THEY, ALSO, ARE by THE WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER 

About photographs at a wedding in the Basilica of Mafra and the importance of those who are there

• Pode ler este artigo em Português. 

Telling My Stories Through Wedding Photographs

Wedding photographers are constantly being forced to decide what is important during wedding coverage. To tell my stories in the weddings I photograph, I have always drawn inspiration from cinema and, perhaps, comic books.

Although I am a photographer with a strong inclination toward portraiture—and with that, a tendency to seek more of what is called, in cinema, a close-up—I know I have a story to tell, and I also have to make the wide shot to show the “where.”

From an Inner Fire to Becoming Photographs

Here, as with any photograph, it’s what’s in the frame that makes it. If I have a basilica, then a basilica is what I bring with me. The same happens with those who are there. I only bring into photographs the people who were there—not merely as props, but as subjects imbued with an inner fire that allows them to become photographs.

The same applies to the couple—tiny, little more than a dot in the grandeur of the space they chose for their “I do.” But when the wedding photographer selects them, isolates them with the lens, and lets them grow, they too are transformed into cathedrals full of inner fire, fueled by the love that brought them there, witnessed by those present.

That’s why it’s easy. It’s no trouble at all. It’s just a matter of being there—wedding photographers are, they don’t just go—and taking it in. You have no idea how good it feels…

Point by point:

• My source of inspiration for the photography I do has always been cinema for the act of photographing and comic books for the layout of the wedding albums.
• The portraits I take are heavily influenced by cinema through close-ups, shot/reverse shot, and spatial integration.
• I also believe that a photograph is made with what’s there at the moment of capture:
  ◦ A photograph is only a copy of what was photographed
  ◦ It’s only possible to bring guests into a photograph because they are there
  ◦ The couple, even in the vastness of a Basilica, are also there
• What I mean by this is that the wedding photographer cannot invent anything. He must carry with him the material and emotional truth of the event.
• However, he can transform things formally:
  ◦ He can blur what doesn’t matter
  ◦ He can isolate the main subject
  ◦ He can choose the character of the lens
  ◦ He can include everything or only part of the action
  ◦ He can choose the point of view
• But none of that can remove the truth that is inherent to what happens, for example, in a wedding ceremony inside a Basilica.

You need to know:

• As a wedding photographer, I must have a very clear sense of the balance required between the intrinsic truth a photograph should contain and its form—in other words, how I choose to have that truth “dressed.” For that, with every photograph, I have to make a series of decisions that will give it a unique identity and make it a part of the story being told: the wedding day.

Whether in a cathedral, a chapel, or beneath a floral arch at a country venue, the same decisions must be made for each photograph. At your wedding, that will be done with a guarantee of truth told and beauty surrounding it. Let’s talk about that in a meeting. I have a lot to show you.

• In Mafra Basilica.