Six frames.
One day, never fully seen.
An old poem about why no single photo — or photographer — ever tells the whole story.
Every wedding I’ve ever shot has at least six honest, completely different versions of what happened.
The couple’s version. The mother of the bride’s version. The best man’s version, which usually involves a story he wasn’t supposed to tell. The caterer’s version, which is mostly about timing. Mine, which is built entirely out of light and gesture and the half-second before someone’s expression changes.
None of those versions are wrong. None of them is the whole day, either.
There’s a poem for that — older than photography, obviously, but it might be the truest thing ever written about it. Six men, none of them able to see, each one reaches out and touches a different part of an elephant. One gets the side and calls it a wall. One gets the trunk and calls it a snake. One gets a leg and calls it a tree. They argue for pages. They’re all right. They’re all missing almost everything.
I think about this poem more than almost anything else when I’m working. Twenty-five years into this, the biggest thing I’ve learned isn’t a lighting technique — it’s how much I don’t see, even standing right there with a camera in my hands. My job isn’t to capture the wedding. It’s to be honest that I’m only ever getting my one true angle on it, and to hold that angle with enough care that it’s worth having.
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.
II.
The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me!—but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”
III.
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried: “Ho!—what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ‘t is mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”
IV.
The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!”
V.
The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he;
“‘T is clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”
VI.
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!”
VII.
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”
VIII.
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
MORAL.
So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
If you’re planning a wedding, this is a nice thing to sit with: no one vendor, no one guest, no one photo is going to hand you the whole day.
That’s not a flaw in the plan. That’s just what a day this big actually is — too large for any one pair of hands to hold all at once.
Want a second pair of hands on your day that takes that seriously?
Let’s talk →