During the days, I sling code to make the payments on all my toys. But on the occasional weekend, I’ll help out a local wedding photographer. It’s really less about the money, and more about the chance to interact with a whole bunch of strangers, two which are getting married.

Shooting weddings, you see such a diverse number of people. Young, old, beautiful, ugly, poor, wealthy, white, black, people from all avenues of lives coming being brought together under one roof by some connection to the bride or groom, be it college friends seeing each other after many years, the mother of the bride, or even the caterer who brings the food. Everyone has their place in a wedding.

My place is to shoot pictures. The lady I assist does the formals, the standard stuff. I just roam around shooting candids. As the wedding goes by, I’ll start picking out personalities. The guy who talks at the top of his lungs and demands all the attention. The black-sheep deviant relative who shows up in jeans, sneakers and a sleeve tattoo much to the dismay and clucking of the matriarch of the family. The family outcast who was invited, but ignored and sits in the back table, beer in hand and “why the fuck did i come here?” written all over his face while people dance away the night.

And theyre all pretty much forgotten the next day. I’ll get home, download the pics. Pick out the ones I like, and send them off to the photographer and she handles the rest. Its all transient to me. Ephemeral. Here one day, gone the next. I don’t remember specifics unless I look at the photos again. Then bits and names will come back to me. Psychologists call this “memory by visual association” or something like that. It seems improbable, to think about it, that some bride and groom’s biggest day could be so easily discarded from the immediate memory along with other bits such as what I had for dinner last nite. At some level, is that just all equally important?