of his career, and six other stories published in AHMM, Peters has taken pictures of collectible baseballs, a shoe with a severed foot in it, fake leather jackets, plumbing supplies, an Edison wax cylinder that may or may not include the first ever jazz recording, men and boys with new haircuts, a rock band, women for a men’s magazine, and just about any household item that you can put on a plain white background and capture for a catalog or website.
So why should something as seemingly everyday as a wedding intimidate him?
Because there is no chance for a re-shoot when you photograph a wedding. If you screw it up, the happy couple will spend the rest of their lives without that coffee table photo album that they would have happily, we hope, perused on the anniversary of that special day for the rest of their lives together. Our protagonist photographer was petrified by that thought. In his daily workload of clock radios, coffee mugs, and ceramic vases, if the client didn’t like a particular shot, no problem. Set it back up and shoot it again. Even bookings that involved fashion models on location could be done over if necessary. The additional costs might blow the budget, but if the ad or catalog page turned out to everyone’s liking, the re-shoot expense would soon be (mostly) forgotten.
Not so if your camera malfunctions during a wedding shoot. (Which actually happened to yours truly while shooting a sister’s wedding. Can you imagine the sense of panic felt when the film came back from the lab with only a handful of acceptable prints? I don’t have to imagine it because it happened to me. Sure, I was still a college student at the time with no real professional experience, shooting with a cheap SLR camera because I couldn’t afford a Nikon or professional lighting equipment. But still . . .)
There is a scene in “The Wedding Photographer” where Peters is asked by his cousin to shoot her wedding. He pleads with her not to insist, and explains why she should hire a photographer who shoots weddings as a profession. It’s a specific skill set, he tells her, that he himself does not possess. She finally agrees, but when the recommended photographer fails to appear at the church on time, Peters gets the nod. Luckily, his assistant has significant wedding experience so it all turns out okay.
Except, where was the original wedding photographer and why didn’t he show up? Pick up a copy of AHMM September/October to find out!
Trace Evidence 