What my job is really all about, or; the bride’s favorite image
First let me say, I ADORE my job. Love it. However, I feel sometimes like as photographers we can sometimes lose sight of the fact that the images we create aren’t actually for US. That there are real people out there who will continue to look at them and be stirred by the memories long after their files have gone into deep storage. Trust me, photographers love to focus on the technical merit of an image. I’m not saying photos shouldn’t be done well, as they absolutely should., I’m just saying that maybe even if they aren’t – they might still really MEAN something, and that’s just as (if not more) important.
On a daily basis, photographers are working towards technically better images – better posed, better lit, better framed – you name it. Images in competitions are judged on 12 different criteria, only one of which is ‘impact’ and the rest are all focused on how the image was made, and was it made well. And we love to ‘show and tell’ to other photographers usually in hopes of a pat on the back for a job well done. At weddings, photographers spend as much time as they can working posed photos of the bride and groom, trying to be as creative and artistic as possible, after all, it’s their day and shouldn’t they have an image worthy of hanging over the mantle 60″ wide? We all seem to think so.
So – when I go through all the images from a wedding, some of the ones I get most proud of are the ones that are technically awesome – where I know I nailed it. Where the bride and groom look like a page from a magazine. So recently I got curious. Did brides also gravitate toward the ‘prettier’ images? The result? Hardly.
I asked some recent brides to pick their FAVORITE image from their wedding day and tell me why they loved it so. Here is Inna’s image, and her story:
“When I saw this photo for the first time, I smiled and said, ‘this is the photo’. This is the photo of the calm before the storm of emotion”. My whole life I grew up thinking my dad was the most amazing man in my life and I would never find someone that was just like him. Walking down the aisle, I realized my dad believed in Ryan. he believed that this 25 year old man would do anything in his power to make his daughter happy, healthy and comfortable without worry. This photo shows such relief in my dad’s face and such emotion in mine. I knew that the moment I looked up and saw Ryan’s face at the end of the aisle that I would lose it. And I did. My dad held me up the entire way down the aisle just as he did my entire life. Always encouraging me and holding me up when I was struggling. I’m so thrilled with all of my engagement and wedding day photos, but I absolutely LOVE this one. Thank you, Jennifer for having such a keen eye for shooting the most perfect moments. This was MY momen and I will forever cherish this photo” – Inna
So, wow. This image, while NOT technically perfect – is the one image the bride called out as her favorite. Not the series we did of her and the groom that are perfectly posed, nope – THIS one. This one touches her. And shouldn’t our goal be not just to make “pretty pictures”, but to make “pretty pictures” that mean something? Just some food for thought today 🙂
So, my husband said to me the other day, “do you realize that we are closer to next Christmas, than to last Christmas?”. Um, no, I really hadn’t thought about it – Gee THANKS!
