On Weddings

I’ve decided to finally sit down and write about why I’m shooting weddings & couples again. This has been a post that’s been on my mind for almost a year now, since I started posting my work again as Off Kilter Studio. It’s been a long road, one that’s found me at my wit’s end and back again, but i think i’m finally ready to talk about it.

A short disclaimer before I begin: I’ve been apprehensive about writing this for a couple of reasons. The two main ones are that a) that I don’t want this post to be taken by anyone in the industry – especially those that have helped, hired, and supported me – as disrespectful or unkind; and b) I don’t want clients I’ve worked with, even ones from the distant past, to think that I was unhappy working with them, or that I did my job for them half-heartedly. If you are from either of these sets of people, I hope it is clear that I have nothing but respect for my peers and love for my clients. Art is supposed to make you think, and I make a lot of art and therefore have a lot of thoughts. Take nothing personally, I love you all, please don’t be mad.

The Slow Fade of Love, or My Photographer’s Having an Existential Crisis and I Don’t Know Her

I didn’t quit weddings in a rage or a huff. I daresay I didn’t even do it intentionally. I just… faded away. There was little fanfare as I gradually stopped accepting bookings, stopped responding to inquiries, and started prioritizing my thesis and personal work. I guess at some point I just concluded: I am not a wedding photographer.

Part of it is the actual physical requirements of the job: Shooting. Weddings. Is. Exhausting. December especially, peak season in the Philippines, is murderville, flitting from one venue to another, traffic in between, and doing it for however many days straight. When I led a team, I also had to be on top of logistics aside from photography. Not only do I have low physical stamina, I think I also have low emotional stamina – when I’m exhausted, I find it hard to invest in anything emotionally. So I’m not gonna lie, I have definitely gone through a reception glassy-eyed with fatigue. Losing my connection to the events I was photographing made it harder for me to perform creatively.

The other more major factor here was my output. Slowly, I found myself disinterested in the photographs I was producing. It’s not that they were bad photos, and I never phoned it in or submitted anything that I thought was actively bad. I also never had any complaints – which I know means nothing, but that’s what people ask me about when I describe this period of time. I’m sure my clients found me, at the very least, satisfactory. “Pwede na.”

But at some point, I started to feel nervous and queasy about posting my work, like the images would reveal something about me that I didn’t intend. I don’t know how else to describe it, it felt like every image was proof of a crime I didn’t commit. I became obsessed with editing sets down to as few images as possible, and posting the bare minimum to avoid “suspicion” (of what, I don’t know).

I also began to feel uneasy right before events. It was probably a minor form of performance anxiety, like I knew I couldn’t do it but I had to do it. I often had bouts of thinking “Maybe I should just stay home,” hours before I had to show up to a wedding. I wrestled with impostor syndrome.

Eventually, I just stopped doing it. If you’re a long-time follower of mine, you’ll know that this blog used to exclusively be a wedding blog. I have since removed most evidence of it. I divested myself of all the wedding trappings, even my logo I changed to look more neutral and less bridal. I leaned into the deconstruction: I am really not a wedding photographer.

Unpacking the Fantasy, or What Do You MEAN I Need To Photograph His Wallet?

If I were to look back at them now, I’m 100% sure the photographs were fine. They’re fine. I’m fine. I just think that the way I started to think about photographs changed at around that time, too. I was learning new ways of seeing (lol) at school – through the history of photography and the many schools of thought that permeate image-making (sub & consciously). I was learning to read and dissect images, and learning to make them say what I wanted. I had never examined my own work in an environment like that before, or paid such close attention to what my artistic choices might mean (“Why is it cropped like that?”, “Why is it color graded this way?”), or thought about what my images meant in the larger canon of art (“What does it mean that I, a Filipino woman with access to education and photographic equipment, did that?”).

