IT WILL BE? by THE WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER IN LISBON

Photos of the bride and groom on Sereia Beach, next to the Waikiki bar, and with some guests at the wedding party

• Pode ler este artigo em Português. 

Doubt, perhaps methodical

I often wonder why, after some years photographing weddings, I am still amazed, in the sense of discovery, how I find and what gives me that strong motivation to run to the other side of the space where the event takes place, with the nerves on my fingertips, which are ultimately responsible for the moment of photographing, go in time for the guessed moment, and take it with me inside my faithful camera.

It is true that every year before the start of a new season and with the body and those fingers still laziness by a winter of doing little, I wonder if I will still have that drive that makes us run without thinking in the direction of something that experience, and instinct, tells us will happen…and it does.

Longing for a fresh start in the wedding season

Of course, doubt takes very little time to pass. Just like that athlete who lowers the pace of training just because it’s time for some rest and decides to take part in a race and will come home needing the help of the masseur, this also ends up happening to the wedding photographer given the marathon he is subjected to in the first race of the year. It hurts, but it feels good.

I wrote, here, about Covid and the stop that it forced my colleagues and me from all parts of weddings, that one of the things I missed the most was the pain in my ankles when, after cooling down on the way home, the task was done, the wedding was already following a new script by the main characters of the story that I went to register and a new task awaited the wedding photographer, with other tools.

The pains of happiness, photographing weddings

Doubt is indeed more methodical than doubtful. Perhaps the wedding photographer’s desire to escape the repetition and the same thing over and over again, which so often happens in what we do, begins on those days when a little nervousness begins to go down the arms and reach those fingers responsible for all the photos when a revision of the cameras and lenses seems mandatory. I cannot help but take a deep breath and ask myself that question again: will my ankles still hurt again?

But, as if by some kind of magic or destiny, the photographs start happening, the ones that he, the wedding photographer, sees, the ones he guesses at, and, mainly, the ones he likes the most, the ones that scream at him from afar, look at us here. Once again, to his great happiness, he gets home with immense pain in the ankles.

My thing, who knows why?

Dot by dot:

• Every year, before the new wedding season starts, I wonder if I’ll still have the same interest as in previous years.

• But the wedding photographer’s doubt passes quickly, although he still needs a little more time for his muscles to recover from the real marathon they have been subjected to.

• The doubt of repetition in the wedding photographs also quickly disappears, and that ache in the ankles when the job is done is there too. Everything is perfect.

You need to know:

• Waikiki bar, on the Sereia beach in Caparica was the place where these photos appeared.

• Even if your wedding is the first of the season, don’t worry. Doubts only exist before the first click. From then on, it’s always a party. Contact me to find out why.