A Two Wedding Weekend

I do enjoy a good wedding. Anyone who has been following me through this blog has worked that out by now. There are many photographers who think I am crazy, but I am of the firm opinion that no photographer has any right to receive the honour of photographing a wedding if he doesn't really want to be there. Admittedly, some weddings are more fun to photograph than others. But overall, there has to be passion for your work and the feeling that you have been honoured by the couple who selected you from hundreds of photographers and entrusted you to capture their day.

A two wedding weekend is an arduous one though. Wedding photography is very tiring. Exhausting in fact. You are 'on' all day. You are there for the couple all day. You are constantly thinking on many levels - creatively, logistically, technically, personally - all day. So when I get home the couch is mine. All mine. Add to that a remote control and a glass of red wine and I am set.

Louise and Rune's wedding was a whole lot of fun. I had the pleasure of photographing Louise' sister Basia's wedding about three years ago. Louise loved Basia's wedding photographs and I was called back to photograph hers. Louise' fiance' Rune is Norwegian and a great guy. His groomsmen were Norwegian friends of his and so you can imagine the fun we had.

I love it when a couple plans their day with a high level of priority on their photographs. Louise and Rune chose locations that were wonderful for photographs, including their reception venue,Ripponlea. I love Ripponlea as a location, and the light when we arrived was wonderful. Louise herself is a beautiful girl and she really knows how to work the camera! I love that! Oh yeah, she could strike a pose alright. Its a wonder poor Rune even got a 'look in'! But I suppose he needed to appear in some of the photographs, eh? :-)

I had two assistants for this wedding. I have known Berk McGowan for a while now but this is the first time he has come on a wedding shoot with me. I also had Richard Annable with me. Richard is like my right hand now. He knows my every move and seems to have the right lens for me before I even ask. And we are also quite a team when it comes to the humour stakes. We are a regular Abbott and Costello. Have us at a wedding and you are bound to have everything from Monty Python to The Three Stooges come along also. We even sing...but perhaps that's not such a good thing. I think poor ole Berk wondered what he had gotten himself into at times! However, I learned that giving them my camera to hold was a dangerous thing. They left me a little message that I found among my wedding images later...

Sunday saw me at Lorinda and Chaie's wedding. Lovely people. They began their day by getting Lorinda ready at Toorak Mansion. Berk was with me for this wedding and he was in the zone. This time he had his camera out and was setting up photographs when he got the opportunity. All this time, Chaie was busy towing his restored '60 Chevy to Butleigh Wootton for photographs. It was supposed to get their on its own steam but somehow it just wasn't finished in time. Nevertheless, it made it to the venue and I was able to use it for some of Chaie's favourite photographs. In fact, there were times I wondered if it was the Chevy or Lorinda who was the real love of his life. I am sure its Lorinda, but she would have had some grounds to get a little jealous!

So, as you can imagine, Sunday night saw me just a little tired. I took Monday off and my son Nathan and I watched DVD's and did very little at all. Its that time of year when you can just do nothing if you need to. And I needed to. I really needed to...