THE GREAT DOUBT by the ALGARVE WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER

This is a photo of the bride and groom playing with their baby son at the wedding party at Club Nau in Ferragudo, Algarve

• Pode ler este artigo em Português. 

The Wedding Photographer: Choosing the Photograph

I have a lingering doubt that has stayed with me ever since I began photographing weddings — my vast experience in capturing people in groups and action.

Before that, the focus of my camera lenses was on inanimate things, lifeless yet full of personality, deserving of great attention to match colors, shapes, background choices, and so on. I leave that to your imagination.

But since I started photographing weddings, I’ve encountered a mystery that still follows me to this day — and I’ll illustrate it with this photograph to see if you can understand me better. Was I the one who chose this photograph and was in the right place waiting for it to happen? Or were the elements — in this case, the people — the ones who offered me this moment of being in the right place, doing the right thing, and sent a message to those little angels I’ve mentioned before, who gave me that sign I always understand and, without any merit of my own… There it is.

The ability to observe and the photographs at a wedding

I’d like to tell you that the angels had nothing to do with it, that the people couldn’t care less about the wedding photographer, and that the credit is entirely mine because I have that keen sense of observation, I master the techniques of composition and the use of my gear, and I’m very… but I don’t know.

To me, maybe it’s that people end up liking me and naturally place themselves in ways that catch my eye and invite me to capture them. Or, maybe, it’s both things. As for the angels…

Point by point:

• In the first phase of my career as a photographer, my subjects were inanimate, and before they were photographed, they were already outlined in a mock-up that I had to follow.
• When I began photographing weddings, my subject matter was completely different:
  ◦ They were people — the couple, their families, and guests
  ◦ They were constantly in motion
  ◦ They were either doing something or being worked on by others
  ◦ They were large groups
• Even today, when I reflect on my work, I ask myself:
  ◦ Was I the one who made or took that photograph?
  ◦ Was it the photograph that presented itself to me?
  ◦ Did I simply take advantage of the moment and capture it?
• Any of these questions leave me without a clear answer, though I can speculate and imagine:
  ◦ Photographs simply happen at weddings
  ◦ The guests, the couple, and even those working on the day instinctively know how to position themselves just right for the photo
  ◦ Or I, the wedding photographer, know how to observe, frame what matters, and at the right moment, take the shot
• It’s probably a mix of everything because the truth is, photographs at a wedding wouldn’t happen without all three conditions.

You need to know:

Photographing a wedding is far more than offering a service to record the event for an archive. To do it well, the photographer needs a set of skills that allow them to know what, when, and how to capture the moment that will become an important memory worth keeping.

They also need to know how to connect everything so that each wedding photo links to the others and tells a story — or better, multiple stories. Some of these may live within a single image; others require a sequence to be understood. Together, they form the story of the wedding day.

That’s what I want for your wedding day — to tell that story, with all the stories that will unfold. Come meet with me to see how I do it, view more photographs, and browse through the wedding albums where I tell the great story — the one of the wedding day.