IT’S ALREADY POSSIBLE by THE WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER IN PORTUGAL
Photos of the bride and groom on their way to the cake cutting, the cake on a table, and everyone after the cake, at Quinta das Palmeiras in Sintra
• Pode ler este artigo em Português.
The wedding cake and the photos
I still remember, when the wedding photographer was at the beginning on them, the difficult it was to photograph the cut of the wedding cake.
Not always, but when this happens on the outside and long is the night, without proper illumination, dedicated for the purpose, where the, usually, last symbolic act of the night with the offer of a slice of that cake to everyone who was with the couple during all the wedding day, like a thankful delicacy and, at the same time, of sharing, as if the newlyweds wanted to tell them that our happiness is yours in the form of this slice of cake, then things can become complicated for the wedding photographer and he may need the help of lights, that do not belong at the space and change the natural ambient.
That is something that I do not like to do. Since I started to photograph weddings, I decided not to use artificial lights that do not are a part of the place, or use them just when it is necessary.
Lights, cameras, and wedding cakes
And that was not always an easy decision. There is the habit, in the places where the wedding party happens, of carrying out the ritual in a place where the light hardly reaches and, if it does, does not have the minimum quality to have the atmosphere we like in the photographs.
Sometimes is beautiful to watch, but a calvary for the wedding photographer. During my first years, the cameras, despite already using the digital format, had a lot of limitations in capturing the light in those conditions and when I came across the spot, where the cake would be cut, some kind of sadness came over the wedding photographer and there I had to turn on those lights that would, in my opinion, kill that ambient, despite being almost without any light.
Of course, there were some tricks to reduce the intrusion to the minimum, and, rarely, the photos were out of the dignity of the moment.
Now it’s easy, thanks to some gentlemen from Japan
But, with time, those gentlemen who like to build photographic cameras in Japan, may have known about my sadness in the front of the wedding cakes ready to be cut and distributed, even very slowly in time, delivered to me new cameras that allowed the wedding photographer, better and better, to take advantage of the environment in the dark places on the way during the wedding day.
From churches almost in the twilight until dinner rooms with candles, which were a limit very difficult to reach before. Today, the wedding photographer already has the joy of being able to carry the cakes with him, the cut, the distribution, and the last wishing well to the newlyweds and show them how it was. With that, the stories were, already in the epilogue state, better finished and with the tones of reality.
As you can understand, the wedding photographer is very happy with this and with a better sensation of the duty accomplished.
- In Quinta das Palmeiras in Sintra, Portugal
