the narcotic sound of typing: Shoot The Bride. And The Groom

: CLICK TO ENLARGE THE IMAGES :

WHEN MS. ROSE, MY BELOVED EX-BOSS, informed me of her son RJ's nuptials I immediately volunteered to art-direct the wedding portraits. (RJ and his sister Jaycah were kids the first time I worked with their mom and I practically saw them finish high school and college before I leapfrogged to other job opportunities here and abroad. Though I have always kept in touch with Ms. Rose.) I bullied Art Abraham, a young wunderkind of advertising, fashion and editorial photography (who happens to be under my creative team) to collaborate with me and thankfully he agreed (probably out of fear of getting fired! haha. Talk about blackmail) despite of our tight schedule.

The downside was instantaneously apparent: I knew of the wedding date belatedly and there is no way we can pull off a pre-ceremony sittings for the portraits because RJ is based in Japan and some members of the entourage are based in Zamboanga. Considering how elaborate the photos I had in mind, there is nada possibility of last minute arrangements for location scouting, set designs and hunting for props. Ms. Rose suggested I fly with them to Zamboanga for the portraits to be taken during the wedding day and in my mind I was swallowing Maalox. Considering the tight pacing of schedules during the wedding day I knew we're in for a challenge: to be able to take fast but good pictures without disrupting the proceedings of the event's pre-set itinerary. We made a concession to fly a day before the ceremony so we can scout for areas to shoot and plan ahead the blocking for the pictures. Thankfully we got decent stuff and I'm sampling it here in desaturated, panoramic format. (Note: some of the images' lighting are not yet adjusted and some are not even edited.)

When the super efficient Zamboanga-based team of wedding planners gave us a tour of local interesting spots Art and I automatically got awed with Zamboanga Museum's indoor courtyard and begged the planners to secure permission to shoot in the area. Our obstacle: we cannot plug our lights in the electrical outlets of the museum so we added the burden and stress to the planners and Janice's mom to look for a generator. Luck is with us because they managed to find the compact gen set ideal for lugging around. Here are the stuff we snapped at the museum:

At this point the genset was moved and the voltage re-calibrated which caused one set of lights to conk out. We carried on using the remaining available light and we were getting worried because it's getting dark and the quality might be compromised. For some miracle and the uber-skillful manipulations and expertise of Art in disastrous situations we were able to pull off the shots.

After the museum we hurtled towards Zamboanga City's coastline to get dramatic sunset shots. Problem: How do you shoot intimacy when there are many kibitzers standing around observing us as we prop Janice and RJ for the shots. "Are you all right to kiss in front of these people?" I asked. "No problem, I don't mind!" RJ replied. Sports that they are they kissed and hugged and we snapped giving the surprised folks a moment of drama. Haha.

For the church ceremony we wanted the stark, moody feel so we deliberately dimmed the lighting.

While the wedding ceremony is ongoing I was frantically scanning the whole church for props to supplement the shots. Then I climbed up the spiral super narrow stairs and discovered the wedding singers/musicians up at the church's mini balcony and borrowed the violin from the musician and we got these shots:

I also spotted a parcel of hill with thick clusters of gabi plant and we plotted to shoot Janice and RJ among the very large umbrella-like gabi leaves but aborted the plan when we realized the soil was very moist. We don't want the bride to march into dinner reception with mucked up gown. Their moms would murder me if we did.

At the reception we spontaneously decided to do sittings for the guests and some were shy at the start and later got into the groove. Thanks to Pettyzou who gamely gave us this vampy pose, channeling a Renaissance girl draped across the sofa. Way to go Pzou!