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Who are those people … the ones staring back at you thinking, ‘What does he/she want us to do?’
More importantly, how do they see the unfolding of their day? Is it a fairy tale? Is it some kind of weird reality show? Is it a ‘performance’? Is it the beginning of something amazing? Is it a huge party? Is it something their mother planned?
Is it theirs? That’s the thing. We, as the image makers, also become the storytellers. We create the vocabulary for describing the unfolding of the day. If we don’t photograph something, will it still be remembered in ten years time? We don’t own the story. We are gathering the information of the day to give back to its owners.
We owe it to the people who have asked us to photograph their wedding to understand something about their vision of the day.
This question alone is not enough. We also need to ask them about themselves and how they express their relationship. We need to listen.
At Moda Fotografica we show genuine interest in the events of the day and do our best to avoid family politicking .
- Stranger in the viewfinder. Image by Johannes van Kan
A stranger is a person you don’t know.
Turning the Bride and Groom into your best friends (for a day) takes the strangers out of the photograph.
It stops you from being the enemy (the person hired to shoot them) and changes the dynamic of the photography into something more personal and meaningful.
How you make friends is up to you.
How you keep them is by telling their story in the best way possible.
Best wishes, Johannes
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