i like to tell stories

Everyone was waiting on me, I had been around the corner getting the memory cards swapped all around. I walked into the room, the big, old, classic, beautiful room and walked towards everyone. A friend approached and handed me the strobe’s radio slave and said “F/10.” It wasn’t my lighting, it wasn’t my set and it wasn’t about me. I slapped the transmitter on top of my camera, set the thing and kept pressing that button over and over. All the time, staring at her, staring at her, staring at her – just like I had been for the last five hours, five minutes and nineteen seconds before this frame.

A friend of a friend asked me to do this for them (her) on the promise of a plane ride, a car ride and a bed. I accepted. It was the 10th wedding I have photographed in 20 years and only the second in which I accepted anything in return – rides, beds and maybe a meal. Everything else… that’s always on me.

In the one day, three hours, fifty-nine minutes and twenty-seven seconds I stared at them, (her), I made 2,228 photographs for an average of one photograph every 45 seconds.

When the portrait session was over, I made an image of her over my shoulder with my face in the frame. The only people left in the room were the bride, the groom and the best man. When the best man saw me do this he took my camera from me and pushed me into the above portrait. He said something like, “C’mon, you know you want a portrait of yourself with the bride.”

He knows me well. I did… and I never would of asked.