February 2008 Featured Member: Marc Williams

MARC: To be honest, I didn't set out to photograph weddings. My profession is advertising. In my travels doing that work, a Leica M camera became a sort of portable form of creativity. The candid Black & White images captured during those times were noted by art directors and writers I worked with, which eventually lead to some asking me to photograph their weddings in the same manner. It snowballed from there.

Weddings are just an added reason to make photographs of the human condition, which is my primary reason for taking up the camera. While it can be stressful, I find it filled with purpose. You don't have to manufacture a reason to photograph like you do with an ad. Candid wedding photography is a formal invitation to record life as it happens. Maintaining that "Special Soul" you refer to is a function of being acutely aware that we are freezing a nano-second of life. The "Decisive Moment" is an often over-used, cliche term. In effect it refers to an intuitive talent of emotionally anticipating what is happening around you so you are there when the moment happens, and capture the moment just as it happens. There is no second decisive moment; either you get it, or you don't.

I don't pay much attention to the competitive nature of this field of work. Advertising is dog-eat-dog in comparison. I'm sure I'd feel differently if it was my sole form of income.

MARC: I am all over the place when it comes to photographic equipment. My vault contains a gear junkie's dream kit. Yet, when it comes to candid work, I'd be the first to say gear doesn't matter if you don't have a deep interest in people.

Other photographers have asked me how I can use so many different cameras and end up getting the same candid results. The answer is that all cameras are the same to me, a box with a lens attached. If you understand the fundamentals, then the rest of it is nuance. I started with a Leica M and still use a digital version of that same camera. In addition, I might photograph with a medium format DSLR, a Canon EOS, or a 503CW film camera, or whatever I think is right for the wedding I'm about to photograph. My work isn't any better or worse now with killer gear than it was with less stuff, just a bit more diverse. Of the two, I think the lenses are more important, the box less so. Even though I have a ton of gear myself and may sound like a hypocrite, I think some photographers place too much emphasis on equipment and not enough on seeing effectively.

MARC: Interacting is necessary even if you do candid work because you have to sell yourself. I am just myself and if that isn't enough then it won't be a good fit. I direct a few photographs during the course of a wedding, but not much. In these situations, people want you to tell them where to stand and all that, so I do.

MARC: There is plenty of advice about gear and handling gear on the Internet, with Photo.net being a prime source. This includes excellent advice on good business practices. My advice to beginners is to learn to see better without the camera interfering.

Teach yourself to see light. Where is it? What quality is it? How would you take advantage of it? What is it doing to the subject?

The other aspect of seeing is to increase your awareness of people's mannerisms and their interactions with one another. If you can get more emotionally in tune with the people around you and less aware of yourself and the camera, a whole world of opportunities will be revealed.

Marc Williams - Franklin/Mich.

MARC: Long before capturing weddings, I used the camera to explore ideas for ad layouts and sequences of stills to construct TV story boards, which I still do. That also snowballed to include photographing some finished commercial work. I now make far more money doing that than photographing weddings. It is also the reason for the extensive gear vault, which I probably wouldn't have if I only did weddings.

After I retire from advertising, I would like to teach photography. Along with two other accomplished photographers, we are forming a school housed in a full-blown, state-of-the-art studio being built right now. I will teach various courses on wedding photography work including using students as assistants and second shooters, and courses in advanced commercial photography from the art director's perspective.