BEFORE IT STARTS by THE LISBON WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER

Some photos from the engagement session, with the couple with horses and walking through the woods

• Pode ler este artigo em Português. 

Copy with light, transform with light

When the wedding photographer sees these photos of the elopement session of Sofia and Ricardo he finds himself thinking about something that I remember being intense for that session. Photographing is anticipating the photo in front of the eye and having it done in the mind before it is.

That is not difficult for me. It is not difficult for me because it is a moment, super-fast, like the glutton that brings to the mouth a delicacy that makes him enter into a new dimension of pleasure with those, almost, divine flavors. Since I anticipate in the viewfinder of my camera the photo already ready and being transformed in itself, it is as if a god of pleasure offers me, even if without deserving it, that sweet that I am thankful for, one by one.

I know, a photographer is that one who knows how to copy with light and transform in another light over paper called a photo and he is, also, that one who must discover at the speed of light that photo that it was but, before that, was already detected by his imagination. When they came together, he accomplished his job.

However, it is not about that pleasure I want to write about today. Because the cosmos have a great notion about balance, usually, the moment of pleasure is a fruit from another energy and is not necessarily pleasant.

An old story: an example for wedding photographers

I remember a young boy I saw, many years ago, on a summer afternoon, when I was resting after a long day of work in the garden of the Eduardo VII Park in Lisbon. With his wooden rolling car he climbed the entire ramp until the top and, in a small fraction of time compared with the climb, he rolled down the park, I am sure, with a happiness that we all would envy.

So, when the wedding photographer arrives, at the place of the session, my eyes get crazy looking at the where and the how. Where I find those backgrounds that will dress my photos, as I like them. How I enclose my couple and how I will know to transform them into characters like the artist we see in magazines or, even, in the movies.

Those moments before feeling the place, and the wedding photographer deciding what to do, are some sort of suffering. I enter into an uncontrolled panic. Not here, over it is not good, I do not like that light and today there is no way to do something good, etc, etc, etc…

The good panics before start shooting

But those panics are good. They make me work and observe all around at such speed that neither the groom nor the bride notices the affliction of the wedding photographer, with his own doubts about photographing them, there. Immediately I am that singer panicking the moment before walking onto the stage and, when he does it, it is his live performance.

That is what I want, in every session I am about to start, to become the best I have been able to do until that one. And that is an impossible desire to achieve if I do not have, before that, a disbelieving moment that will give me the notion of duty and responsibility before what I do, and I love so much, and, especially, the respect for my clients.

And it has gone well.

Dot by dot:

• Photographing is, for me, a kind of gift from a god who gives me that one photograph I’ve been waiting for, at that precise moment, and getting it is more powerful and satisfying than the best of delicacies for a glutton.

• However, it’s not a pleasure that simply appeared and the wedding photographer knew how to deal with it straight away. On the contrary, it’s the fruit of hard work, training, and continuous study.

• Even so, and just as well, I still have a kind of panic, a friend of mine, which keeps me awake and which passes as soon as the wedding photos start going into my cameras.

You need to know:

• Nothing is done and achieved without some pain. Mine ends exactly when the first photo from the wedding day goes into one of my cameras. So it will be on your day. To discuss this and many other things, please contact me.