“Niagara”, 2006 © Alec Soth

“This was part of a project I did over the course of a couple of years at Niagara Falls, the former honeymoon capital of the world. I had an agreement with this particular wedding chapel, attached to a motel called the Flamingo Inn, that I could approach newlyweds after their ceremonies. 

The woman was called Melissa. I took her photograph just after she was married, right outside the room she was staying in. You’ll notice that her husband isn’t in the picture - it’s such a difficult thing photographing a couple, because the power of a portrait is that you get to have a relationship with a person by staring into their eyes. When there are two people, it’s kind of complicated - you don’t know who to look at. So I realised I could separate out the couple and photograph them individually, which gives the picture a different kind of poignancy…” - Alec Soth (read the entire article about this picture here)