Candid portrait of wedding guest
Image by gwilmore
In addition to being celebrated around the world as Valentine’s Day, the fourteenth of February is also the anniversary of Arizona’s statehood. It was admitted to the Union as the 48th state on February 14, 1912, which not coincidentally was the day I took this picture. The occasion was a mass marriage ceremony in downtown Phoenix, presided over by the Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court and intended as a commemoration of both the lovers’ holiday and the state centennial. More than 90 couples tied the knot during this event, including one couple who had dated over the Internet and had never met face-to-face until they appeared together at this ceremony.
I took the day off work and showed up for the mass wedding, camera in hand, and never for a moment felt conspicuous because so many other photographers were present as well. I used my Nikkor 55-200mm f/4-5.6 VR lens, which I have found to be a suprisingly good piece of glass for its price, and over the years I have managed to take some really good portraits with it. This one is of an attractive young woman who was present as a guest of one of the couples being married. The shot was candid, and I have no idea who she is, but I loved the result, and here it is now for everyone to see.
The full story of the mass wedding may be found here. I thought it was a great idea, although I couldn’t help thinking of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church, who held one or more mass wedding ceremonies back in the 1970s and later became notorious for other reasons.
