THE SUBJECT by THE WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER IN PORTUGAL
The photo shows the bride and groom’s friends in a selfie when they arrived at the wedding venue in a square in Nazaré
• Pode ler este artigo em Português.
Representation is a very important thing
What can be a photograph? Well, in the first place, it is always a representation of something that was, in a fraction of time, a reality in front of a photographic camera and lens in someplace. To be a representation of something could be very important because it transforms the real thing into another kind of existence.
So a photo is, now, another thing different from reality, that it represents but which gives, in some situations, the only thing that gives to the photographed object his permanence in time, but in another space that can be just a computer file or printed on paper. If we do a photo of a moving object, the exact moment when the photo was taken does not exist anymore but it will remain as a representation, not a copy, but how the photographer captured it.
Representation of the moment
That is one of the most important things about photography that fascinates me, as a wedding photographer, charged with picking up all the moving moments from the wedding day. And, with the wonder that those moments are, always, shown from a completely different point of view than the photographed experienced.
These photos show exactly that. The group of bride maids do a selfie completely concentrating on what they are doing. I was far away and, with the proper lens, I caught this moment of action. Even if they were taking a photo, what they were doing was not for the wedding photographer, me. Like that, the memory of each other only exists for the smartphone, which is the unifying object for that action. What I will give them is a representation of one moment of the total action and catch from outside the group.
Establishing the connection, by the wedding photographer
For me, as a wedding photographer, that side of my work, with the duty of giving the final view, is fascinating. First, from my side, find the best way to build that representation, the photo, and second the wonder of the subjects of the moment seeing themselves in a completely different way than it was remembered by them.
While I will be able to establish that connection I will continue being a wedding photographer.