I was photographing a wedding signing. The setup you always see, bride, groom, registrar, fancy pen, dummy book. I moved in close and that's when I noticed the pen had no nib.
Now, I knew the book was a dummy. That's standard. But a pen with no nib? That was a new one. And something about it made me stop and think, who is this photo actually for? Not in a deep and meaningful way. More in a who actually gives a shit way. The couple know it's staged. I know it's staged. We're all just going through the motions.
The data protection argument, the reason registrars give for the dummy book, always felt like more of an excuse to me. If I'm being honest, I think it's less about data protection and more about keeping the couple focused during the legal bit. Which is fair enough. The last thing a registrar needs is a photographer being a distraction. But that's a very different thing to the data protection card that gets trotted out at weddings up and down the country.
I still shoot the signing. But now I use the staged version as an opportunity, get the witnesses in and make it a people moment. I try and sneak a few frames of the real thing happening.
That fake pen changed the way I think about the shots I take. Not just the signing. Is this moment real? Does it need to be set up? And if it does, how do I make the most of it?
