Some dream of a certain band enchanting the ears of their wedding guests, others dream of that ideal location that would reveal the perfect setting for their ceremony… I dreamt of THE wedding photographer that would surpass the limits of what “professional wedding photographer” means and create art with every shot taken. It’s one thing to take a picture, a photograph even, it’s quite another to make art with the aid of one’s camera. I knew that in the hustle and bustle of the wedding day, the mind is too preoccupied to embrace all the profound and often neglected details that make a wedding perfect. I needed someone not just to observe and, at best, breathe in the atmosphere and the passing of our day. I needed someone who would feel as we, the bride and groom, would feel on that day and to freeze in time the gentle touch, the teary regard, or the expansion of one’s heart due to immense happiness. Moments of bliss forever captured: this is what we wanted in our wedding photographer.
Meeting Doru and Claudia one rainy evening months before our wedding day was the breath of fresh air that we needed to keep on laboring toward the completion of all our endeavors.
Even to this day while carefully browsing through our pictures, I discover new details, new emotions shyly manifested, new glances that witness the perfection of our one day in time. It is because Doru and Claudia, with every closing of their shutters, caught life in action and forever captured it for us. It is when the mind and heart fail in recollecting the joy, and hope, and love, and strength that can change the course of a moment that we turn to our wedding pictures and stand amazed.
Everything we envisioned in photography, Doru and Claudia molded through their filters and the cameras reacted obediently to their thoughts and ideas. It is not an easy thing to embody the vision one has imagined, but they succeeded in doing just that.
Six years later, Doru and Claudia continue to embody their vision in pictures of crystal clearness. A walk through downtown Chicago proved that these two artists can reason with their subjects in such an easy manner that one might be fooled to think the photography creation process is not a strenuous labor. Oh, but it is! However, Doru and Claudia have the insight, the genuineness and the honesty that make one feel secure, and compel them to open their existence and be immortalized in time.
We last met Doru and Claudia on the steps of the Art Institute of Chicago. How appropriate to watch them create art among the still, yet piercing masterpieces dominating the interiors of one of the world’s most renowned art museums. We lost our steps among the corridors, only to find them drawn back to the grandeur of the master staircase, the superb setting for a picture together.
Hours later, the Chicago skyline, as viewed from the walkway surrounding the Adler Planetarium, stood majestically still as the rays of sun were gently falling on our bodies and Doru, indefatigably, seemed anxious to grasp the moment.
The end of our day spent together reminded us yet again that one should not wait for a special occasion to engage with a photographer, but to create one such opportunity especially for this caliber of artistry. We master not our time and our words will be no more, so let us take the opportunity to create photographic memories today. Memories that will survive the passing of ages…
Written by: Alexandra Boldea