Chris Lin Photography

[This post started as a draft a few weeks ago, but sat around a while. Today seems like a good day to revive it, considering the work that went into Moment Junkie today, March 13, 2012.]

It’s been a year and a month since Moment Junkie launched. It started in November 2010 as an idea bounced around in the best photographer community I’ve yet seen, SWPB (now-named Succeeding as a Wedding Photography Business) on Flickr. Erin Lassahn, Alex Blackwelder, Kyle Hepp, and Ryan Brenizer were key in crystallizing the idea. Wedding blogs and wedding photography blogs have a great and vast audience, but they were about planning a wedding and the details. But couples and their photographers alike care also about the human element to the day and celebration. Does it matter that your chairs were silver or that your napkins were origami animals? (Okay, yes, somewhat.) But what matters more is that two people are starting off on an incredible journey and decided to bring along their friends and family to share in the celebration. Where was a blog to focus on that part of wedding photography?

My contribution to the discussion was “Is momentjunkie.com registered?” And so it was. (After a bit of domain name brainstorming anyway, which is rather amusing after the fact.)

Moment Junkie launched last February and has taken off beyond expectations. Two months in, last April, Kyle and Ryan asked me to help out with social media presence. Man the Twitter and Facebook accounts, I was told. No problem, I thought. My role started with that, basic administration, and technical fixes. I’d leave the submissions unread in the inbox. “Who am I to be curating?” I thought. Eventually I started opening them and marking them as unread, as if I were a kid sneaking a peak at presents squirreled away in a closet.

You know how some jobs have “other duties as required” at the end? This expanded really fast. Today I wrote a few longer emails as Moment Junkie. Part of this is because Kyle is out of country and Ryan is teaching a workshop. Blogger Dooce noticed us and sent us a crapton of traffic, followed by Design Mom. We’ve been getting attention and traffic and it’s been growing.

All this time, still not monetized. Where do we go from here?

Here’s a single photo a bridesmaid getting help fastening her bracelet from a wedding I second-shot for Caroline of Sweet Caroline Photo in 2010.

I like these sort-of in-between moments and details. Also, hands are interesting to photograph.

Here’s a single photo from the first dance at a wedding I second-shot for Christine Tremoulet under her associate photographer Kelly, back in September. The wedding was at Hotel ZaZa in Houston’s Museum District. Very pretty venue; very pretty couple.

Do a search for “wedding shot list” and plenty of results come up. Some high-profile, like this one from the Knot. They say, “The best way to ensure your photographer captures the right moments for all posterity is to provide a suggested shot list.” About.com has their List of ‘must take’ shots.

Some of them are curiously specific:

• Close-up of groom’s adorably nervous mug waiting for his other half
• Bride with her happy, proud parents and/or stepparents
• Groom with his happy, proud parents and/or stepparents
• Bride/groom with college alums

Others rather obvious:

• Exchanging the rings
• Close up of hands
• The Kiss

It’s like a scavenger hunt! I propose the following items:

• Overzealous guests with cameras, attempting and failing to hide in the foliage.
• Guest annoyed that other guest is blocking his/her line of sight.
• Bride jumping out a window
• Keg stand
• Members of the bridal party propositioning each other
• Bored guest checking facebook/twitter on iPhone 3G
• DJ doing something embarrassing
• Guests clinging to the wall to avoid the dance floor just like in sixth grade
• Guest leaving who’s totally going to get arrested for drunk driving
• Best man flirting with bride
• Maid of honor flirting with groom
• Women fighting over bouquet
• Bloody nose after bouquet toss fight
• Group shot of all ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends
• Kid trying to drink ‘adult beverage’
• Kid with “it wasn’t me” look on his/her face, while another kid cries
• The rings… somewhere on the floor after dropping them while setting up a cool ring shot
• “We’re so not getting back the damages deposit.”

So yeah. Shot lists are silly.