What is rock the bridal bed? well, I’m glad so many of you asked. Step 1, get bride and bridesmaids on bed, step 2, get everyone to jump up and down, step 3, listen carefully for a creaking sound that may signal the photo-op is over … step 4, photograph natural smiles and laughter.

I’m listening to Hindustani Gangster at the moment, not completely sold on it, but it has seriously cool bollywood moments and its drowning out the neighbours kids.

Edited to add: Sorry James, its unfortunately only drowning out the neighbors kids …

I think it was Saturday, maybe it was Sunday, I was sitting under some shade trying to avoid the sun when the sound engineer seated next to me, he may actually not have been a sound engineer, it doesn’t really matter. Anyway, the guy sitting next to me, mentioned in passing that photography was about getting things in focus. Wow! Hang on, hold the conversation, add some more ice to my glass, pass me a cigarette and add that one to the list of lies that photographers tell each other: Bigger lenses = better photos, more mega pixels means better quality, you must use off camera flash, shoot raw or your photo quality will be too low and more rubbish that could possibly be swallowed by anyone. Sheesh, sharper photos.

Then scarcely a day later, I get a request to recommend a good photoshop book, followed swiftly by two separate requests to shoot with me by two guys who shoot landscapes and wildlife images. Since when did wedding photography become about getting the sharpest image with the biggest camera using an off camera flash and then photoshoping it, let me rephrase that, when did photography become the province of geeks with a gear fetish? Yep, welcome to another Dror rant, cause sometimes my mind just get blown by people who claim to be photographers and spend all their time copying the latest technique or getting the latest bit of gear.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for experimenting, and trying out new gear, but not just because you want to get the effect that X gets. How about first learning about photography? You know it isn’t just about snapping a photograph using the sharpest lens possible and the most mega pixels that you can afford. Photographs should tell a story, it’s a visual language with all the nuances, verbs and sentence construction rules that any language has, and before you spend another small fortune on a new lens you don’t really need, you may want to learn how to communicate using that language. If you don’t know about balance and tension, colour, light, lines, gesture, frame dynamics and visual weight you may want to read up on it before rushing out and getting that off camera flash. I’m not saying that all images should tell a story, but come on, I can count the number of wedding photographers in this country who do actually photograph rather than snap on one hand, and they are all fully booked well into 2009.

“Most people using a camera for the first time try to master the controls but ignore the ideas. They photograph intuitively, liking or disliking what they see without stopping to think why, and framing the view in the same way. Anyone who does it well is a natural photographer. But knowing in advance why some compositions or certain combinations of colors seem to work better than others, better equips any photographer.” – Michael Freeman in The Photographer’s Eye (a must in any photographer’s collection – if you’re local, don’t bother with Kalahari, they don’t stock it).

btw in case you were wondering the latest trend in wedding photography this year has been off camera flash with many photographers, including myself, investing in radio receivers. It’s been around for a while, but reached tipping point earlier this year and essentially it allows the photographer to set up a mobile outdoor studio, some do it well, most miss the point. At least the whole video light thing is almost over. I somehow can’t image James Nachtwey or Selgado, or even Tim Hetherington pulling out their off camera flash units.

I was reading the August 2008 issue of Vogue Italia. Ok, so I was really looking at the pictures, I had some time to kill. Anyway, there was this amazing black and white cover and editorial tribute to the late Yves Saint Laurent by Steven Meisel. Gorgeous stuff which made me think of an email that was doing the rounds a while back, it was forwarded from a wedding coordinator (who should have known better) and was a complaint/rant against a local photographer by a client. One of the main criticisms and reasons that they suggested that this photographer should not be allowed to take passport photos, never mind be allowed anywhere near a wedding, was his use of a wide angle lens in the chapel, which distorted some of the people on the edges.

There really isn’t an appropriate image to show from this spread so you’ll need to click to have a look. I am now seriously considering that ultra wide 10mm lens.

Just waiting for this weekend’s backup DVDs to burn. A couple of minutes to surf and check out the 2008 shortlist for Prix Pictet, Christian Cravo’s work always blows me away. I also really like Munem Wasif crunchy lith colours, and ultra sharp photos.

“I was looking at Robert Frank’s photograph “Sick of Goodbyes” in his book The Lines of My Hand. Moments before I had been listening to a Johnny Cash song called “I Wish I Was Crazy Again.” Then I thought of the goodbyes in the book to old friends caught once and for all and never again to be seen in life, and I was struck by the intensity of the sadness of life and its redeeming qualities as reflected in these moving photos. With Johnny Cash as well, the desire to see it all again, to go out one more time into the wild flame only to be burned up forever and never be seen again except in these farewell photos, is moving beyond description. The photos speak of an acceptance of things as they are. the inevitable death of us all and the last photo, that last unposed shot to remind us of our friends, of our loss of the times we had in a past captured only on film in black and white. Frank has been there, and seen that, and recorded it with such subtlety that we only look in awe, our own hearts beating with the memories of lost partners and songs.

To wish for the crazy times one last time and freeze it in the memory of a camera is the least a great artist can do. Robert Frank is a great democrat. We’re all in these photos. Paint dripping from a mirror like blood. I’m sick of goodbyes. And aren’t we all, but it’s nice to see it said.” LOU REED

shamelessly borrowed from That’s a Negative – one of the few photography blogs worth reading, who in turn borrowed it from Six Reflections on the Photography of Robert Frank. You know how I feel about the master.