Now heres a story of horror.

In my days of having my own business as a wedding and portrait photographer I shot a wedding using my Bronica 6 x 6 format.

There is a focusing screen held in place by a couple of clips.What I hadn't realised is that when cleaning the camera the focusing screen clips moved slightly and the screen was loose and raised itself slightly.I never noticed when shooting the wedding that anything was wrong but the result was that the camera was not focusing exactly and when I got the results about 20 shots were out of focus.Fortunately that day it poured with rain and I had to shoot a lot of the wedding indoors using a wide angle lens with greater depth of field so on the group shots I just about got away with it.

I have to say it was my wife who calmed me down.Whilst heading for the garage to throw a noose over a beam my wife told me to stay rational.Rational for Christ sake when I had just screwed up a girls wedding.

She made me lay out all the shots from the wedding to see what we could class as acceptable.It was then that I noticed it was mostly the couple shots where I had using a 150mm lens that the out of focus was really noticeable.

So with my bowels feeling like everything was about to pour out I went to the bride and groom and explained what had happened.The family were extremely understanding and on the agreement that I purchased the bride a new bouquet we done a reshoot on the lost images.

A few months after the wedding the family booked me to do the sisters wedding.I dreaded the thought of it.On the evening before the wedding I was carrying my equipment downstairs and dropped the camera and got to the bottom of the stairs and just stared at the mess of bits on the floor.I used the entire spectrum of swear words to vent my feelings.

I managed to phone round friends and gather enough equipment for the wedding.On the day I was so nervous even the bride noticed at the house when I started the shoot.I said having had problems on her sisters shoot I was a bit nervous,she never knew how bad.

The day went well and the photos were great.The family made a big fuss of me and recommended me to many other brides to be.

All was well in the end but I will never forget those weddings.

Eddie