RESTART by THE PORTUGAL WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER
When I started to think I had to change, at least, the way I was doing as a professional in photography, because the circumstances changed and my activity, in the field of advertising consumer products, entered some sort of crisis, I put some hypotheses and none in the field of weddings.
That was something that I did not even think about. At that time, it was some sort of bad judgment, among the photography professionals of which I was a part, about wedding photography. Because it was cheesy, because it was not creative, fashion was because what we can see was no good, etc.
In fact, in my head, it was a way to earn money that was not worth it in terms of creativity, and the subject, as the photographers call what they photograph, did not have the appeal and the glamour of the models dressed to walk in passerelles or in the fashion magazines.
I wrote here, once, about what changed my mind. I remember that sometime before my “mystical” experience that changed everything, a friend, the owner of a photographic material shop when we were talking about my need to find something to change, had asked me why do you not try weddings?
I have a friend who, also, was in advertising and now he does weddings with great success. Hmmm!!.. He did not convince me with the argument. But, one day, I fell into one, just like that and at the right time. I knew it the moment I packed my work equipment and went home.
I was numb from fatigue, from emotions, and what the hell happened here?
Well, it happened a radical change in my opinion with what we can do photographically at a wedding. It had, absolutely, nothing to do with what I had in my mind about the subject. For the first time in my life, I felt completely free to photograph.
Free, not in the sense I could do what comes to my mind, but in the sense of duty of doing it well. The duty to guarantee the trust the couple had in me, even if I, at that moment, did not know much about it, the duty a story to tell with a beginning, middle, and end, the duty of doing everything to deliver the result of the workday and that couple would feel more complete, with the memory they had of this so important day of them.
And that was no small accomplishment. After the satisfaction of the photographer, not yet a wedding one, because for the first time wrote with photographs a complete story that would be told, uncounted times, in the future, for all who wanted to know what had happened there.
That was so powerful and decided my way, my new path as a wedding photographer.
