Stealing a photo

I’ve been reading up recently on documentary photography both on the web – on other photographers’ blogs and websites -  and in print while browsing through books in the library at the camera club.   In fact Dublin Camera Club makes a good effort at promoting documentary photography by way of a dedicated (in every sense of the word) group that meets on a monthly basis, but shoots individually and together much more frequently than that, and I should really try to investigate their world a little.  What documentary photography I do undertake currently is of the wedding variety, and while I’m still developing this area of my photography, it’s an area that appeals for a number of reasons.

There are many wedding photographers out there who put themselves forward as documentary wedding photographers – some of them really are, others are trying to mimic the art but in a way that really isn’t.  I’m not the former, but would like to get there.  I also try to (hopefully successfully) avoid being the latter as much as possible.  A great example of a documentary photographer is Cork-based Roger Overall, who I’ve mentioned here before, and whose blog has become a regular fixture in my daily browse around the web.  He posted two blog posts in the past week that prompted my post today – one relating to those who mimic the art of documentary wedding photography (and why he hates it) and the other, the start of a series, about what it takes to be a good documentary wedding photographer.  I await the rest of that series with much interest.

The image at the top of this post is a true documentary wedding photograph, and one that as soon as I had captured it I knew I loved.  I’ve taken better images in terms of composition, lighting (though I do love the lighting in this) and timing, but this one has enough of all three – and a little bit extra in that it was unplanned, unstaged, and unnoticed – to make it a personal favourite.

The moment that it freezes is as Eva and Jonathan mingled with guests having just wrapped up the formal family shots outside the front door of the hotel, and as I stood back and just watched.  After the formality of the family photos (and the level of awareness that Eva and Jonathan had of my presence during those) and after the nervous excitement of the wedding ceremony a short time before, this moment contrasted nicely in that they totally forgot about me and my camera and were able to relax and start to really enjoy the day.  That sense of relaxation and enjoyment really comes through in this photo for me even though, ironically, it is of a moment where they are knowingly being photographed by one of the guests.

Inspired partly by this photo and partly by what I’ve been reading recently I am looking forward to doing more of this type of photography, and hopefully getting more images like this of “real” moments frozen in time and preserved in a photograph for ever more.  Best of all (and importantly) it fits well with what brides are telling me they want from their wedding photography.