11/22

- Never Stop Dreaming -

11 22 apparently mean 好い夫婦 in Japanese which of course relates to a special wedding date. And on this day, the 22nd day of the 11th month of November, a friend of mine who is a life(r) and not a cloud that just drift by (Japan) tied the nuptial knot. Unlike all other weddings that I had attended, this one would be very different because I am attending it as an official wedding photographer.

While photography is my passion, I was more prepared to try out various techniques and effects and every wedding event propose a training ground for me. Until now, all my pictures taken at weddings were simply crumbs left behind on an empty plate. I do not have any prior experience in wedding photography and comments online had led me to believe that if you are not confident of both yourself or the gear in your hands, do not ever volunteer to be a main wedding photographer even when your best friends, cousins, brother, etc ask you for a favor. Sadly, that was not my case since I shamelessly volunteered to be a slave to his sacred event. Seriously, I wasn't confident of myself and my 1 particular piece of glass but I thought that if I don't make a big leap of faith somewhere, there was no way I could improve and achieve greater heights. And so I set forth and embarked on yet another spectacular journey of my life.

Since this would be my first ever opportunity to mark my debut as an official wedding photographer, I did everything that I could muster and remember days prior to the wedding. Because deep down inside me, I had always marveled at how those pre-wedding pictures taken by other professionals turned out so magically and that very instinct inside me, that silent voice inside me whispered to me that I should take this golden opportunity to weave some magic myself. I did the ground checks, the lighting checks, the location checks, the weather checks, the equipment checks, etc.

All the plannings, and headaches, cash purchase all leads up to the actual day. I was there 30 minutes before the agreed stipulated time just to get adjusted to the enormous responsibility that will befall on me.

As soon as the main subjects turned up, the make up artists, the bride, the groom, the videographer, etc....I donned the mask and the suit to pull off a facade of the man in charge of stills.

The entire event went on pretty smoothly except the staged photoshoot at a nearby temple didn't went as expected. It was supposed to be done before the guests arrive at the lunch reception but instead, due to time constraints, it was pushed to the end and done in a haphazard manner in less than 20 minutes. I knew it would be very difficult to produce satisfactory results eventhough I had a magical temple ground at my disposal. This was my only set back which left me wondering how far is my own limit I can push. I had intended 1 roll of 36 frames B/W 35mm for the entire Temple Photoshoot but I barely utilized more than 10 frames :(

In summary, my maiden wedding went pretty well but very tiring and the most memorable moment was when the Master put on the head gear of faux hair and Miho exclaimed in laughter, "I looked like a Carebear with this head gear".