Photo Credit: Sujata Setia; @butnaturalphotography
I loveee a good Wedding Wednesday, just as much as I adore a SO-IN-LOVE couple who have been together for decades upon decades. So, today, I thought I’d share this absolutely infectious story about a London-based shutterbug who makes a living snapping engagement-style photographs of elderly couples.
Sujata Setia of But Natural Photography spends her days traveling worldwide – from places like Ireland to Dubai – organizing photography workshops for students with a thirst for shooting real, enduring love and the most tender moments in life. While she’s there, she asks long-married couples if they’d model for her and her students, in exchange for photos they can keep and cherish forever. Though they’re usually not the most willing volunteers (mostly because they’re shocked over the interest in them opposed to young love), once the sessions get rolling, the getting-gray, but still very much OK lovebirds quickly get into it.
In an interview with Huffington Post, Sujata relays that her coaching often involves telling the couple to hold hands and kiss, which incites a lot of laughter and bashful eye batting. But as soon as the husband and wife pairs can get past being put on the spot, they rise to the occasion, resulting in stunning portraits and candid captures that just radiate romance and true, everlasting love. So cute, we really can’t even.
Her style of photography is light-filled and painterly: a great fit for her muses. If you have a chance to look at her Instagram page – which you should – you’ll be reminded of Anne Geddes… Promise, if you don’t immediately get transported to her iconic style of baby picture-taking, then we just don’t know who we are anymore.
In any case, we’re obsessed with Sujata and her couples. There’s something so magical and unrehearsed about the way they look at each other. It’s palpable and definitively something that young, modern couples get camera shy about these days. How to look authentic and uniquely themselves, without seeming too pose-y. There’s a vulnerability that these veteran couples exhibit in their photos that just translates into genuineness.
Do you have your engagement photos coming up? If so, maybe just sneak a peek at these senior professionals. Or think about your grandparents, if they’ve been together forever. They probably have a loved-up ‘lewk’ that they’d be thrilled to let you and your S.O. ‘borrow’ for the day.
