Photographer for a Chuppah

The chuppah is the hardest twenty minutes of the day to photograph and the easiest to ruin. It is frequently outdoors and frequently at dusk, so the light falls away while it is happening. The people who matter most — parents holding candles, the kallah circling, the grandmother in the second row — are lit from behind by a sky that is two stops brighter than their faces. And there is a rule that overrides every technical consideration: nobody wants to look back at their chuppah and see a photographer in it.

So it is shot long, from outside the circle, with a second camera on a fixed position that never moves. No flash during the brachos. The ring, the glass and the walk back out are the only three frames that cannot be missed, and each of them has somebody assigned to it before anyone walks down. Everything else is found.