A WEDDING CEREMONY, CHAPTER 10, by THE WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER IN LISBON
Gilberto Gil, the Brazilian songwriter, has a song that many times the wedding photographer remembers, when all of them with duty fulfilled and joy in their eyes for the satisfaction of who entered to be happy and leaves with it, the happiness, in the eyes and the heart and that they don’t count until they distribute it for all those that, also, want to deliver their part, for them. I have an article back here that says that marriage is one of the only places I know of, where we find people happy with the happiness of others and that’s something I do no doubt about.
I cannot find, for the offering of wedding photos to my lens, a better moment to demonstrate this statement of mine than the one when, when they are already married, all those present, who have witnessed the truth of it, run, as if towards a prize for the demonstration of love in the form of affection for the joy of there moments before.
Gilberto Gil‘s song can hardly be seen anywhere else. “That hug” ( Aquele Abraço) is everywhere. It is in those who managed to arrive first, it is already latent in those who wait their turn and none of those present will leave, even those who only went to the wedding because the food is good, without theirs, felt and tightened, transmitting without needing a single word, all that happiness for them that their hearts feel.
No matter how much the haters, and humorists, of weddings entertain themselves with jokes and profound theories on the subject, they can never know what it is if they have never experienced “that hug”. It’s a moment when bodies contact, souls desire and hearts feel as they exchange, that’s what an embrace is, the happiness you feel for each other. To be the wedding photographer who is there to bring all that in photographs is a great privilege.
One day, the wedding photographer was involved in covering the wedding of a friend and colleague who needed his help. We arranged each other’s roles so that, as we know we both run after the photos without looking away, we wouldn’t get in the way instead of completing each other.
The ceremony is done, leaving the church, flowers, and rice, and right away there they are, as always at that time. “That hug” multiplied by the times of those who are there but never copied, because each one is original, proper, and untransferable. I look to the side and, for the same hug, there is my friend without any concern about getting in my way, stealing my photo from that one, looks at me with shining eyes and says: Man, I love this. Before I could have told him too, which I didn’t say for lack of time because I already had another, hug, in front of me, he was already about to make others fly into his camera.
I found out that, after all, it wasn’t just me who when I’m a wedding photographer sees hugs everywhere at the moment and knows that you don’t have time for anything else, lest you miss some of them. For what they mean, it’s true, you can’t get any behind.
So, by the wedding photographer’s testimony, they will always remain present no matter how much time stubbornly futurize and, even, want those hugs to fade in their fogs. The wedding photographer will not let it happen.
