IN AT THE DEEP END!
By Craig Hughes
I started photography only three years ago (Feb 2017) at the ripe old age of 46 picking up an old secondhand fully manual Nikon D300, no auto mode. However, I have traded up and now own a raft of gear, with a thirty year old manual focus prime lens, prime lenses for landscapes, the typical 24-70mm f2.8 and 80-200mm f2.8 wedding lens setup with Nikon D700 and D800 bodies.
I never buy gear new and only purchase kit I need to do a job, it’s never a GAS decision. I’m employed full-time [in an unassociated industry] and use any bonus money from work, plus funds made from photography to buy the gear I need to further my photographic journey as a semi-pro photographer.
So to the story as to how I got into wedding photography. It is via my good friend and mentor Michel whom I met as I walked up a mountain to photograph a lighting storm here in the Puy du Dome region of France, after we (my wife, a then 18 month old baby girl and myself) moved from South Africa to France in 2015, not speaking a word of the language, a scary but exciting experience, taking a hell of lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are now.
As Michel walked down the mountain with customers from a pre-wedding shoot I was marching in the opposite direction to take photos of the lightning. We exchanged pleasantries and he just laughed that I was walking up like a lightning conductor, tripod strapped to my back. It didn't take too long before the lighting was too close for comfort. [Forced to find cover] I met him with his customers in the mountain restaurant. He invited me to sit and chat and our friendship was cemented there, beer in hand. We have since photographed together and he has tutored me. Last year I started second shooting for him, initially eight weddings in 2019 with five so far in 2020.
I have managed to photograph and work right through confinement. Employed as a turner of stainless steel parts for large industry, wine, petro-chemical, prisons etc. One of our big clients is SANOFI a large local pharmaceutical manufacturer. Fully employed, I've had a sense of normality in my life. Photographically, I did a series of portrait and reportage photos of the lockdown to maintain my photographic eye.
But none of this really prepared me for this weekend’s wedding. Another friend and fellow photographer Martial phoned me Thursday evening at 8pm as I worked the evening shift telling me his mother and sister had tested positive for Covid-19 and he couldn't go and photograph a commissioned wedding, despite personally testing negative. He asked me if I could [stand in] and leave Friday to shoot the wedding the following day.
I said yes, even though everything in my entire body screamed no. The fears ran wild, I've never shot a wedding on my own, my spoken French is good but I'm no native speaker. I sometimes get lost in a conversation like everyone learning a new language, I didn't know the customers, the wedding is in Bretagne, a 6 hour drive, it's a big wedding; 250 people. It's a long day, as here in France weddings like this are from 8am-ish until 3am-ish the next day; a 19 hour day, so incredibly hard work.
[After some hasty family logistic organising for the weekend] I left for the wedding with a mixture of nerves, fear and excitement, but as I drove, the nerves and fear gave way to simply the excitement. I finally met the couple, Anthony and Lucie who were so, so grateful that I was there, considering the on off nature of Covid-19.
The wedding past without a hitch; preparation, the couple shoot, a civil wedding, church wedding, group photos, vin don heure, first dance, cake cutting etc, thank f"@, apart from one moment where I checked my second card that was full after 1400 photos. A message on the LCD warned of ‘no files on card.’ Thankfully it was just a glitch in the matrix moment, as on looking again the 1400 were in fact there (I always shoot two cards and two cameras for this reason.)
But as a strange twist to this whole crazy mad weekend, during the wedding I was asked if I was really a true South African, born and bred. I'm used to people thinking I'm English and being surprised that I'm really south African. It wasn't until the bride Lucie told me with tears in her eyes the whole story, why I kept being asked, a tale of how her cousin who she was incredibly close too, had passed away suddenly recently, had worked and lived in South Africa and loved it there, and now me, a South African photographer, has come to effectively save the day at the 11th hour.
I choked back tears from then on, as more people thanked me to me for being there. Later that evening, I spoke to the late cousin’s parents and reminisced of places they saw with their daughter when they visited and holidayed with her in South Africa. We stood and shared fond memories of a happy time in their life with their daughter, making this a day never to be forgotten for me as a photographer and a father.
