2012-09-23 - Kang & Vanessa

Kang is actually a friend of mine from when I was a wee little boy...

I've known the guy for as long as I can remember, but that's not saying that much seeing as my memory generally only goes as far as back as a week... I have a poor memory :S

Kang and Vanessa's Wedding was a jam packed day. I had done an oriental Wedding earlier this year, and they had their two ceremony's separated. Tea Ceremony the day before, and Traditional Wedding the next day. However Kang and Vanessa had both all in one day as they had family from all over the world, and wanted them to be apart of it in one go.

Needless to say, it was a manic day.

We began shooting at 9:30am to get some shots of the Groom and his Groomsmen before the Chinese Games began. We were just clowning around and we came up with the idea of mimicking the Abbey Road album cover!

The next image has no real significance to anything, I just thought it was hilarious to see Kang have his brother tie his Shoe Laces. What a Diva!?

The Chinese Games were about to begin, so Kang had to jump back in the car and ride up outside his Bride's house. My stupid sense of humour suggested he pretend to be like a dog and hang his head out the window lol

Then Kang's stupid sense of humour was to pretend he's trapped and squashed inside the car! lol

He was so proud of his accomplishment, it was worthy of the inspiring pose that I had seen in a Rocky Movie ;)



The Chinese Games began with the Bride's Brother coming out demanding payment, Kang and his great negotiating tactics and with the help of his Groomsmen, he managed to get out of the car and proceed to Level 2! He was presented with a Prize (or was it just breakfast?) of 2 Oranges. Which he began to juggle to celebrate! (or show off that he could juggle)...

The Ceremony shots were done by a friend of mine, Jason Shum. Jason is an aspiring Photographer who had assisted me on a previous shoot of mine for Melissa & Steven.

Jason mainly does food Photography as he is a Chef, however he wanted to try his hand at Wedding Photography and he managed to capture some great shots.

After the Ceremony had finished, it was time to get back to work!

I went around the Church venue with Kang a few days before the Wedding to scope the surroundings. The Wedding was in September and the weather seemed pretty decent at the time, however when it came to the actual Wedding day, the weather was really poor. It was such a shame as no-one wants it to rain on their Wedding day, and it forced all of the Photos to be done inside the Church.

Seeing as the church only scheduled for us to be inside for the ceremony only, and everything else was to be outside, we unfortunately had to break the rules and stay behind a bit longer. Constantly getting nagged by the lady who was locking up saying that we had to leave, we begged and pleaded for more time, and she obviously really didn't want us to stay as she decided to turn off all the lights.

We rushed through as many shots as we could, and I had to set up two flash stands with shoot through umbrella's to illuminate the groups. The ceiling was way too high for my little Speedlights to keep flashing without burning out.

I decided to under expose the background just a touch, as I wanted to have a bit more separation on the group.

They had a large number of guests at the Wedding, and as always, I had to go for a large group shot and I just about managed to squeeze everyone in. At this point the Flashes wouldn't spread the light evenly enough, and over exposed on the edges a bit, and I had to go over with an adjustmen brush to increase the exposure for the guests in the middle/back, but I still feel the shot came out pretty good considering the time we had to get things done.

One of the last shots I could pull off before we decided to leave as the woman was really pushing us to go was a solo of the Bride. I love this shot as Vanessa's dress was very elegant, and with the help of the Bridesmaids they spreaded the dress out quite nicely, and Vanessa was so easy to make smile as she generally is a smiler.

We moved onto China Boulevard in Wandsworth/Battersea for the Chinese Tea Ceremony. The one thing that made me laugh about this Tea Ceremony was that everyone who had a sip of the tea, said the exact same thing... "Whoa that was sweet" lol

It just made me want to try it, but I had to focus on shooting. I decided to go for a very cinematic type look by shooting over the shoulder of either the Bride or Groom, to show the faces of the family memebers, of vice versa to show the faces of Vanessa and Kang. It was important to me to capture the individual emotions of the Bride, Groom and their Guests, rather than focusing on the image as an event of passing the cup of tea over.

Where I did try to capture everything, as a single shooter, I was unable to get the wide and close up shots together. But my focus was the emotions which related to that part of the ceremony whether it be laughter, smiles, or tears.

I just wanted to throw this shot in as I thought it was funny... she's shouting "Canada!" btw lol... She wanted recognition of her country within the father of the Bride's speech lol

We went outside for a few shots, but then the weather got too cold, so we found a spot and took some Portaits which really represented their personalities... they're both clowns! lol

They had their First Dance, which wasn't scheduled, and at this point, I was fairly drunk :S but I managed to get a few captures for them. It's mainly of the Groom's face, but I could've swore whilst I was shooting this dance, they were swaying in such a way so that she'd be hiding from me. Or I was just pretty drunk at this point and couldn't co-ordinate :S

Probably worth mentioning that at this point, I wasn't really planning on shooting as it was 'Guest' time lol...

I wanted to get a shot with Kang and his siblings as I have known this family my whole life, and trust Kang to ruin it! (even though I'm the one looking ugly, but it's due to Kang poking me in my side... This happens a lot and I never learn)