I reexamined my wedding work and concluded: It didn’t feel like me because it wasn’t me. I wasn’t shooting through my own eyeballs, I was shooting through somebody else’s. I began to identify that the work I found myself doing in order to exist in the industry perpetuated a fantasy about couples and weddings and marriage that I did not stand behind nor identify with.

To be clear, I am referring to a very specific fantasy: the one where the groom is wealthy landlord with many servants humbly awaiting his blushing bride, a pristine untouched virginal (yet still totally sexually available) confection that is bestowed upon him by beautiful angels and everything that happens on the day they are bound together is perfect and beautiful and everyone is moved to tears by their pure love. Happily ever after. That fantasy.

It is a male power fantasy. Ionlike it. Why do you think most wedding documentarians are straight cis dudes? Whose eyeballs are we wearing?

This is nobody’s fault, I won’t even blame the cis dudes (you’re welcome). I am happy to place the blame on Instagram culture and Pinterest boards. And like… the history of women as property and weddings as ceremonial turnovers of purchase. Seems safe to blame that. But what we have now are just remnants of this system; I don’t believe that most people who participate in wedding traditions actually believe that women are property – most likely, it’s just that most people have never thought about it that way. And lo, the industry chugs along.

I am also not saying that if you subscribe to this fantasy or if you run your business in a way that participates in the fantasy, that you are bad or dumb. I am not calling anybody out, i am not “canceling” the traditional wedding fantasy or male photographers for that matter, this is not an exposé. You are allowed to like what you like, and get married in the way that suits you, and run your business in a way that works. In a rough paraphrase of Lindsay Ellis whomst we stan (oh, we stayyyn!), I’m not saying “fantasy bad”. I’m saying “fantasy exists”.

But here’s another thing I am saying: I don’t like this fantasy. That’s me, personal opinion, from the chest. It’s not everybody’s fantasy, and it certainly isn’t mine. But it’s the one I felt like I needed to sell in order to participate in the industry. This was the source of my burgeoning disinterest; I wasn’t buying the narrative.

Here are some of the parameters within which The Fantasy operates as a photographic practice: The bride must not look aggressive or overly sexual – or worse, fat. “Natural” looks only. She must not exude dominance or power, she must look submissive, passive, protected, doted on. All the things must be done for her because she is being “prepared”, she must look like a gift to be unwrapped slowly throughout the day. The groom has gotta look like a CEO, and he needs eight other guys to put his coat jacket on him because that’s just the way rich people get dressed. Capture all evidence of his wealth, make it look bespoke and masculine and leather and testosterone. Keywords: unassumingly handsome, but fancy af. Take photos of his watch, shoes, cologne, billfold – brand side OUT. Altar kiss gotta be a perfect moment, kick the priest out of the way if you have to, get a crying bridesmaid if you can, wedding portraits must look like they are occurring in an alternate dream timeline where there are not 250 guests waiting for the reception to begin.

Aside from espousing what I consider to be problematic sexual dynamics, I also find that half of these things need to be induced in order to be demonstrated in images anyway. How many times do the eight of us need to put this jacket on him, man? Pwede na ba namin inumin yung champagne? Once all the bridesmaids playfully sweep the veil over her head, doesn’t the hair stylist just pull it off and have to pin it in all over again? I once overheard a well-meaning someone try to direct a bridal portrait with the phrase “Kunyari virgin ka pa,” because why the fuck not.

Realizing this freed me further: I am really really not a wedding photographer.

Additional disclaimers for good measure: 1) Just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean nobody should have it. If this is your dream, if this is your story, then by all means go forth with my blessing, no sarcasm. The industry is rife with people that can help you achieve this, and they are incredibly talented, kind, wonderful people that work hard and love their jobs and aren’t whiny elitist assholes like me. 2) The industry isn’t a monolith, everyone works differently, and I don’t mean to lump every single supplier who is not me into the same pile – i am speaking in unforgiving generalities because it’s easier to make my point this way. Hell, i’m getting married in January and I don’t find this to be true across the board. We’ve hired some great people that don’t necessarily peddle The Fantasy.

