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Matinee: Gianfranco Bernardo Photographs Love
10 August 2019
Saturday matinees long ago let us escape from the ordinary world to the island of the Swiss Family Robinson or the mutinous decks of the Bounty. Why not, we thought, escape the usual fare here with Saturday matinees of our favorite photography films?
So we're pleased to present the 304th in our series of Saturday matinees today: Gianfranco Bernardo Photographs Love.
Summer isn't just about the beach. It's also about weddings. And every summer our video feeds are bumper to bumper with wedding videos.
You might think we skip them as we hunt around for something edifying. And we do skip a lot of them. Sometimes they're just too rich for our blood. Sometimes we have the feeling you really have to know the people.
But sometimes a Gianfranco Bernardo comes along.
In Fotografare l'amore, si può! (You can photograph love!), Tuscan photographer Gianfranco Bernardo snips together a slide show of his wedding images that transcend the usual shot list.
We had the feeling, watching these four minutes of real moments, that it takes inhuman courage to marry. Which is silly, of course.
They capture not just the right moment but almost an entire opera in which you see the strangers who met one day, the vows they made to each other and the adventure that lies before them. They don't know what will happen but they know that something will. And in the face of that future no one has ever been able to predict, they give their lives to each other.
We had the feeling, watching these four minutes of real moments, that it takes inhuman courage to marry. Which is silly, of course.
It takes incredible courage, but not inhuman courage.
The video especially appealed to us because the images are from many different weddings with all sorts of people in all sorts of settings. Bernardo isn't just shooting a wedding. He's photographing love, as he puts it.
And the music doesn't hurt either as it sings of loving "only you." Because for all the variety in everything else depicted, the one constant in these images is the beloved. That one other person.
Bernardo resides between Florence and Siena, the father of "three marvelous kids" and married to "Wonder Woman." He's been shooting weddings, engaged couples and families in Italy for 20 years.
He explains his approach:
In my work I try to naturally capture images that will tell the story of what is an intense day full of emotions in an exciting way. I love to communicate with photography that is honest, authentic and curious. I will accompany you at every stage of the day, careful to photograph every moment in a light and discreet way, without interfering with the natural course of events. In my photographs you always be able to find the "real moments" of your special day.
Spoken by a man, we think, we knows a real moment when he sees one. Just look at the pictures.