ENTRANCES by the WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER
Photos of the bride’s arrival at the wedding ceremony room at the Palácio Estoril Hotel
The characters and their photos
The entrance to the wedding ceremony is perhaps one of the most symbolic that the wedding photographer faces during their coverage of the wedding day. At least for me, who likes to photograph the bride and groom entering the church or under the shady trees of a Quinta for the civil ceremony?
On the one hand, there’s a speed that forces me to use all the tricks I’ve learned throughout the years of my profession, and, on the other hand, I know that I’ll always take from the bride and groom some emotions that will result in wedding photos that perfectly complete the story of the day.
Now, the final result, apart from what the photographer knows how to do, the framing in space, the composition, and the so-called right moments for the making of, the photos, is completely dependent on the characters, or actors, in this case, they are the same, that will start that small, but intense walk to near of the other, who waits to say yes in a little while.
The bride and groom type
As for what I’m stealing for wedding photos, it depends, in fact, on the photographed ones. If they’re shy, if they’re euphoric, if they’re restrained, if they’re ceremonial, if they’re expectant, and so on, because there are more genders in the world of brides and grooms about to cease to be than there are stars in the sky.
Because of this, it is always unpredictable what the wedding photographer will find on that day. It’s not the first time that a bride, or a groom, euphoric all morning as they prepare themselves with the necessary preparations for them to become engaged on a wedding day, and, there, in that corridor that leads to the essential vortex, offer me a timidity, a look to the floor as if they are afraid of hurting the tapestry that leads them there or, vice versa and not to mention those who accompany them, also victims of being robbed by the wedding photographer.
The truth of the emotion in photographs
But one thing the wedding photographer knows. He knows because he accompanies them step by step and because he proves it in the wedding photos he takes with him.
Whatever the reaction that the way on the red carpet reveals to my lens, I know that it is all true and that it comes from the heart. Nothing there has been made up, staged, or faked. It’s just how it is and that’s how I like it.
Anyone who practices a profession, even if they know how to do it well, needs a reason that motivates them every day to practice it again. For me, as the wedding photographer in place, it is that truth in emotion, that comes from the heart, that I testify, despite not having time for great observations that do not result in photography, and because I confirm it in them, in the photographs I carry with me from those moments.
That is the essential motivation for me to always want to return as a wedding photographer…at a wedding.
- In Palácio Estoril Hotel, Golf & Wellness, Cascais.