VARIATIONS by THE WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER IN PORTUGAL

From a dating session in Monsanto Park in Lisbon, a few days before the wedding ceremony and party

• Pode ler este artigo em Português. 

As in the song

Variations and a wedding photographer. In the world of music, several pieces are part of its history, based on a simple concept: variations. The composer creates a musical phrase, major or minor according to his intention, or type of music, and from there he creates new alterations that, on that first base, will transform, increase, and simplify.

Bach did it masterfully, like everything he composed, in his Goldberg Variations, Ravel uses them in the Bolero, and even with less notoriety in the audition, many of the great composers of classical music, jazz, and other genres often use variations to enrich their compositions. Often subtly and only trained ears notice that look has repeatedly repeated that melodic phrase from the beginning.

As in nature

But not only composers of music are exclusivists of the possibility of variations. Nature which has nothing repetitive about it, only apparently, is a producer of many variations. As a wedding photographer, traveling to my workplaces, I see this capacity a lot in the flowers carpeting the spring fields, with all the variations in tones that the same species of flower can reproduce within the same color pattern.

The greens of the same species of grass vary according to the quality of the land where they grow, whether in the valley or on the hillside, and even the sun with its light, as variable as we know it, can make us vary the sensations of everything that comes to our eyes and that many of us like to transform in photographs, also so varied according to who took them and where they were taken from.

With the wedding photographer

That’s why the wedding photographer is very fond of variation. I come up with my subject or find it, and around it, I will explore all the possible variants that my imagination, the possibility of my tools, and how the setting dresses my subject, usually the bride and groom and those walking around weddings.

Photos like musical notes

These are my musical notes that instead of becoming sounds from a piano, a violin, or a trumpet, become images, if possible printed on paper and we call them photographs. So, just as musical notes succeed each other varying from each restart, the photographs that the wedding photographer collects from the subject in front of him, can be variants of the previous one and anticipate a variation for the one that follows. It’s an exercise I like to do, especially when I photograph the newlywed couple on their wedding day, or even in that session we sometimes do beforehand.

Not that the wedding photographer will ever resemble those music composers he admires so much. But, if they know that, perhaps, it’s a simple way of honoring them, they won’t be angry, maybe just condescending. Who knows, but at least I try.

Dot by dot:

• Variations are a musical form that many composers, such as Bach, use to create pieces of music.

• Nature is also rich in variations of colors, shapes, and light, which wedding photographers like to use in their photographic compositions.

• That’s why I also like to do a lot of variations on the same subject, usually the bride and groom on their pre-wedding day, or with everyone on their big day.

• That’s what I do with my wedding photographs. They are my musical notes and, with all the variations, I make my piece of music.

You need to know:

• At your wedding too, I’ll use every possible variation to bring you a great piece of music, in photographs. To make it happen, just contact me and I’ll be your composer.