behind the lens
A different perspective to online dating…
A military man drove from Dover Delaware to get professional photographs in Williamsburg for his dating profile. A cutting edge chemist and co-founder of a successful biotech company flew from Boston just for our shoot in Dumbo Brooklyn. Both of them are connected to separate professional dating companies that support the online dating process. The more people I photograph for the internationally claimed dating photography company, Hey Saturday, the less alone I feel. Photographing people for dating profiles has given me an entirely different perspective than solitarily swiping people at home on my couch.
Having been on Ok Cupid and Hinge at different times of my life, I am one of the millions of people swimming in a sea of algorithms and automatic repetitive finger gestures. Swipe graduated from little league, is no longer in reference to bats and balls. A different kind of home-run, swipe is now defined as an act of moving one’s finger across a touchscreen to activate a function, to find love. Or sex. Or companionship. The ironic thing is the more I try to hate it or pretend I’m better because I’ve met love on a bench or subway platform or hot spring, the more clients show me through being human that there is no better. That this too is real life. Just don’t lecture me on what feminism is over a monitored app.
For 30 or 60 or 90 min the person in front of me - investment banker, software engineer, crystal ball juggler, tattoo artist, divorced accountant, tired editor - is my date and the service I try to provide, is to fall just a little bit in love with them. With the right light and laugh, every plastic surgeon is out of business. Wouldn’t trade his nose in for Brad Pitts, puff her lips to Kim and loose that particular curl when confused, question their identity and who would take away those wrinkles of experience.
After locking my bike up on Troutman St in Bushwick one Saturday in late summer, I walked up to a client who was surrounded by a suitcase, suit bags, tote bags and a pile of clothes with the tags still on. He flew in from Kansas City. A thirty-five year old man who fought hard to be sober and found a god that helped me. His freckles reminded me of my grandfather, his kindness softened my sometimes knee-jerk reaction to pigeon hole men. After seeing the infamous shell logo on his shirt, we discovered a common history of hiking the Camino Del Norte in Spain.
If I were to see this man on Hinge, I would swipe left. In fact, I wouldn’t even see his profile, he lives in Missouri, works a boring office management job, is an addict in recovery, kinda thick and a Jesus lover. Nothing about the computers behind the scenes would ever match us. But on the sidewalk with my Nikon D780, I saw him, as a beautiful man with an open heart who is willing to love. No amount of code could ever compute that.
From dating to wedding…
It’s true I’m a sucker for love; a leech to its emotional tentacles. Addicted to the dopamine high. Before it blooms, when the seed of desire and name is just beginning to sprout on a stool waiting for the shutter to click. And at the eruption of joy when chairs are lifted and glass breaks. Over the course of 8 hours, strangers become an interesting set of characters that could be your cousins. The mother in law’s perfume mimics the incense of a Roman Catholic Cathedral that contains the shared anecdotes in a cloud next to the floral wallpaper, “this is my son’s christening gown next to his suit; the first and the last time I will help dress him as a single man.” The bride mouths the next foot positions so he can follow the planned dance. The best man delivers a cheesy semi-drunken speech. The band sings Kiss Me by Sixpence None the Richer and I cry for a feeling that would have been my I do.
As a wedding photographer with George Street Studio, I attempt to be the bride’s invisible shadow and the father of the groom’s high five. Adjusting the groom’s bowties before they walk down the aisle. Sneaking behind roses for that smile as he reads handwritten vows and she hears words of adorning testament in front of family and friends for the first time.
There hasn’t been a wedding of people I don’t know where I haven’t cried, even a little, even if the groomsmen wore bright red brand new Make America Great Again hats or the bridal party had all fake flowers. Because for a moment none of it mattered.
Photo: by a client during his shoot