Martin Phelps

There are a lot of other photographers out there purporting to make a record of your day. But most - it really could be 99% of them - are still trying to manipulate your day, to make it fit with what their particular fantasy of a wedding day. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to have to look back at my wedding photos when I’m old and grey(er) and see someone’s imaginative interpretation of what it looked like and what happened. It’s too important for that. I’d want to see what it was really like. Life, in all it’s glorious, heart-wrenching, crazy, curious beauty. A little story….A friend of mine died a few years ago. I’ve got two photos of her. In one she’s stiff and posed, staring at the camera, waiting for the shutter to click. Another is completely spontaneous. She’s sitting in her kitchen, her head’s thrown back in laughter, her long hair flying in every direction. I can hear her laugh when I look at it. And it reminds me of the way she moved, the way she spoke, her sense of humour. And suddenly I’m back there in her kitchen, talking nonsense with her and some mates, after the pub shut. Well, out of the two pictures, I’m saving that one in a fire. I photograph for a time at least twenty years from now. That’s what matters with wedding photos. The good ones get better, more poignant, more intriguing, with age.