On photography, memory, and the moments we don’t realize we’ll miss.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how strange memory is.

There are days I was sure I’d remember forever that I can barely piece together now. And then there are these completely ordinary moments that somehow stay.

The way someone laughed. The light coming through a window. A familiar voice from another room. The way a person I love used to do something so ordinary I never thought I’d need to remember it.

I think that’s part of what scares me about time.

We don’t really get to choose which details stay with us.

Life just keeps moving, and slowly, quietly, some of them begin to disappear.

Maybe that’s why photography means more to me now than it did when I first picked up a camera.

When I started, I think I was mostly concerned with making beautiful photographs. I wanted to understand light and composition. I wanted things to look a certain way. I wanted to create something I was proud of.

And I still care about all of those things.

But somewhere along the way, I started caring about something else more.

I started paying attention.

The things happening around the photograph

Weddings are funny because there are so many moments everyone knows are coming.

The dress.

The walk down the aisle.

The kiss.

The first dance.

And of course I photograph those things.

But I’ve realized that I’m often looking somewhere else, too.

At your mom standing quietly in the doorway while you’re getting ready.

At the way your friends are laughing before you’ve even realized what they’re laughing about.

At your grandparents sitting together at dinner.

At someone wiping away a tear and immediately pretending they weren’t crying.

At the way your hand reaches for your partner without either of you thinking about it.

They’re tiny things.

Most of the time, nobody stops and says, this is important.

And maybe that’s exactly why they are.

Because they’re real.

They’re the pieces of the day that aren’t happening for anyone else. They aren’t on the timeline. Nobody rehearsed them. They don’t need to be made more beautiful than they already are.

They just need someone to notice.

I don’t want your wedding to become a photoshoot

I think this is something I’ve become increasingly protective of.

You get one wedding day.

I don’t want you spending it wondering where the camera is.

I don’t want every beautiful moment interrupted because we need to recreate it somewhere with better light.

And I definitely don’t want you to feel like you have to perform some version of yourselves because you’re being photographed.

There will be moments when I’ll guide you.

I’ll fix the light. I’ll move us somewhere beautiful. I’ll tell you what to do with your hands when suddenly you’ve become extremely aware that you have hands.

We’ll make the portraits.

And I want those photographs to be beautiful.

But then I want you to go back.

Back to your people.

Back to your dinner.

Back to laughing too loudly and hugging your grandmother and dancing and crying and doing whatever it is you would be doing if I weren’t standing there with a camera.

Because I don’t believe it’s my job to make your wedding meaningful.

It already is.

My job is to notice why.

Maybe that’s why I love film so much

Film has changed the way I photograph.

I like what it asks of me.

You can’t take endless frames hoping one of them works. You can’t immediately look at the back of the camera to see what you got.

You make a photograph and then you move on.

There’s a little bit of trust involved.

And sometimes the result isn’t technically perfect.

There’s grain. Something moved. The focus fell somewhere unexpected. The light did something strange.

But sometimes those are the photographs I can’t stop looking at.

They feel alive.

I think memory is a little like that, too.

I don’t remember my life in perfectly exposed, tack-sharp images.

I remember pieces.

A face.

A sound.

Warm light.

Someone’s hand.

How a place smelled.

How I felt.

Little fragments that somehow hold an entire season of my life inside them.

Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to photographs that leave room for a little imperfection.

They feel closer to remembering.

I wonder which photograph it will be

This is something I think about when I’m editing weddings.

I can usually predict which photographs will get posted first.

The sunset portrait.

The beautiful ceremony photograph.

The editorial image where everything came together exactly right.

But I can’t predict which photograph will matter most in twenty years.

Neither can you.

Maybe it’ll be one of those portraits.

Or maybe it’ll be a photograph you barely noticed when you first opened your gallery.

Your dad in the background.

Your sister laughing.

Your mother’s hands fastening your necklace.

A friend you haven’t seen in years.

The house you grew up in.

Your grandparents dancing.

Something completely ordinary that didn’t feel particularly significant at the time.

And then life happens.

People get older.

Families change.

Homes are sold.

Traditions shift.

We become different versions of ourselves.

And suddenly that photograph isn’t ordinary anymore.

It’s evidence that something existed exactly that way, once.

I think that’s when photographs become heirlooms.

Not when they’re printed on beautiful paper or placed inside an album—although I deeply believe in both.

They become heirlooms when time gives them meaning we couldn’t have understood when they were made.

So, I’m learning to notice.

That’s what this work has taught me more than anything.

To pay attention while I’m here.

To photograph the obvious things, yes.

But also to look toward the edges.

To notice who is watching.

Whose hands are reaching for each other.

Who is laughing.

Who is trying not to cry.

The things that feel small now.

Because one day, they might not.

And years from now, I don’t know which photograph from your wedding will become the one.

The one you keep framed beside your bed.

The one your children ask about.

The one you find yourself staring at a little longer than the others.

The one that brings someone back to you for a second.

Time gets to decide that.

All I can do is be there.

Camera in hand.

Paying attention.

Noticing while we’re still lucky enough to be there.

Siempre con amor,
Jazmine Alexa