What type of wedding photographer am I?
24-February-2010
I usually avoid thinking of the wedding I’m about to photograph, but driving to Kristy and Steve’s it was different.
On the way through Tewantin I called in on a friend who I hadn’t seen for 30 years. She is the mother of a family I stayed with sometimes on school holidays and our lives were loosely entwined for pretty much all my teenage years. Rose showed me a photo album full of old photographs from the seventies and eighties. Amongst them where ones that were either washed out, contrasty, faded, scratched or out of focus. It’s funny though, they all had the same transporting effect and all bought up palpable feelings of long forgotten times and places.
Afterwards as I headed down to Perigian I thought that’s exactly what I want my wedding photo’s to be about. That humble little photo album packed so much emotional wallop and it reconfirmed with me the choices I make and priorities I have when shooting a wedding (and afterwards during editing). In thirty years I don’t want anyone looking at wedding photo’s I’ve taken and say “wasn’t the photographer clever, look how perfect everything is” or “what beautiful light”. I’d much rather they say affectionately to each other “look at us, that’s how we were”. Don’t get me wrong I value good technique and love stylish portraiture, but if I’m not getting the real stuff too, then it’s a missed opportunity.
Real wedding photography, Noosa, Perigian, Tewantin 2008
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