ESSENTIAL by THE WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER IN SINTRA
The photographs take place at Quinta do Pé da Serra in Sintra, in the hustle and bustle of preparing the bride and groom, and others, for the wedding.
- Pode ler este artigo em Português.
The Photographer Arrives Early at the Wedding
Mornings when the bride and groom get ready on their wedding day often present a problem the wedding photographer still hasn’t managed to understand.
Every time, he arrives early. He likes to arrive when nothing suggests there will be a wedding, and often there is no real need for it because he ends up waiting around.
The groom has gone to take care of something and is not there yet; the bride is on the phone talking to some friends and has not even started having her hair done; and whoever welcomes him does not really know where their things are, so that he can get on with his work.
He waits.
Looking for a Photograph
He is like that. I have already told him not to go so early, but there is no point. Then he complains that time takes a long time to pass; a small restlessness starts appearing at his fingertips because they are not yet being put to use and, as soon as he finds a small opportunity, off he goes to see if he can find a photograph.
It can be anything that appears in front of him. A piece of clothing, a window, a hand, an object that happens to be there, or simply someone doing something that, at that moment, is worth keeping.
The wedding day has not really begun yet, but there are already small things happening and the wedding photographer does not like letting them pass while searching for the best point of view.
Then things start happening as they are supposed to: hairdressers here, shirts being buttoned with special assistance, make-up artists there, helping hands putting on shoes, waistcoats and specialists tying knots in ties.
People are helping, people giving instructions, people looking for things, and people simply there talking. Conversation, lots of conversation, and time running quickly as if nobody were in a hurry to get ready on time.
It is curious how the same time that, just a little earlier, seemed not to move suddenly begins not to be enough for anything.
Portraits, Essential on a Wedding Day
The wedding photographer, delighted by so many photographs coming from everywhere, does not even know what time it is because he has no time to waste on it. Only the photographs, already belonging to the wedding, matter to him.
He is in his own special world and is not going to worry about other people’s time. They will have to sort it out if they run out of it.
The problem is that when he needs a little, just a little, time to do what he considers essential on a wedding day, they tell him there is no time left.
So?
You had the whole morning, so much time to do whatever you wanted, and now that I only need a little bit of it, you do not have any for me?
And what about the portraits?
There is a moment there that the photographer would rather not lose. The groom and bride are still before everything that is going to happen next, and there is something about that moment that deserves to be photographed. It does not need to be a session, nor take an eternity. A little time is all that is needed.
But that time, which seemed to exist in abundance when he arrived, has meanwhile all been used.
The preparations took as long as they needed to, the conversations happened, the help was given, things were done, and now it is time to leave. The wedding day does not wait for the photographer, nor for the portraits he had planned to make.
And this is where he looks at what is still ahead and realises that he will have to leave that photograph for another occasion.
Another Part of the Story to Tell, in Photographs
Well, there isn’t any. It is over, and time was never available on credit. We have to go; try next time.
Fine. What cannot be done is done, as people say, and since time has moved on to another time and it is necessary to arrive on time, the wedding photographer goes on taking other photographs that will already tell another part of the story, to be remembered in time.
That is how it is.
There is not much more to do when it is time to leave. If there was no time for the portraits, there are other things to photograph. Someone saying goodbye, a door opening, one last helping hand with the clothes, a look, some movement happening at that moment because the wedding has not waited.
And the photographer cannot wait either.
He goes after what comes next.
The Time of a Wedding Morning
Perhaps that is why these mornings have a kind of contradiction that he knows well:
- He arrives when it seems there is still nothing to photograph;
- He starts photographing and, before he knows it, there is no time left for what he still wanted to do.
It is the same day, the same clock and the same hours, but time seems to have a different way of passing depending on what is happening.
The Preparations Are Also Part of the Story
The photographs in this story were taken at Quinta do Pé da Serra, in Sintra, during the bride and groom’s preparations.
It is precisely at this point that it often seems as though the wedding has not yet begun. The groom may still be taking care of something, the bride is still getting ready, there are people helping and others talking, and the photographer is there, waiting for things to begin giving him photographs.
But it is a wedding.
It has already begun.
The preparations are part of the day and, for the person photographing it, they are also an important part of the story. This is where people, gestures, small events, and that change that gradually becomes clear begin to appear, until the moment arrives when there is no time left for anything.
That is why he arrives early.
It is not simply because he likes arriving early. It is because he does not know what he will find when he gets there and does not want to miss what may happen before everything officially begins.
Sometimes he waits a long time.
Other times, hardly at all.
But he is there.
And when time finally begins to run, he already has photographs to make.
What Remains When Time Runs Out
If the portraits of the bride and groom did not happen, it does not mean that that part of the morning has been left without photographs. The story continues to be made of the things that happened and that the photographer had time to see.
There is always another photograph.
Perhaps it is not the one he had planned. Perhaps it is not even the one he imagined when he arrived early. But it is the one that happened at that moment and that now becomes part of the day.
And that is what a wedding photographer often has to do: accept that not everything fits into the time he imagined and continue looking at what is in front of him.
The wedding does not stop.
The photographer does not either.
And off he goes, on time for what is about to begin, taking other photographs that will tell another part of the story.
In time.
Conclusion
Perhaps the problem really is that he arrives too early. He has time when he does not yet need it and, when he finally needs a few minutes to make the portraits of the bride and groom, there is no time left at all.
But perhaps that is also why he likes arriving early.
Because between the time that takes too long to pass and the time that later disappears, there are always photographs that could only have happened there, that morning, at that wedding day and at that precise moment.
And when time runs out, nobody can take those photographs away from him.
If You Also Run Out of Time for the Portraits
If you also run out of time for the portraits at your wedding, know that the whole story that happens during that space of time will still be told.
It will not always be the photograph that was planned, because the wedding day does not organise itself according to the photographer’s clock, but there will always be an attentive eye on what is happening.
That is how it was during the preparations of this bride and groom, at Quinta do Pé da Serra, and that is how I like to photograph a wedding: being there, from early on, to see what the day decides to show.