A Potrerillos Wedding (Argentina)

Lone Sailboat, #1. Dique Potrerillos, Argentina, 2016

So, you are a serious photographer as well as a guest or relative at a wedding. What do you do? Do you carry your camera? Where do you aim it? What do you photograph if you are absolutely not much of a people/wedding shooter?

Hopefully, the bride and groom (and parents!) have been, vewy, vewy wise and have contracted a professional wedding photographer to do the shoot. That will free you up to make whatever images you like of the goings on and of the surroundings. (Just be sure to stay the heck out of the path of the pros as they work.)

And so it was this past weekend at the wedding of my wife’s eldest daughter, Anna Clara. They had contracted a veritable team of excellent photogs, including ground and aerial (quadcopter) videographers. All bases were completely plastered.

Thank God. I would never want to have the responsibility of shooting a wedding. My chapeau is definitely doffed to those who do it and do it well!

So, being free of any such responsibility, here is what I came up with. Some images are from the tiny, but very capable, mirrorless Sony RX100iv and others with the Nikon D800 DSLR–and I bet you can’t tell the difference in these web-sized presentations!

The standard spiral stairway composition inside the Hotel Potrerillos, the wedding venue. In retrospect, I should have had the bride and groom at the top of the stairs, looking down–it would have made for a nice center of interest on this lovely stage. The entire hotel was just recently renovated and had not yet even been inaugurated. Our wedding party was the first big post-renovation event at this locale:

Hotel Potrerillos, Escaleras. Near Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

The bride and groom. I blatantly copied the eyes closed idea from Cole Thompson, a photographer who has done a really wonderful portrait series based on this theme:

Eyes Closed. Hotel Potrerillos, Argentina, 2016

The hotel pool kept drawing my eye being, as it was, such an excellent abstract subject:

Piscina, #6. Hotel Potrerillos, Argentina, 2016

The bride’s elegant crown:

La corona de la novia. Hotel Potrerillos, Argentina, 2016

The groom’s elegant tie:

La corbata del novio. Hotel Potrerillos, Argentina, 2016

My eye…always leaning toward the abstract:

Trees. Hotel Potrerillos, Argentina, 2016

For the wedding guests. I should have moved the bouquet on the table to give it some separation from the pillows–attention to detail, dontcha know:

Benches. Hotel Potrerillos, Argentina, 2016

One of a series of images I made of the changing textures across the water in the lake:

Aquatexture, #1. Dique Potrerillos, Argentina, 2016

Remains from one of the adorned party headdresses from the night’s electronic trance-dance disco party:

Butterfly, Hotel Potrerillos. Near Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

Raindrops on one of the outdoor tables. The rain threatened all weekend, but luckily stayed away from the ceremony and largely kept to a nocturnal schedule which didn’t affect us in any significant way (the giant outdoor tent was also key!):

Raindrops, Hotel Potrerillos. Near Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

I’ll finish with two photographs in color. This first is the pool once again, under an overcast sky–brought in by the first big cold front of austral autumn. With a chill in the air, no one was swimming. This one is all about mini-S curves and strong diagonal lines, as well as the contrast between the relative hostility of the mountains and the leisure-luxury friendliness of the man-made piscina: