DAISIES IN THE FIELD AND THE MEMORY OF THE WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER IN PORTUGAL
Some memories of the wedding photographer, as a child, may have led to photography
The photos are from a wedding party at the Hotel Grande Real Villa Itália, Cascais
Spring and the celebrations of life
Something I wrote some time ago, a bit outside of the wedding photographer’s work:
“The spring is here and, with it, the life celebrations begin. The babies, made at the beginning of the Autumn and starting Winter, begin to be born and the raids on the flowered fields are, now, part of the day for some people. After a gray Winter, we love the awakening of the perfumes of nature glowing everywhere invading our eyes and noses.
I remember myself very well, when I, and my family, made the move from the house in the open field, near the river of my life, and come to the little village. It was like immersing in civilization after living as a child monk in an isolated monastery. New things started to fill my life. Television was the most important.
The boy from the hill and the boy from the village
Bonanza, Daniel Boone, and Speedy Gonzalez entered my life as something magical and perfect. Knowing all the car brands and models running down the streets, was new for me, a boys’ game. And, because of that, my first great humiliation, on the civilized sidewalk of Main Street, was just born. With my naivete, as a newcomer and not used to the boy’s competitions, I started reading the brand of a car exactly as I was used to doing with the Portuguese language.
Big mistake. Big loud laughter from the group made me need to find the bigger hole in the street and disappear forever and back to my house in the field, left behind. I was the ignorant redneck surrounded by the cream of enlightened boys of the, almost, one-street town. But instead of starting to live as the humiliated one, I learned, in a small amount of time, all the brands, models, and colors of the cars in town but, also, all the cars that flow on the road, near. After some time I even knew them by the sound of the motor.
April marigolds
However, everything tends to have the opposite way to balance life. Coming back to the title of the post, I was enthroned by the kid’s spring ritual of the place. Going to the flower fields, especially with white and orange daisies, and, with the flowers, build necklaces on the hillsides where they grow up in monumental quantities.
And there we go. Boys and girls, each one with a line and a needle, loan to the mothers, and it was a marvel on a spring day, watching all that group of girls doing the most beautiful necklaces and the boys competing to do big ones, as it should be.
When the job was over it was a joy to swing down the hill and move to the village, dressed with those necklaces with faces and eyes with joy as if something transcendent had happened on that sunny morning on the hill, near the village water well.
Only mothers did not like so much that thrilling morning adventure, because all the cleaning services, belonged to them and they had the worst part of the day, cleaning all those flowers, stolen by Mother Nature, which, slowly, were left on the streets. As in all rituals, when over, the interest is…over.
Maybe wedding photos
I remembered that because I saw some wedding photos from the north of Europe, especially in Ireland, when, in the wedding ritual, the bride had a beautiful flower headdress remembering the old cultural rituals and doing charming wedding photography.
Once more, I bring, to me, the connection between all those celebrations and my path to becoming a wedding photographer. All of these are celebrations that deserve to be frizzed at the moment, as it is a wedding day. And because eternity is a long time, this must be done very carefully in one photo or in the memory by someone who does it well.”
- In Hotel Grande Real Villa Itália, Cascais, Portugal
