Today’s meeting went well even though we were light on numbers. Our latest new member – Brenda, got a chance to meet the group and read some of her excellent poetry.
We made the decision that our topic for February the 27th would be “Yesterday”
One of today’s stories based on our topic Large/Small was written by Keith Williams. You can read it here.
Martin’s Small Error.
Martin Holloway had built his reputation on precision. For over two decades, he had been the man couples trusted to capture their most treasured day. His Hasselblad camera was more than a tool; it was an extension of him, a companion that had seen hundreds of vows exchanged, tears shed, and wedding cakes cut.
The Williams wedding was no different — or so he thought. The little stone church was dressed in flowers, its pews filled with family and friends. Sunlight streamed through stained glass, painting the aisle in patches of red and gold. Martin greeted the groom and the best man as they arrived. He started to take the first few photographs.
Click… The groom’s nervous smile. Click. The bride’s entrance. Click.. The vows, whispered with trembling voices.
But beneath the calm rhythm of his work, disaster brewed. In his haste to reload, Martin had slipped a film magazine onto the Hasselblad that contained no film at all. Each shutter release was a hollow gesture, a little performance without substance. He didn’t realise until halfway through theceremony that the magazine he had just removed from the camera did not contain the exposed film. The magazine was empty.
His stomach dropped. The kiss, the walk down the aisle, the exchange of rings — gone. Not a single frame captured.
Martin’s hands trembled as he lowered the camera. He was a professional, yet here he was, undone by a small oversight with large consequences. He forced himself to breathe, to think. Panic would only make things worse.
He quickly but very carefully loaded two more rolls of film into the magazines.
After the ceremony, Martin approached the couple with a smile that felt too tight. “Would you mind,” he said delicately, “if we recreated a few of those earlier little moments of the ceremony? Sometimes the light after the service is even better. It would give us a chance to capture them in a more artistic way.”
The bride, radiant and still glowing with joy, agreed without hesitation. The groom, relieved to be past the nerves of the ceremony, laughed and said, “Why not? We’ll do it all again.”
Martin suggested they return to the vestry and use the changed light from the exquisite stained glass side window, which by now was filling the room with glorious colours.
They pretended to sign the registry, the bride’s bouquet placed on the table that had witnessed many signings from years gone by. Martin recaptured that moment in time.
And so they kissed once more, walked arm in arm down the aisle again, and posed with their families in the churchyard. Martin worked quickly, his movements sharp and deliberate, capturing every frame with precision this time. He poured all his skill into the second chance, determined to erase the mistake.
Later, when the photographs were developed, they were stunning. The couple adored them, praising Martin for his artistry. They never suspected the truth.
But Martin carried the weight of it. He had always prided himself on being spontaneous, capturing moments as they truly were. This time, he had staged them, recreated them, and turned them into performances. The little slip of forgetting the film had forced him into deception.
Months passed. The Williamses sent him glowing reviews,and new clients came on their recommendation. Martin’sreputation remained intact. Yet he couldn’t shake the unease.
Then, one afternoon, the bride’s grandmother visited his studio. She was a small woman with bright eyes, carrying a disposable camera in her handbag. “I used this during the ceremony,” she said. “Could you develop the pictures for me? I’d love to see what I managed to capture.”
Martin agreed, curious. The little plastic camera was hardly capable of the sharpness of his Hasselblad, but he processed the film anyway.
When the photographs emerged, he froze. The images showed the ceremony as it had truly happened — the vows, the kiss, the walk down the aisle. But there was something else. In the pews, faint outlines appeared. Ghostly figures, blurred yet unmistakable.
One image showed a man in the front row, smiling proudly. The grandmother gasped when she saw it. “That’s my Henry,” she whispered. “He passed away ten years ago. But look — he was there.”
Other frames revealed similar shapes: faces the family recognized, relatives long gone. The disposable camera, with its little lens and cheap plastic body, had captured something Martin’s large, professional Hasselblad had not.
Martin sat in silence, staring at the prints. His mistake had been a strange kind of gift. By failing to capture the ceremonyas it happened himself, he had left space for something larger, something beyond explanation, to appear in the photographs.
The wedding album, when complete, contained not only the recreated vows and staged kisses, but also a little miracle: a glimpse of love that had endured beyond life itself.
And Martin, the man who had once feared his reputation would crumble, realised that sometimes the smallest errors could expose a supernatural photograph.