I attended a wedding here in Bali here with my whole in-laws gang: Francy’s mom and dad and her sister.
While waiting for the couple to come out, I offered Francy’s mom and dad to take a picture overlooking the beautiful afternoon sky dotted with white clouds.
I did what I do all the time: Taking people’s pictures. Only this time with an iPhone and the subject was my mom and dad in-law. I did my little tricks to make them felt at ease while I took their picture and I hit the shutter at the right time.
As with couples their age, they seldom get their picture taken this way, and if you know my dad-in-law, it’s a very rare thing for him to laugh this happily in front of the camera.
It really is good. You’d feel happy for them just by looking at this.They cannot stop complimenting this photo. “It’s good. It’s so good! We look so natural! Papi looks so unrestrained! I look good too!” my mom-in-law keeps saying while squinting to look at the picture on the phone.
I agree. It’s good. It’s really good.
It really captured the air around them. If I were them and I have a piano, I’d print this thing, frame it and put it on top of that piano. If I look at this picture, I’d remember that whole afternoon.
I’ve preached this all the time: Great pictures are not all about bell and whistles.
Nowadays, photography is so grand and sophisticated and edgy, people (the photographers and the viewers) often forget the simple, powerful, I-remember-this-moment photographs.
With the viewers (clients/buyers) demanding more and more, the workers (photographers) keeps piling one feature on top of the other, making their work as loud and as feature laden as they can.
Both of us ended up being deaf and numb amidst all the chaos and craziness.
Enjoy a photograph because it speaks to you.
Enjoy it like you would enjoy a baby in your arms, not like you would make a list of sexy features when getting a new smartphone.
My mom-in-law, who is a straight-shooter lady, always told me, “I cannot understand how those couples pay you that kind of money for what you do. I am sorry, but I see your pictures, I don’t see any difference.”
That morning after the party, while still squinting to her phone and smiling happily, she said, “Now I understand Edward. Now I understand.”
