Original subtitles

What a time we are living, right?

What a time, so turbulent, so busy, so

strange, because we have not only lived, as

wedding photographers, some years, or the previous two

years, well, well strange, with more lows, or

with more valleys than peaks, sometimes with more

negative news related to our profession, wedding cancellations,

other postponements, all these things.

I don't know about you, but in my

case, I was not prepared to suffer all

this debacle, all this fuss, because at the

end of the day, my life was summed

up in hiring weddings, doing a good job,

delivering it, receiving pats on the back, charging

money for it, and it was over, and

it was the loop.

In 2020, I'm not going to deny it,

it was the sweetest moment of my professional

career, not only in terms of hiring, but

also in terms of photography, I was on

fire, I was fucking great, but this video

is a little bit to comment on the

moment I find myself now, or the moment

we find ourselves now with Erika, but I'm

going to talk better about her, that she

will have her stories too, I'm going to

talk about me, I'm going to talk a

little bit about the moment I find myself

now, because I thought it would end, well,

it hasn't ended, but more or less, when

the pandemic is over, I mean, we would

start, little by little, to get back on

track.

It is true that we are recovering, but

it is also true that I am living,

what we are living now is a very

strange thing, without going any further, as soon

as we are up, as if suddenly, we

are down, we are up for some things,

and we are down for others, we are

down for what?

I mean, down, in the last month, four

weddings have been canceled, and it's not because

of COVID, I mean, the four weddings, one

of the couples has been because they have

separated, the other has been because the couple

has gotten tired, literally, not of them, but

they don't want to get married anymore, another

couple is because they don't like the farm

all of a sudden, or I don't know

what problem they have with the farm, and

maybe they cancel it, maybe they postpone it,

and the other couple, this is a scam,

I had to photograph a wedding, we had

to photograph a wedding on March 26th, and

the bride, well, she called me, she is

a Venezuelan bride, and she called me to

tell me that they were cancelling our services

because her uncle, her uncle comes from Venezuela,

and he gives them the photographer, and I

tell him, but do you know what you

are doing?

And he tells me, yes, he pays for

everything, and I say, but you are going

to lose the fiancé, and he tells me,

yes, I know, and the photographer he brings

me is much worse than you, and I

say, ah, I mean, things that get me

out of my box, but well, and not

only that couple has lost the fiancé, but

also the couple from Mallorca has lost €3

,000 of the fiancé, but the Italian has

lost almost €2,000, and the Spanish woman

who gets married in September, who doesn't like

the farm, I think they also lose €3

,000, I mean, not for the money, and

even more, there is a colleague videographer who

told me, who told me, well, when I

told him this, I say, man, this shit

that has happened to me now, but what

is all this about?

And he tells me, don't worry, with all

that money you can invite your family to

dinner in the best restaurant in your city,

and I say, come on, man, but it's

not about that, I wanted to shoot them,

I mean, I wanted to photograph that wedding,

and the videographer told me, don't fuck with

me, you're still one of those romantics, I

say, well, of course, man, the money, of

course it fills me up, I'm not going

to deny it, but those weddings were sweets,

I say, I wanted to photograph them, and

even if they hadn't been, I love to

photograph, it's my life, man, it's what I

love, but weddings are the best, I mean,

and they pay me, you know, and I

love to photograph, I still love weddings, after

10 years, even, look, another videographer, this past

Saturday, at Yeida's wedding, was telling me, hey,

Vitor, don't you get tired of weddings?

The moment he asked me that question, I

kept looking at him, and I guess the

face I put on, the face I put

on when he asked me that question, was

the same face that a 5-year-old

can have when Santa Claus gives him the

gift of his life, and you ask him,

he said, kid, aren't you bored of playing

with that toy you've been waiting for so

long?

I put on that same face, saying, what?

No, how am I going to be tired?

And it made me think, I say, maybe

I'm stupid, right?

Why don't I get tired of this?

It's not that I love my job, I

love my job, I love taking pictures, I

love photographing weddings, I love that pressure, I

love that my clients demand of me, but,

as I was telling you, I'm going through

valleys, I mean, you fall down and you

say, no, man, how can it be?

On the other hand, we recently hired a

wedding, or we are about to hire one,

it's not closed, in New Zealand, and you

say, wow, and at the same time I'm

waiting to close a contract, which I still

can't say, with a well-known brand in

this sector, in the world of photography, and

I can't say more, and you say, why

doesn't everything stabilize?

Why doesn't everything go back to 2019, when

we were going up?

It's true that the feelings that I have

as a photographer after the last wedding in

Yeida are fabulous, right?

We finished that wedding, oh my God, with

a swollen chest, with the chest up, saying,

I'm at the top, but the bitch, right?

It's like ups and downs, and that's what

I have doubts about.

I mean, I have doubts about the fact

that I don't know if I'm going the

right way or the wrong way.

Obviously, I know what the hell I have

to do next Saturday, and I was very

clear what I had to do last Saturday

at the wedding.

But sometimes I have doubts if what I'm

doing is doing it right, if I've sharpened

the knife too much.

When I say knife, I mean our style,

right?

Because, I'm not going to deny it, recently,

I mean, a famous team of wedding planners

that we adore, that we've never worked with,

has contacted us.

We're getting requests, but not with the same

freshness that, of course, it's obvious, that for

two years, two years ago there was no

pandemic, now there is.

