Photographer: ‘You Don’t Get a Second Chance’

Does the name Lloyd Bucher ring a bell? Of course it does. He was the commander of the U.S. Navy’s Pueblo, captured by the North Koreans in 1969.

How about the name John Gorman? No? Well, why should it? The fact that Gorman took the most famous photo of Bucher, in the arms of his wife, Rose, upon his liberation, would have escaped everybody’s attention, because all the photo credit said was “U.S. Navy Photo.” Navy photography was Gorman’s life for 18 1/2 years. Sloshing from Vietnam to Ethiopia, and many, many points in between. He flew, sailed, paddled, slogged, recording the military history of the ‘60s and ‘70s.

So what’s a man like that doing in a place like this, a wedding portrait studio in Chula Vista? Preparing for the longest day of the year, that’s what. He has reconciled himself to suburbia by taking the plunge from heart-stopping reflex-photography to turning out civilized, art photography that’s supposed to warm the heart and is absolutely controlled, planned right down to the Vaseline on the lens that gives that ethereal, out-of-focus effect around the edges.

A cop-out?

“Don’t kid yourself. This is as hard a day’s work as I’ve done in my life. Just look at the schedule.”

The schedule for the Scardina-Tutino wedding is, uh, impressive. It starts at 10:30 a.m., setting up a mini-studio at the Scardina house to take group shots of the immediate family. Each one with the right smile, feet in the right position, hands in the right position, ties tied, but not too tight. And that’s just the start.

Then there’s the church: the ceremony, and after the ceremony the bride and groom at the altar, the immediate family groups at the altar, the bride with the Virgin statue, the bride and groom leaving by limo. Back home for another session, this time with the bride and groom together. Then to the beach for romantic sunset shots--bride and groom beneath scarlet skies--and on to the reception for six hours of eating, dancing, speech making, bouquet tossing, garter lobbing, cake cutting, grand marching, and spontaneous shots of everybody having fun.

That’s a day’s work. “It’s a day’s work,” says Gorman, “because it is a one-shot deal. When people are turning a corner in their life like this, you don’t get a second chance. People are excited. Great symbolic events are occurring. This is 15 hours on your toes. “

What even the bride-to-be doesn’t realize ahead of time is that she and the photographer are practically living together from start to finish of her wedding day. It’s almost as if the day were one big prop set for the photographer.

“So you have to get on with the bride and her family. If I find we don’t, I stop it before we get going. Suggest other photographers.”

Now, at last, the husband and wife photography team can afford to turn away business: The Gormans are booked a year ahead. (Their base price for a wedding is $1,200.)

“The real trick for photographers like us is how not to become petty tyrants. To remember that this is still primarily their day.”

It’s 9:30 Sunday morning: the day. The Gormans’ factotum, June Borja, is pushing them out of their portrait-packed studio home. “I feel kind of responsible for them. I brought them together back in ’68. They’ve never been the same since. My toughest job? Organizing them.” And she bundles the Gormans and their cases of cameras, lights and props out the door.

There follows a day in which the Gormans are seen coming up for air taking drinks in the Scardina kitchen, asking parents for key words that’ll make their kids laugh, reloading cameras in the back of their wagon, setting up lights, pulling down lights, climbing the organ loft, leading the bridal party like Pied Pipers down the Coronado beach, setting up yet another studio in the Hotel Del beside the ballroom.

Somehow the Action Video man, Jack Valentine, seems to have less work. It’s not that he’s doing a minimal job. He is one of the more respected in the business. He just recognized that you can’t have two people organizing the family. He can shoot the Gormans shooting everybody else.

In video years, Valentine is an old man. He got in five years ahead of the crowd. Examine the Yellow Pages and you’ll see how other wedding video tapers come and go. Last year there were 70 new entries to the video wedding ads. This year 156. Seventy-five of them are just six months old. In his five years, Valentine has seen 313 video companies go out of business.

It’s just as cut-throat in the photography business, which is why the Gormans work so hard.

It feels like midnight, at a table at the back of the ballroom. The Gormans have sat down for a moment. John Gorman’s hair is matted to his forehead with sweat. “You think Asia was tough? I reckon I have three to four years left in this business. It’s the energy you need. Not just toting lights and tripods, but the concentration. We have a 2-to-1 ratio (for every two they shoot, they must sell one.) The pictures have to be technically great, and you have to know you have captured everybody, and that they’re looking happy. Have you ever tried to keep people smiling for 15 hours? I tell you, man, it takes it out of you. Wedding photography is the toughest branch of the trade you can take on. God! When I think of those easy days out there in the world.”