I like photography. A lot. Not that you could gather that from my slowly growing collection of cameras and lenses.

Maybe it’s my fine arts degree talking, but I think of photography as a fine art. Not in the sense of carefully arranged, meticulously posed scenes. I like photography that challenges, that analyzes, that reflects. That searches. That doesn’t tell you the whole story. Photography that isn’t necessarily in focus. That isn’t necessarily pretty. That is just as much about space as it is about subject.

Are you getting the impression that photography is one of our wedding priorities yet?

Over the past few months I’ve looked around at some of the wedding photographers in Santa Barbara, but I didn’t take any of them seriously.* You’ve seen standard wedding photography, right? It seems like there’s some kind of script everyone must follow. There has to be a really shallow-focus shot of the bride’s shoes. There has to be a shot of the entire wedding party jumping — preferably on a beach. There has to be a shot of the happy couple, in a lush garden, gazing into each others’ eyes. There has to be a shot of them cutting the cake, and — surprise! Smearing frosting on each others’ faces.

All of this at a ridiculously inflated price, of course.

I didn’t want to hire a picture-taker, churning pre-approved images out of a wedding mill. I wanted our money to go to support a vendor who’s also an artist. Someone who’s committed to a unique aesthetic.** I’m not interested in filling out a list of must-have shots of must-have moments. I want to hand over the reins and say, here you go. The day is yours, too. Shoot it how you see fit, in whatever way you see fit.

The good thing? I think we found that person.

UP NEXT: I talk about this person.***

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* In retrospect, a large part of my problem is that I was looking at wedding photographers. All the blogs have advised me time and again: consider alternatives to “wedding” vendors! Yet occasionally I still fail at heeding this nugget of wisdom.

** I almost used “creative vision” here, but it kept making me smirk. I dunno. All those hours I spent on critique in class, and I still have a hard time talking about these things seriously.

*** Whoa, didn’t see THAT coming, now did you??