This past Sunday was Grandparents' Day. I really didn't have a post prepared after working frantically to get the new website and blog up. So, I thought for Throwback Thursday I'd share a picture of mine. The photograph was taken by de-Sylva-Dyer April 3rd, 1948 at St. Agnes Church in what is now Old Jefferson. No post processing. No photoshop. I didn't even have to adjust exposure out of the scanner. That's craft. And I'm sure he had no eTTL whiz-bang auto-exposure white balance anything. Probably just something like a Graphlex, a few loaders of Kodak Tri-X, his flash handle and a prayer. Ninety-five percent of wedding photographers working today have no idea what they just read.
How do I relate this to photography today? Simple. Look at their faces.
Lots of work today goes into having people create "looks." Expressions generated expressly to mimic popular "styles" of images. I really hope in 2082, when someone's grandchild is looking at their grandparents' wedding pictures on their iPhone 39s, they don't look back and question the expressions on their faces. I can just hear it now. "What on earth were they thinking?" Who knows? Maybe we'll be on some other planet by then.
I'm sure my grandparents had no idea what the world would turn into. At the moment of this photo, that didn't matter. There they are, beaming from ear to ear, with everything in front of them. That's how your grandchildren will want to see you. So try to make sure in at least a few of your photos you look as genuinely happy as you feel. It matters.