What is it about a Wedding?

I was chatting with someone today about photography and other things when she remarked, "you are really passionate about wedding photography." That stopped me in my tracks! If you asked me, I would have said that I really like shooting weddings; it is the most fun you can have behind a camera, and I really enjoy it more than any other kind of photography I have ever been involved in! But I would never have thought of myself as "passionate". 

Oh, I have my passions... I am passionate about equity, and cruelty, and the treatment accorded to people coping with mental health and emotional problems, and drug dependencies. I get really wound up when I encounter corruption and the any kind of laziness or selfishness: and greed - and I am passionate about my faith and my wife and family.... especially my kids.

But photography is not feel like that. The intensity and the emotion is very different - photography is my joy, and my living, and my hobby, and my creative outlet and, to a degree, my identity.... maybe it does deserve to be called a passion, but it still doesn't feel like that. It is just something I love, that I am good at, and that lets me share my perspective and ideas. I suppose I would agree that it supports my passions, but now I am not so sure...

I think I will have to think it all through a bit more. In the meantime, I am getting ready to shoot Sean's and Rosemary's wedding at Campbelltown with just one good eye (Jean has just one good eye, too. My left eye is "fixed" and so is Jean's right eye). We are coping quite well with one lens removed from our glasses but we look pretty geeky! But it is still going to be FUN.

New Lenses for Old

The Stamford wedding was great fun, and yes, Daniel did well, as expected. Watching him work was a pleasure: his people skills are first rate

, and really, that is at least as important to a wedding photographer as photographic know-how.

Not sure about that? Well, at this particular wedding no less than a six people came to congratulate my team on their great work (remember, no photos have been seen yet) and every one of them complained about the photographer at the last wedding they had attended (a mutual friend of the newlyweds). Three weddings were booked that night; want to guess how many were booked at the other wedding? I asked one complainer just what was wrong with the photographer's pictures: "Oh!" he said, "they were fine- but the bloke was useless; he was going through the motions like it was just another job. He never got into the spirit of

the night."

And in case you were wondering, Daniel's photos were pretty good, too.

I am not doing a wedding in September; instead, both Jean and I are having eye surgery (new lenses in each of our eyes, and I have to have a torn retina repaired as well); and we are moving. After 30 odd years in Mt. Pritchard, we have sold up and are moving to the MacArthur district. The timing of the move could have been better, but that's the way it's fallen out, so we will live with it.

Actually, I had the first of my lenses replaced last Thursday and I can now see better with one good eye and no gasses than I used to see with glasses on both eyes! I can hardly wait for the second eye to be done, but that has to wait until after the retina has been repaired and the eye has healed after the surgery. In the meantime, I have reconfigured my camera for use with my left eye (I usually compose and focus with my right) and it has proved really easy to adapt. That is a good thing, because I have two weddings in the first week of October!

Speaking of weddings (which is hardly unusual in a wedding blog) I have had a postponement - November 21st is now free, since Daniel and Linda just discovered they are going to be having a baby. So a huge "Congratulations" to them and we will reschedule the Harley wedding to next year.... and if anyone wants that Saturday, you'd better get in early, because bookings are already pressing into May 2010.