Michael David Friberg

I have a confession to make. I shot a wedding two weeks ago…and…and I liked it. I used to hate shooting weddings because I felt like everybody would just be like “oh Mike has one of them nice cameras, have him shoot our wedding” and then I would just be a paid monkey and shoot what everybody else wanted me to shoot. My friend Chris called me a few months ago and asked me to shoot his wedding, and he mentioned that they wanted me to because of my documentary and portrait work. They just wanted me to do what I do. I went to Maryland, did what I did and boy let me tell you, the photos are good and I had a great time. I think I used to have too much of an ego to shoot weddings. I thought I was too cool because I was a documentary photographer or something. I don’t want to be a wedding photographer only ( I couldn’t handle THAT much sappiness) but it is definitely something I am going to do going forward. I feel like most photographers I know shoot weddings but wont admit to it for fear of being blackballed by the art/editorial establishment. I’m over it. 

So, that being said, if you want a wedding photographer that isn’t a douchey “wedding” photographer, I may be your guy. 

A couple weeks ago I went to the east coast to photograph a friends wedding in Maryland and then head up to NYC for some meetings and general schmoozing. The whole trip was a crazy whirlwind of redeye flights, couch surfing (thanks keith and linda), good whiskey and lots of sweat. I was in the city to do the whole “meet with a bunch of photo editors and kiss their ass” thing so I was hauling around my beautiful but slightly cumbersome custom portfolio that Tyler Estrem made for me. Then, for some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to bring my Mamiya 7 along for the meetings in a shoulder bag so I could street shoot in between. The thing I forgot to factor in was not having a second hand free to focus so I ended up just racking my camera to infinity and sort of shooting a lot of buildings and other things. Not my usual style but I don’t think I really had the focus or energy to get out and shoot for real. That being said, I feel like I got some neat stuff anyways.

These are super super super crappy scans. Like shoot yourself in the face crappy. I am in the market for a new scanner but in the mean time, deal with it.