I sat at a table near the dance floor watching friends, family and the newlyweds shake it it to the Black Eyed Peas, laughing, smiling and getting lost in the evening. I couldn’t help but smile as I watched these people, many of whom were complete strangers to me. As a guest at the wedding, I admit, I was tempted to join them out on the dance floor but something was holding me back from jumping out there.

It was because I was capturing these moments in my mind. Moment watching. People watching. And then as if it was a natural reflex, I grabbed my Nikon and clicked my shutter moment after moment.

And in those moments, I realized why I love being a photographer. Not that I hadn’t thought about it before. It just was something hard to describe. For some reason it was so clear to me in the fuzzy, I had-one-to-many-reislings evening.

I love being a photographer because while everyone is living the moment, I am capturing it. Capturing it on my camera and in my mind. I am perserving a moment that may have gone unnoticed for ever. We all learn to live in the moment. I like to think I live in the shutter speed (cheesy, ya, ya, I know…). I live in the one nanosecond where I can capture the groom’s eyes welling up as his bride walks down the aisle or the half-second where the bride looks at her father to signal she will always be his little girl.  I look for the moment of the bride laughing with her friends and for grandma kissing her beloved husband. The moments between the first kiss, cake cutting and first dance. I capture the in-between.  The moments that people might not notice, but the ones that are the most amazing to see after the cake has been cut, the dance has been danced and the honeymoon is over.

Photographer or not, I am always viewing a wedding through my viewfinder and looking at things one shutter click at a time.