Photograph

Photographs

We’ve become a little obsessed with photographs.

We take them when we’re happy, when we’re traveling, when we’re dressed up, when something important happens, and sometimes just because the lighting is good. We collect them like proof that we were there.

And I understand why.

A photograph lets you keep a moment long after the moment is gone. You might remember exactly where you were, what you were wearing, and who was standing beside you.

But the photograph only remembers one second.

It doesn’t remember what happened five minutes before.

It doesn’t know what happened five minutes after.

It doesn’t know what was said when the camera wasn’t pointed at you.

And sometimes, it doesn’t even know who it’s looking at.

I’ve always found that part interesting.

People can look at a photograph and feel like they know exactly what they’re seeing. They notice a smile and assume someone was happy. They see two people standing together and assume they know the relationship. They see a person in the picture and assume they know the person behind it.

I’ve watched people do this with photographs of me.

They studied the frame and filled in everything that wasn’t there.

When I eventually turned photography into a business, I learned just how easy it was to convince people they knew what they were looking at.

I photographed real weddings, and I photographed styled shoots.

And honestly, some of the real couples probably looked happier in their photographs than they actually felt that day.

Because if you’ve ever planned a wedding, you know there is a very real possibility that the person smiling beautifully in the photograph was thinking about seating charts, missing vendors, family drama, or whether someone remembered to bring the cake.

Then there were the styled shoots.

Those weren’t even real weddings.

The flowers were styled. The details were styled. The entire wedding was essentially being planned for a wedding that wasn’t happening.

And sometimes the couples weren’t even couples.

Yet put two people in wedding clothes, give them a beautiful location, and point a camera at them, and suddenly everyone looking at the photograph sees a love story.

That was when I really understood how much power a photograph has.

I wasn’t lying.

I was just deciding what people got to see.

And they filled in the rest.

Maybe that’s why I’ve always been careful about photographs.

They can preserve a moment perfectly while leaving out almost everything that made the moment what it was.

A photograph can be completely real and still tell you the wrong story.

Sometimes the problem isn’t the picture.

It’s the person looking at it.