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Matinee: Photos From a Christening
7 August 2021
Saturday matinees long ago let us escape from the ordinary world to the island of the Swiss Family Robinson or the mutinous decks of the Bounty. Why not, we thought, escape the usual fare here with Saturday matinees of our favorite photography films?
So we're pleased to present the 408th in our series of Saturday matinees today: Photos From a Christening.
This 3:50 slide show of Iri Stefania's christening party features charming, animated stills shot by Romanian photographer Mihai Zaharia.
It may seem extravagant to hire a professional photographer to shoot a christening but as Zaharia explains, it's the first important event in the life of the child (after its birth, of course).
He notes that the ritual itself provides only a scaffold for the events of the day. The real story, he says, is "a story about love in the family, about beautiful people and honest emotions."
You might say he approaches the ritual much the way a documentary wedding photographer handles a wedding.
It's clear from Zaharia's images, which are both color and black-and-white, that Iris had quite a party. There was face painting and balloon sculptures and stickers and silly adults. Not to mention a big cake and sparklers.
We were immediately charmed by the images. It was not just the expressive faces of the children having a ball at the party. The adults interacting with the children were just as amusing.
We've all seen too little of either during the pandemic.
Iris is a lucky girl to be surrounded by such loving friends and family. That's the point of a this ritual whichever tradition defines it. And it's precisely the point Zaharia makes with his marvelous photographs.