Huckaby: Call stirs memories of stint as a wedding photographer

The voice on the other end of the line sounded so innocent and sincere that I almost said yes without thinking.

The question? "Mr. Huckaby, do you still photograph weddings?"

That's right. In a former life I was a wedding photographer -- this back in the days of film and light meters and cameras that didn't have a brain of their own. Just call me a Renaissance Man. Now understand, I haven't been paid for a photograph in a decade-and-a-half and was curious to know why the sweet young thing on the phone had the notion that I might record her nuptials for posterity.

"You photographed my mother's wedding," she told me, and then added, "22 years ago."

As if I hadn't been feeling old enough this summer. I have taught many children of former children but a second generation wedding. That's a bit much.

I got into the photography business quite by accident. I was looking for a way to make a little extra money and the genius of my writing (I will pause here for a snicker) was yet to be discovered. Being a teacher, I was about to have three months paid vacation, so I set about to find a new hobby that could bring in a little cash.

I had a pretty decent camera and enjoyed taking photographs so I decided to try to turn a buck by taking photographs of pretty girls. If their ugly grooms had to be in the pictures, too, that would be but a small sacrifice.

The first day of summer vacation, I drove to Atlanta to the Wolf Camera store and maxed out my credit card on a studio lighting system, a nice backdrop and stand and assorted other photography-related paraphernalia. I think I bought a book, too, on how to operate the camera.

I stopped by the printer on the way home to order business cards and placed an ad in the local paper. Voil?! I was a professional photographer. When my lovely wife, Lisa, got home from work she found me in the basement, playing with my new toys and I thought, for a brief moment, that I was about to be a dead professional photographer.

Things worked out, though. I stayed with it for a dozen years and shot well over 200 weddings.

Honesty compels me to admit that wedding photography was a pretty stressful sideline. E

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