Y’know, back in the day, the early days of photography, photographers were considered magicians of sorts. They could do something that no one else could do. They’d throw a hood over their head and peer into a big wooden box with a hunk of glass on the front. They’d turn some knobs and dials, pop a bright flash and boom – you’re done. They’d then disappear to their lab and like a nutty professor, mix up an assortment of chemicals in test tubes and beakers to eventually present a single photograph. It shocked people to see themselves. Not just as they are, but how the camera saw them; how the photographer saw them. It was magic.
Today, everyone is a photographer. And that’s not only ok, it’s a wonderful thing. Our lives are now intimately and extensively documented. The important moments – your baby’s first birthday, years later, them graduating school. Also, we capture the not obvious or ‘important’ moments that later become important. You know what I mean, right? The ‘in between’ stuff – that photo you took of your best friend when they weren’t watching that caught a glimmer of something deeper. Or maybe you tried to perfectly pose your toddler only for them to have a full blown meltdown because they didn’t want to wear that stupid glittery dress. That photo of your child in all that snotty, hysterical glory – that’s the shit. That’s what it’s about. That’s the magic.
Like the days of old, as a wedding photographer I try and be a magician. I try to sprinkle a bit of magic. It could be snapping a precious moment, or capturing a special part of someone that not everyone gets to see, or notice. It could be pulling out a few fancy photography tricks that simply make a shot straight up cool. Collectively though, as a story, the magic doesn’t just hold up a mirror to them on their wedding day. It shows the couple the magic that exists in their ‘ordinary’ lives that perhaps they didn’t see, or had their head down so much they didn’t look up to notice.
My hope is that for each couple I have the honour to photograph, that I can show them that they are totally freaking awesome unique snow flakes, and that on this vast earth, in this infinite sea of possibility, these two found each other. And what they have, what they share, is a one of a kind, invisible and bloody beautiful thing.
This is Geraldine and Bill’s story, and I think it’s a little bit magic.
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