THE CHRONICLER by THE WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER IN SINTRA

Photographs at Quinta da Serra in Sintra of the bride and groom at the first dance and others at the wedding party

• Pode ler este artigo em Português. 

The photographer and what happened on the wedding day

It’s up to the wedding photographer to tell what happened during the long day that is a wedding.

It starts very early in the house of one of the members of the almost-married couple. It will end during the night after dances, bouquets in the air to dictate who will be the next bachelorette among the high jumpers, the proof that it’s not only a question of luck, but that all those who are in the race wish that this, the bride’s bouquet that no longer needs it because she no longer is, falls in their hands and celebrate it with all the joy.

A wedding marathon

When I reach that moment and my participation in the event is concluded I have a mixture of relief for the end of my race, believe me, for a wedding photographer it is a very long marathon for which he needs a lot of training, and of some doubt for knowing if leaving behind some photographs that, or I didn’t notice them or they escaped without me being able to catch them in time, could better to complete the chronicle of which I was in charge of writing with them, the photographs at the wedding.

But, as they say, what’s done is done, and time, as in an old Portuguese fado, doesn’t go back.

The storyteller in wedding photography

But, I must tell you that that mixture of satisfaction for the end of the toil and the duty fulfilled is something I savor at the end of all wedding days I’m lucky enough to get as a chronicler, I like the word, and what it implies.

Having the power to take with me inside my cameras the anxieties of anticipation, the help of those who help, the running from here to there and from there to there, the glances when they are already there at the expected moment of a wedding ceremony just as they wanted it, the celebrations when you are already there and everybody wants to hug and kiss you for happiness and wishes for it, when, because of the warmth of the wine, the shy person becomes the speaker of the night or the size of a long life doesn’t prevent you from winning the prize of the dancer of the party.

So, being the teller of these stories is something I came to one day and have never been able to let go of. It won’t be for the pleasure of going from wedding to wedding, because there are so many of them, and after so much time, it also gets tiresome, although, according to what I hear when I’m out there, there are some professionals of the guesting. It’s not just another opportunity for one more.

The greatest pleasure is that of the photographer, for the photographs

But being there as a wedding photographer is something completely different. He, me, is not there because of the vanity of being able to wear a new suit with shiny shoes, not for the pleasure of gluttony for the expected delicacies or for having feet that think they are dance masters and all the other things you can do at a wedding.

He, me, is there for the pleasures of others that he knows will be delivered to him in the wedding photographs, which, yes, are his greatest pleasure than the greatest of pleasures of any of the others there. Perhaps I’m exaggerating as usual; not even the bride and groom outdo me. This is how the chronicler assumes himself as a wedding photographer.

Don’t doubt it.

Dot by dot:

• This is how a wedding photographer’s day is summed up: it starts early in the morning with one of the bride or groom and ends late in the evening with a flying bridal bouquet.

• After the wedding day is over, it’s a mixture of tiredness and satisfaction that makes me go home every time with a bag full of photos.

• Those photographs taken at the wedding tell stories, even though I have been to so many wedding parties.

• Being the wedding photographer, where everyone delights in the delights there, is a greater pleasure than any other that can not be experienced.

You need to know:

• That’s what I do at weddings, I write stories in photographs. I’ll do it at yours, too. Contact me and I’ll tell you how.