When I am shooting a wedding, I often get comments like, “That camera takes amazing photos,” or “Those pictures practically take themselves!”

This, my friends, is simply not true.

While I do indeed have amazing cameras that I love using, they are machines and when left to their own devices are pretty…well…stupid.

Now, I am obviously removing the fact that a photographer must first tackle lighting issues, posing of the people/models and framing and composition of the photograph.  Lets just look at basic in-camera functions.

I decided to do a test.  Me vs. my camera.  It was going to be an all out brawl.  I would let the camera take a photo on one of its Auto settings, and then I would take one.  Shot for shot.

The results, as you can see below are staggeringly different.  Both of these are straight out of the camera.  You can see the difference.  So, great gear is important, but it’s certainly not everything.

Here are a few snaps I took of my beautiful wife when she was first pregnant with Evan and forgot to post.  Isn’t she stunning?  Elizabeth blogs about our family at Our Life – go check it out when you have time to kill.

Took a couple snaps of my awesome brother Wes and his beautiful wife Samantha on their wedding day. What a great day!

I had the amazing opportunity to spend a day learning and photographing with Zach & Jody Gray at their home in Nashville, TN.  The focus of the workshop was to get images as good in camera as possible.  Not only does this reduce editing time, but it produces much more naturally stunning images.

Short story, they are incredible.  I learned a ton.  I plan to do the lighting workshop with them the next go around.

Here are my In Camera shots.  Each of these has approximately 2 seconds editing time – adjusting contrast, etc.  They never saw Photoshop.  Love it. 

Here are a few behind the scenes images from the day: