I suppose one of the reasons I shoot weddings as a documentary wedding photographer is because I’m interested in human interaction, emotion and I’m essentially an observer of life at these events.
When I shoot weddings I’m constantly looking for touch, emotion, eye contact and humour. I love to watch. I love to photograph life.
A wedding is huge part of anyone’s life, but it’s only a small part. Along the way will be sadness, happiness, pain, laughter and every other emotion that we all experience on a daily basis.
We each have a story that forms the fabric of our lives and those stories are so deeply entwined with other peoples’ that sometimes we fail to see the real story of our own lives.
I love to photograph life, and when I was given the opportunity to photograph the very beginning of a life, a caesarian birth, I was both humbled and excited.
For me, this experience supersedes any wedding I’ve shot. It supersedes any work I’ve ever done in fact. Being an observer of the first moments of life, the first time a mother sees her child and the first time a father holds his child is a memory that will stay with me forever, and hopefully, through these photographs, in the memory of mum, dad and little Maja.
Really, for something like this you need to have gear that is deadly silent, responsive and reliable. So I chose to shoot this entirely on my X100S with a selection of images shot on my X-T1 with the XF 56mm lens attached.
For me, this is a true story – it’s the culmination of love, emotion and the coming together of two people to make three.
Note: There are a few images that are “graphic” in nature….not too bad, honest….but I thought it only fair to warn you.
As always, please feel free to share, or comment below. After this, the surgeon asked me what I’d been using as he had no idea I’d been shooting. The X100S is, in my book, is the best camera I’ve ever used and I would not have used anything else for the making of these pictures.
