THE JOKES by THE WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER

Some photos of the bride at the hairdresser’s getting ready for her wedding day

• Pode ler este artigo em Português. 

Growing up to be a photographer

There are things, or moments, that happen to me, and not only as a wedding photographer, that occasionally give me food for thought.

I still haven’t figured out if I’m a professional, whose job is to collect two-dimensional copies, which they use to call photographs, of an event I’ve been called to, or if I take advantage of that to continue being the child I should have been long ago, when everything was a game that served me to be the child that is made to play and, with that, to gain skills to know and use the world I’ll discover when the child will have been left behind.

They say it is called growing up. It must be because from a certain point onwards I was told that I wasn’t young enough to play, which made me very confused, but it seems to be so, so be it.

Searching for faces for photos: says the wedding photographer

The big problem, if it is, is that after all this time I’ve had, after having been the child who only liked to play, I find myself not knowing if at certain moments when I’m being a wedding photographer, I’m behaving like the professional in charge of copying those events that I’ll deliver as photographs, especially inside a book that will tell the story of them, of the events, or if I am, again, or still, being the child that plays discovering always new points of view, that explores all the possible framings, that hunts, instead of imaginary unicorns, smiles or, as the wedding photographer likes to say, states of faces.

What amazes me, with the amazement of discovery, is that it seems to me that the child is not left behind at a time when play was all that mattered.

It’s for the good and it gives photographs

Still, I feel it every day when I’m a wedding photographer. I have that fun, excuse me those who think that only with sacrifice does the truth of things gain importance, in this quest for what I will find, peeking through the window frame, between the flowers in the vase or the hairdresser’s lacquer shelf, to see what comes out, in photography, of course, of the bride and groom at the altar between those two chandeliers with the huge candles right next to the altar table, or, in a challenge with half a dozen guests who won’t stop still and I want them to make me a frame for the bride’s face, who talks to them and has a beautiful smile.

As much as I want to be the grown-up professional and responsible for what I have been entrusted with, perhaps, even unwittingly, I have misled you, my beloved couple. From my analysis, it seems to me that, after all, the wedding photographer is there to have fun in a game he can’t resist.

But understand, it’s for your own good.

Dot by dot:

• The wedding photographer often seems to remain the child he once was because of the curiosity and learning he still has when he is photographing a wedding.

• When he is covering the events, everything seems like a world at his disposal to experiment with, and instead of hunting for imaginary objects, he has the faces of those who are going, who are there, for wedding photographs.

• When photographing among the vases of flowers or the chandeliers on the altar of a church, the wedding photographer always looks like he’s playing a game in order to achieve very serious and important things, the photographs.

You need to know:

• If you think a photographer who still hasn’t let go of his childlike curiosity would be a good addition to your wedding, that’s me. Contact me, and I’ll be there.