The Wedding That Fell From The Sky

Last year, my cousin asked me to photograph her wedding for her. I very nearly said no. But she & I grew up together, and I wouldn’t have been able to attend that wedding otherwise, so in the end I decided, sure why not. It was in Palawan, where she and her would-be husband lived. That should be pretty, I thought. I expected normal things.

It was very … not normal. It was certainly still pretty, but I can’t begin to describe all the ways that this wedding was completely outside of my comfort zone. Here’s some phrases your brain can use to Gestalt a narrative together: Sudden unyielding monsoon. Uninhabited island. Many islands. Many guests. Assistant photographer had to check in his equipment, is nervous. Assistant photographer’s plane crashed. Oh no. Beach wedding is now a wet mountainside wedding. What time tayo tatawid? Paano yung equipment niyo? Bridesmaids are ready. Bridesmaids are wet. Danica kept her mouth open while using setting spray. Pregnant lady and 88 year old grandma. Andiyan na si Mayor. Bride is wet. Groom is wet. Camera is wet. Wet wet wet.

And… I kinda loved it? I’ve been photographing Danica since she was in highschool and her weird abstract frenetic energy has always been MY FAVE, and her wedding absolutely reflected that. My back may have hurt for two weeks from trawling up and down that mountainside with 10kg of equipment, but I was so flippin excited about my photos. They were so weird. They were so good.

Nothing looked as it should. And that made me… so happy.

As soon as I realized THAT, epiphany smacked me in the face, like a windswept branch in a Palawan monsoon. Maybe, I’m not meant to participate in The Fantasy. Maybe, instead, my vocation is to engage in the exact opposite.

This is how Off Kilter Studio was born. A few things had to coalesce before I could truly decide to pursue it:

1. I had to unpack, and then process, that The Fantasy was not evil. I knew it made me uncomfortable to shoot in that way, but it was important for me to get over my own resentment of it in order to pursue what I believe is a better way.
2. I had to come to terms with the fact that while I didn’t have to work that way anymore, this came with consequences. For starters, targeting unusual weddings probably means a smaller client base with less of an ability to pay. From a business perspective, I would have to adjust my prices and dig my heels in. Since I also knew that fatigue was my enemy, this worked – no way in hell was i getting overbooked.
3. I had to arrive at a vision of relationships & weddings & family that was my own – and this one was a doozy. If not The Fantasy… then what?

I asked myself, who did I enjoy shooting? Well, I went to art school. Twice. I used to photograph cosplayers. I loved shooting disorienting and unexpected images. So… oddballs? People who don’t care about glamour or perfection, but who love themselves and each other regardless. People who value irreverence and weirdness, inclusion and diversity, who are willing and able (and I do realize this comes with many helpings of privilege) to fly in the face of tradition.

And that is its own fantasy, right? It may not be the perfect princess party, but it’s something else entirely. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate fantasy, I mean just look at one of the first engagement shoots I did for Off Kilter Studio for crying out loud:

Therefore I can’t proclaim that my work aims to be more “real” than anyone else’s. But, and this is what I constantly indoctrinate my students with, photography isn’t about reality. Photographs can’t tell the truth, they are limited windows that we can try to point at truth, but we humans, full of agenda and intention, control where the window points.

Photographs are about perspective. Here’s mine: Love is unlimited. Perfection is boring. Marriage is for everyone, not just the rich, the skinny, the able-bodied, or heterosexuals. Brides can be strong and powerful and should be allowed to lift things and full belly laugh with their mouths open. Grooms can be soft, and dreamy, and beautiful too – they can wear makeup and nobody’s going to die, they need just as much care and attention as anyone else. Also people are weird and that’s amazing.

Weddings are an art form, with so many opportunities for self-expression. It’s okay to color outside the lines.

So, yknow. Maybe I am a wedding photographer, just one with a different fantasy.