Today, I’ve been approached by my father, asking if I would like to do the photographies at his and Gerda’s wedding. Obviously, I was honored, but I can’t say I wasn’t troubled too. Nonetheless, I (hesitantly) accepted. He cited the fact that my camera (significantly better than his) is in Canada as a bummer, and I agree in this situation, but that’s the way things went.

My big obstacle is going to be the social anxiety. It’s going to cost me a lot of effort to overcome my fears, and since I’ve already accepted (and changing my mind would be quite lame), I simply have to. That’s not a comfortable position to be in. A group of about 40 people, I believe, many of which I don’t know, let alone know well.

Perhaps that wouldn’t be as problematic if it wasn’t for the desire for perfection I expect from myself and apply to this job. Obviously, very few people get to have the strange kind of experience of witnessing their parents’ wedding, regardless of whether one parent (or both) isn’t actually biologically related. My dad is, and has been, severely downplaying the event, as it doesn’t have as much of a meaning to him as it does to many (that’s not criticism). But to me?

I would be angry at myself for decades to come if I were to screw up on this. “Hey”, I would tell myself, “you made the photos here — why did you do such an awful job when you could have done so much better?” I can’t just throw them away. I can’t just pretend they were never made. I wouldn’t want to. They’re going into my iPhoto library, with titles, keywords and comments, and into my Flickr account, with titles, tags, descriptions and perhaps others’ comments. These photos matter to me.

I cannot help it: I’ll be severely frustrated if, after the event, I find out if one of the photos didn’t turn out the well I wanted it to.

I’m not a terribly photographer, but I’m hardly even much of an amateur. I was given a well-written book about photography as a kid, but at the time, all I had was an analog Minolta. It hardly had any options, and compared to today’s digital stuff, it was ridiculously useless. My dad had previously asked a boyfriend of a relative of Gerda’s to do photography for him, and he was so terribly disappointed that he didn’t even store the photos, so I can’t even take a look at them to get a negative example of how not to do this. He is convinced, however, that I’ll do not just fine, but great. Should I be, too? Should I scrub through the camera’s manual (seeing as it’s my dad’s, not mine, although I have previously used it numerous times anyway)? Should I read through my good ol’ book? Through others? Online guides? Or should I just not obsess over this anywhere near as much?

I just want satisfaction.

And so, I pray to the resident God of Photography that I will somehow wind up doing a good job.