Fifty Years

Alan and Val. Fifty years. The session was shot partly in the garden of their Stanton Fitzwarren home, in the specific October afternoon light that is warm enough for portraits but low enough to make everything look considered, and partly inside, in the dining room, in the warm ambient light of a house that has been lived in for a long time.

The difference between a wedding portrait and a golden anniversary portrait is fifty years of evidence. That evidence is visible in these images. It is the most interesting thing about them.

THE GARDEN PORTRAITS

The outdoor garden session at Stanton Fitzwarren gave the portraits their natural context. The specific overcast light of an October afternoon in Wiltshire — warm enough, soft enough, the kind of light that requires no apology and makes no mistakes.

The tree trunk sequence, with Alan and Val standing against the bark in the bright pink and blue outfits that Val had chosen for the occasion: the colour combination that an art director would have questioned and a photographer learns to trust.

THE EVENING PORTRAIT

The dining room portrait at the end of the session is the one that will be looked at in twenty years. Alan and Val, sitting together in the room they have sat in together for fifty years, the warm ambient light of the house making everyone look as they actually are rather than as they performed for the camera in the garden.

Child portrait from the Golden Wedding session — pink tulle dress, warm ambient light, Stanton Fitzwarren