THE TELLER by THE WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER IN PORTUGAL
Photos of the bride and groom in the various stages of preparation for their wedding day
Telling stories
I am always writing here in my Blog, as a wedding photographer, that I consider myself a storyteller.
For a person connected to the things of literature, that of the great stories that involve us, that enlighten us about the greater things of the world and men and women, of their desires, ambitions, and disappointments, that show us what we can expect of ourselves as humans, it might seem a bit puerile or vanity to expect that a wedding photographer can claim to be a storyteller.
Of course, it is. I don’t even need to talk about the others, other photographers, who tell stories of other things, some of which I won’t even mention in a blog about wedding photography, because we might lose a bit of that joy that should always be immanent to this place, where weddings happen.
The pleasure of photography
It was that storytelling part that grabbed me to the place. I’ve already explained here that I did not go and not become a wedding photographer. I stayed. That’s how it was. But to stay something gave me the reason for it. Of course, it was the pleasure I got from photographs.
Of course, it was the need we all enjoy to have a profession. Of course, it was the freedom to be able to take charge of my life. All of that, but if we don’t find a fundamental reason that drives us to do it, it can quickly all fade away and all the momentum we found is no longer the fuel that pushes us. It’s like love, as I photograph weddings, and write, if there isn’t that glue that we often don’t quite understand but are sure what it is, all the other reasons that could be a reason for it, fade away and aren’t.
In the beginning, as with love, it was just passion, a word often used by those in the photography business. To have passion. It’s good, but it only gives the beginning, grabs, and doesn’t give the way.
The stories and history of the day
Of course, I got intoxicated the first few times I went as a photographer at a wedding. It was what I wanted to photograph. But what about the clients, the brides, and the grooms who started to trust me? What did I have to offer them that I thought was something of mine that I would turn into something of theirs? Work? Delivery? Taste?
That was stuff for me, but what about them? Very soon I found out what it was. Either because it felt like it or from what they would tell me as they left with the books I made them of the story of their wedding day.
That was it. The history of the day. That’s why they came and that’s why I saw them leave happy with those smiles that paid me more than any amount we had agreed on. For that, and because it is, yes, I am a wedding photographer storyteller of the stories that happen on a wedding day.
With endless pleasure, believe me.
