There is no picture that I have ever taken of my brother Keith that captures how I see him as well as this. I knew it when I released the shutter, standing between him and the congregation on his wedding to Jill in September, 2014 in Melbourne. He was giving his groom’s speech.
It’s the hands; it’s the expression. It’s the far away look in his eyes as he grapples with a metaphor that nobody else is quite going to get, but that he’s going to articulate anyway. It’s the attentive look on Jill’s face as she contemplates the man she has married and is, at this moment, proud of, and yet knows that she is expected to display a requisite sobriety as she listens to the speech, just as she grapples with what the hell he is talking about, just as the rest of the listeners are.
It’s the blue, grey window-check suit we had made and bought in Hong Kong three months’ prior, nicely exposed to bring out the texture; it’s the strong sunlight coming in through the windowed walls of the modern venue they had chosen after the traditional building of their first choice was condemned a week before the wedding; and it’s an image of two people who work so well together.
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