TASTE FOR THE IMPONDERABLE by THE BAPTISM PHOTOGRAPHER IN LISBON

Photos of the little girl with her parents lovingly looking after her for the christening ceremony

• Pode ler este artigo em Português. 

The christening photographer’s taste for the unrepeatable

Nothing is more impossible to imagine, for me, a priori, as a photographer in baptism than the coverage of the preparation of the child who will be baptized in a few hours. I explain why.  As I have been writing here so many times, I am, also, a wedding photographer.

Also, I already wrote about one of the things that motivate me is the imponderability that I will find and grab in my little bags, which are my photographic cameras. I know that, usually, what I find in the happenings in the generality of the weddings and baptisms, is not much difference between them.

The interior and decoration of the houses may be different, but the houses, the churches, the venues, and the party rooms are what they are, and what is going on there is the same thing, with not so many differences. But let us stop here. Every time I find someone doing something, the way he, or her, do it is unrepeatable and that is a characteristic that fulfills my taste and constant desire to photograph events, like weddings and baptisms.

Children and points of view for photographs

 But there is a great difference between a bride and a groom, when they prepare themselves for the ceremony, with the hair, with the dressing, and those small things that are part of the ritual, and a child, most of the time with no experience at all of being it.

Even someone with all the experience with weddings does not apply to them. With them, the children, I can not predict the next gesture, what is the best point of view because they suddenly change it for one hundred and eighty degrees from there, it must be a bit low or, on the contrary, all stretched or wishing to have been a basketball player to get over there that great detail she offered me in the last moment, for a great picture.

A challenge the photographer wants at christenings

 Please, do not read the two first paragraphs and think that, for the baptism photographer, it is a problem being there. Quite the opposite. In addition to being a bigger challenge, there are those moments when the child decides to be my best friend there and, to my amazement, when, in the quietness of my desk, I verify that it was a lot better than I thought it will be, before starting to photograph.

Also, it is a great pleasure because a proud baptism photographer does not like easy things. He likes to be challenged by his nature, by light when it is his main tool, or by the people, especially those who still have almost no experience of being so, at all.

In my case, the last ones are my best challenge and I will be always ready to go, with my bag full of cameras and lenses, and come back home with them, full of the gifts that they, the children on the way to be baptized, were kind enough to give me. Leonor was not an exception. Without any doubt.

Dot by dot:

• Photographing a christening doesn’t differ much from a wedding. But only in form. The content is a little different because of the main characters. Instead of adults, at a christening I have children, most of the time little ones.

• With children being baptized, you can’t predict what their next move will be, where they’ll turn when they’ll throw a tantrum or burst out laughing, which is a challenge for the baptism photographer.

• However, most of the time, these children, on the day of their christening, are always very close to me, and as long as I accept the challenge they give me, I always find the right time for them to give me the christening photos I want.

You need to know:

• It’s a challenge I always accept with joy and with great results. The story of the baptism day is always told with all the steps on it. Contact me to find out how.