Wedding, Andersonstown, Belfast
Gilles Peress
French, born 1946
1985
A black-and-white photograph by Gilles Peress that looks through a car windshield to capture a bride in her wedding dress on a snowy pavement outside a modest Belfast home, juxtaposing the ordinary and the ceremonial.
You're struck by the sharp diagonal of the car window framing the scene and the bride’s white dress and veil as a sudden bright punctuation against rows of drab houses and patchy snow, giving the picture a quiet, voyeuristic immediacy.
Made during Peress’s work in Northern Ireland, the image folds a private, everyday moment into the broader arc of documentary photography, showing how intimate gestures can illuminate social and political life and helping push reportage toward more layered, human-focused narratives.
Medium
Inkjet print, printed c. 2009
Dimensions
24 3/16 × 36" (61.5 × 91.5 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Susan Paulsen MacGill
Accession
465.2011
Palette
Exhibitions
