Lieutenant Dan Saved My Wedding Career

Issue #35

[Read Time > 4 Minutes]

This is a somewhat peculiar and personal segment to cover in a newsletter about wedding photography, but it’s definitely an “inside issue and I’m pretty sure you’ll never see or read about this from another photography magazine or blog.

The mystery topic…Taking care of your feet.

I was just over six years into my professional wedding photography career. I was shooting every weekend, and at the end of each night, I was miserable.

When I woke in the morning after a wedding, my legs, back, feet and hips were in tremendous pain, and I could barely walk.

This was not good.

My career was just taking off, but after each wedding, I felt like an octogenarian. Something had to change, and soon.

On one memorably debilitating Sunday afternoon, I was watching the movie Forrest Gump, with my feet up, of course.

When Forrest and Bubba landed in Vietnam, the first person they met was their commanding officer, Lieutenant Dan Taylor. He had two standing orders for every member of his platoon:

“One, take good care of your feet, and two, try not to do anything stupid.”

This is surprisingly good advice, and if it was good enough for soldiers in combat, I decided it was good enough for wedding photographers.

I started with the shoes. You’ll be happy to know I decided NOT to go down the road of horrible-looking orthopedic shoes.

I have some pride and at least a small amount of fashion sense, after all.

My shoes did need an upgrade, however, and I bought some good ones.

I’ll let you decide what “good” means to you, but I’d suggest something in the $100-$300 range. They need to be quality leather shoes with a good build and great support (no fashion slippers! I don’t care how cool or expensive they are)

I could hardly believe what a difference a high-quality pair of shoes can make!

I noticed the difference the very next weekend. My legs were still plenty fatigued at the end of the night, but at least I could walk the next morning with only a small amount of pain.

The next step (no pun intended) - my socks. Lieutenant Dan’s advice finally hit home.

Full disclosure: I’m not a fancy sock guy. I know it’s trendy for some people to wear brightly-colored socks and appear all edgy in their dark pants, but that’s not me.

I’m moving a LOT on the wedding day, so I needed socks that would stay up all day and not look like mini legwarmers every 20 minutes (shout out to those who remember the 80s).

I went with the looong black dress socks that honestly look like they came out of the 80s. Those suckers came up to just below my knee, and thanks to the industrial-strength elastic band, they stayed up no matter how active I was. But then I added my own personal touch...

Athletic socks underneath the dress socks. Don’t laugh, they worked.

I went with golf-style ankle socks so my ankles didn’t look like I was nine months pregnant.

Were they difficult to put on, you bet! Did they give me a cushiony support that kept me moving all day?

You betcha!

And not only did I feel great at the end of the night, but when I woke the next morning, I felt like I hadn’t worked at all, despite having worked a 12-hour wedding just 7 hours earlier.

Look, I know this sounds stupid, but good shoes and socks changed everything for me.

I wouldn’t have made it to over 25 years of shooting weddings without this odd wardrobe change.

Oh, and it works really well for shorter gigs, too.

Now, on to Lieutenant Dan’s second order.

…OK, I’m still working on that one.

“Two standing orders for this platoon: One, take good care of your feet, and two, try not to do anything stupid.”

– Lieutenant Dan Taylor, Company A, 2/47th Infantry, 3rd Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, Vietnam

Taking care of your feet and extending the life of your wedding career is just one of the little parts of the “inner game of wedding photography. THIS is what I write about each week in this newsletter.

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