When we reached the top, we both paused to take in the view. From this angle, the building’s glass facade reflected the trees while the distant mountains embraced it. The letters of the metalsign reading “Chateau Lumiere”glowed in the sunlight. I raised my camera, took two steps back to fit the scenery into the frame, and clicked the shutter button to capture its beauty.
When I lowered my camera, Theo looked at me as if I had committed a cardinal sin by not including a person in the shot. Sure, I hadn’t come here to take pictures like this one. Landscapes, with or without a storm, always came easily to me. But the warm feeling of having a stunning shot already in the bag spread through my chest, energizing me more than any coffee could. What kind of photographer would I be if I didn’t photograph what I found beautiful?
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“I’m not judging.”
We wanderedaround the estate for twenty minutes. A vast meadow stretched out behind the chateau, where a frame tent had been set up for today’s event. Despite their best efforts to dress everything up with flowers, the white tarpaulins surrounding the forty tables clashed with the surroundings. I didn’t understand why the wedding wasn’t taking place in the beautiful dining room with its stunning mountain view, but I didn’t bother to ask.
We also met the wedding planner, a “lovely” lady whose smile could definitely turn people to stone. She scolded Theo for not telling her in advance that he would be bringing an assistant. Then, she “graciously” walked me through today’s schedule, as if Theo hadn’t already done so while we got a lay of the land. When she finally finished, we headed back to the entrance, sharing a quick laugh about her lecture, and arrived just in time to see the first car pull up.
The bride stepped outside—no dress or makeup yet, her blonde hair only loosely bound into a ponytail. The minute her feet touched the asphalt, she was swarmed by eight hyperactive women, who all looked like carbon copies of one another, along with a guy who must’ve been the bride’s twin, as they both looked identical—same blond hair, stature, and facial features. The only difference was his male physique and the straight, protective frown on his face.
A few minutes later, the groom arrived in a separate car, wearing only jogging pants and a sweater for now. Three guys accompanied him, looking more like they were headed to a basketball game than a wedding. One of them was so tall that he would probably have to duck in the group photos they were likely going to take that afternoon.
With only them around, and Theo busy running back and forth between rooms—although he was focusing more on the bride’s side—I couldn’t find much worth photographing. For hours, I wandered around, feeling like a fool holding a camera for the first time. I took a few shots of the groomsmen lounging on the couches, along with the bride’s brother, but none of them were good enough to hand to the couple, let alone compare to the artistry I’d seen in Theo’s pictures yesterday.
Theo and I talked about it briefly over lunch, and once he’d seen them, he was very polite about them by suggesting that it might get easier once the guests arrived in the afternoon.
After that, I tried my best to mimic Theo’s tactic of looking everywhere, but none of the people around me were doing anything even remotely interesting. In fact, the only person I found myself drawn to was Theo. He looked so good in his suit that I wanted to rip it off him right then and there. Knowing he wasn’t wearing any underwear during our shoot two days ago made me wonder if he was going commando again today. Every time I spotted him, I wanted to photograph him, buthe was the one person I couldn’t. That would have raised too many questions, especially with the wedding planner constantly watching me.
In the early afternoon, after the staff had finished setting up the table in the frame tent, I watched Theo take some stills and tried my best to follow his example. Finally, I took a second shot with at least some artistic value. A ray of light shone through a transparent part of the roof and reflected off a knife, throwing a rainbow back against the ceiling. Still nothing exciting, but at least something.
I couldn’t believe Theo did this every day. His whole approach to photography was completely different from mine. I planned my shots meticulously. The image of the barn and the tornado that got me all that attention wasn’t a mere accident. I had planned to take such a picture for years. I wanted to show how fragile our human inventions are compared to the raw and unforgiving nature that all living things are at the mercy of, whether they like it or not. To achieve this, I mapped all the potential barns, farms, and old buildings within a two-hundred-mile radius that wouldn’t survive a tornado. For three years, I closely followed the weather reports and drove out twenty-eight times, only for twenty-seven trips not to yield a single useful shot for what I had in mind. That was one, albeit perfect, shot in three years. And him? He took six hundred pictures a day for his job and probably as many on the side to feed his artistic needs. He didn’t think about it; he just shot away.
What impressed me the most was that his output wasn’t any less remarkable. He might not have had thatone defining pictureas I did, but he was also five years younger. It certainly was only a matter of time before he received the recognition he deserved—and once he did, he had tens of thousands of pictures to maintain his success.
“How do you do that?” I asked as he took a detailed shot of a wine glass in front of the mountains.
“Do what?”
“Find inspiration everywhere?”
“You mean this?” He pointed to the glass and chuckled. “I’ve taken that shot at every wedding I’ve photographed.”
“But you’ve already taken more than just the pictures you get paid for, right?”
“A few, yeah.” He spun his head around to see if anyone was nearby, then flipped through his camera and motioned for me to come closer.
With our heads only inches apart, we stared at a shot of the bride’s brother sneaking a look at his phone behind her back, as if he were on a secret mission.
“That’s what I want to know! How do you see that?”
“I just look. It’s also a bit of luck. Sometimes there’s not much to find, but since I work with humans, they probably have things to hide. Come to think of it, the trick might be to look where no one else is looking. Like when you want to figure out a magic trick. When a magician shows you their left hand, you look at the right.”
He winked at me and walked toward the open side of the tent, raising his camera for a shot of the landscape. Since he was the only other person currently present, I followed his movements closely, knowing that if I wanted to test out his theory, this was the best approach. When he turned his back to me, I lifted my camera. His ass looked magnificent, so I took the opportunity and snapped a photo. Other than that, though? No matter where I looked—at him, away from him, at the trees and mountains behind him, or at the neatly decorated table next to him—I couldn’t spot a secret.
Still, I kept going when he returned to the bride and groom. I tried to photograph the busy waiters folding napkins, a cheftrimming some meat, and even the wedding planner berating a man holding two wine bottles toward her. None of the pictures turned out well. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t capture a single decent photo of anyone, and my mood gradually shifted.
An hour later, when the first guests arrived, the situation only worsened. Sure, there were more people, but that also meant more chaos. Within minutes, the reception felt more chaotic than an evening at the bar. It wasn’t that I couldn’t stand having many people around me; that wasn’t a problem. But in the chaos, it became much harder to spot anything. His explanation didn’t do shit for me. With everything happening around me simultaneously, where the heck was I supposed to look? Of course, I kept taking pictures. I tried switching tactics by looking more with my eyes rather than just through my lens to see if that would make it easier to spot something. But every single image could have been taken by an amateur—probably better, because amateurs at least love what they’re doing.
After a lovely older couple asked me to take their picture, I pulled the ripcord. Despite their smiles, the photo looked like a mug shot—clear evidence that this wasn’t going anywhere for me. If I stayed, it was only a matter of time before I slipped up and revealed my bad mood, which wasn’t something I could do to Theo.
I snuck up behind him and waited until he lowered his camera before tapping his shoulder. “Can we talk outside just for a second?”
He followed me out of the tent about ten feet away so no one could overhear us and accidentally notice that I wasn’t actually his assistant.
“I’m going to leave.”