But what I want to say is that

I feel that the email or the contact

form doesn't have the same strength, the same

agility as years ago, or a couple of

years ago.

And I think everything makes sense.

Everything is related to the style that we're

polishing more and more.

And, well, maybe you like it, but not

all clients, or all clients that contact us

or are going to contact us, like our

style.

And it shows, right?

We've received, in the last months, several proposals

from planners that wanted to get us with

footwear for the wedding and the boyfriends have

told them, the style of these guys is

fabulous, the photography is incredible, but it's not

for us.

That's why it makes you come down sometimes,

although on other occasions you come up.

But, of course, in wedding photography, it's about

finding the balance between the market and your

style or putting your style in that market.

Because, of course, putting on a costume and

becoming another photographer or taking a 180-degree

turn and becoming or getting into another style

or this...

I'm incapable.

It's going to smell.

It's going to smell bad that I've put

on a costume.

And I don't know how to do anything

other than what I do.

I mean, it comes from within.

It's so simple or so complicated at the

same time whether you like it or not.

Sometimes I think, damn, if I didn't risk

so much, if I wasn't so reckless, if

I didn't sharpen my style so much, it's

likely that I would have more weddings, maybe.

Although we don't lack weddings.

Well, after the cancellations, obviously, I would like

to hire some more, for example.

But I get to that.

Sometimes I think, I stop a little bit,

instead of going in fifth, I go in

fourth.

I become a little bit of a photographer.

I speak a little bit.

I speak a little bit more traditional to

reach those couples that have had doubts and

that finally haven't hired.

Although it's true that the couples that hire

us, when we give them the job, they

end up super happy.

It's true that when we get a couple

that contacts us and says, guys, where were

you?

You have an amazing job.

You're fabulous.

Then you give the job and the couple

gets a mouth full talking well about us.

But there's always that doubt.

Am I doing it right?

Am I doing it wrong?

Am I making a mistake?

Of course, sometimes I think, and I told

you a few minutes ago, I'm very clear

what I'm going to do this fucking Saturday.

Nobody has to tell me that I'm going

to lower the bar, I'm going to lower

the level, I mean, the level, I mean,

the style.

I'm going to do it a little more

for all the public.

It's not just for adults, but for this.

Because, of course, you may see our style

as something fucking great and in the workshops

it happens to us that the students or

the colleagues when they get to the workshop

say, guys, congratulations, you have a brilliant job

and I talk to other colleagues from other

photography workshops and they always tell me, hey,

man, you have a look that I would

like to have for my newspaper, for the

magazine, or for whatever, or for my advertising

photos.

That's not the first time they tell us,

but I always say, what you see as

a photographer is not the same as what

our clients see.

Do you understand?

What you see or what you understand as

you are dedicated to this, you understand the

over-effort, the look, the attitude, the intensity,

the intention in what is photographed.

That does not arise by mere chance and

you know it as colleagues, but couples sometimes

don't see it and sometimes those of us

here with the camera see it and say,

don't fuck with me, man, that wedding that

I would have wanted to go out and

in the end it doesn't come out and

in the end others arrive or in the

end they don't arrive, that's what life is

about, and in the end, who told us

that this was going to be simple?

Just living from the damn photography is already

a luxury, putting our style in the clients

or in the market is already crazy, that's

why this video was about this, about what

goes through my head or our heads, about

our pluses and minuses, about our ups and

downs, about our storms as a photographer, I

suppose that more or less everyone will have

this, how many risks I take, in the

scale, let's see if I get wet more,

I get wet less, but as a good

friend of mine always says, the one who

doesn't get wet doesn't cross the river and

we take that to the limit, sometimes to

the end of the consequences, but again, I

don't know if that's the right thing or

if it's the way to go, because in

what you do, as I say, there comes

a crash of four canceled weddings and you're

like holy shit, how do I recover this?

and they're weddings in high season, July and

September, I've been stuck practically in July, I

think in July we only photograph a wedding,

and I always said, the wedding photographer who

doesn't have weddings in July is doing something

wrong, that's what I thought when I started,

and now I'm in the paper, and I

say, holy shit, what have I done wrong

to be stuck in July with a wedding?

The truth is that the ones that have

been canceled are due to parameters that escape

me, one couple has separated and the other

one got tired of their farm or had

a bad time, I mean, I have nothing

to do with it, but, why now?

Now that I wanted to start with all

this in 2022 and it seems that it's

not going to be possible in the beginning,

who knows what can happen, because as I

say, we are living a very complicated and

complicated stage, everything goes up, everything goes down,

and sometimes, although those things don't help me

to calm down, everything happens for a reason.

So let's trust in it and let's trust

and wait that everything happens for a reason

and who knows what could happen.

So, that was it.

I put the camera in front of me,

I put the microphone here, and I say,

I'm going to let all these people go

what goes through my head, so they can

see that sometimes I have my strengths, but

I also have my weaknesses, and sometimes, even

if I have to be in front of

all of you smiling, I don't start crying

in the corners, but sometimes I also do

something like this and I say, no, no,

and that's it, I'm not going to continue

with this video, let's see if I'm going

to start crying, it's not about this, but

that was it, I wanted to share it

with you and I wanted you to spend

a while listening to my sorrows.

So that's it, friends, be good, never better

said, keep hiring weddings.