PDN - May 2012

DOUG GORDON IS A WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER with a large personality, an earthy sense of humor and a fun-loving fearlessness. Attend one of his lectures, and you might find yourself in a sing-along to “YMCA,” with the husky Long Island, New York– based photographer racing back and forth across the stage to rally his audience. Hire him, as so many have over the years, to photograph your wedding— Gordon has shot more than 3,500 ceremonies, and his studio has tallied more than 15,000—and you’re bound to submit to the charming, seductive patter that he peppers you with because he knows what to say to get the expression and the mood he needs. He’s not just a photographer; he’s a showman. And his audience loves him.

Doug Gordon

“When I’m photographing someone at a wedding, I’m not explaining what I’m doing or what I’m trying to get,” he says. “I’m working for the expression. I’ll tell them, ‘I want you to smile with your eyes. I want to see that softness.’ I tell them stories.” Take, for example, the close-up shown on the opposite page of a bride’s face, a single striking blue eye gazing steadily into his camera. He got the shot, and then he swiftly shifted gears. “I told her, “You’re violating me. Just admit it— you want me.’ And then she laughed, and I got the secondary image. I can change the mood in seconds. People talk about weddings being fairy tales, but a wedding is anything but a fairy tale. There are too many variables going on at once. But the fairy tale is what everyone wants. My job is to create it.”

ALL FOUR PHO TOS © DOUG GORDON

Capturing the romance is part of any good wedding photographer’s skill set, but Gordon is unafraid to go a step further and celebrate his subjects’ sexual chemistry. Look through the portfolio at his Web site, www.douggordonworkshops.com, and you’ll come across more than a few wedding photos of the groom standing with his hand high up on his bride’s thigh. These images—such as the one shown at left from a London wedding—never cross the line into risqué, but they do sizzle. “The bride wants to feel like her husband is in to her,” says Gordon. “They respond to seeing that raw emotion in a photograph.” In this case, the couple in question were so smitten with their photo that they ordered a huge print, somewhere in the 50’ x 60’ range. And they’re not the only ones to be attracted to this sort of shot. “This is an image that people want to buy,” Gordon says firmly.