Destination shoots in historic places around the world are amazing, but sometimes, I tend to forget that I need not to go too far to be part of weddings that are in most ways as amazing as in any other part of the world. “Not too far” may be subjective and likely to many the twelve-hour drive to the region of Ilocos in the northern part of the Philippines may seem far enough, but for me it is still home and I’m totally captivated by the beauty we have here.

So yes, today we’re featuring the wedding of Mija and Marty. Both hail from the Ilocos region, Mija from Ilocos Sur and Marty from Ilocos Norte and both are wonderful individuals. Now their wedding are totally different from many of the weddings we share here. For starters, this is the first time we’re shooting a wedding in the resplendent and most-chronicled Paoay Church. The place is spectacular and to shoot an actual wedding there is a dream-come-true. The venue of the reception party is as splendid because Mija and Marty actually finished building a resort, the Monte Costa, just in time for the wedding. So you see, there are a lot of must-see things from this wedding.

Speaking of must-see things, you should also notice that we shot the portrait session in Ilocos’ famed sand dunes. So from the church to the resort and up to the sand dunes, I hope this post provides you with enough new things to see and inspire you on this new week. :) Enjoy.

Supplier Line-up:
Coordination: Rita Neri Event Planners
Wedding Gown: Francis Libiran
Caterer: Bizu
Emcee: RJ Ledesma
Cake: Penk Ching

While this pre-wedding shoot of Fennie and Halim is not my first in Beijing, it is still many of firsts for me. After all it has been a good three years since I last visited the Capital of China, and back then, we shot a pre-wedding shoot nowhere else but on the Great Wall of China.

This time, even though I wanted to, we decided that we will not shoot on the Great Wall of China, and instead explore the other parts and locations in Beijing. I got a good tip from one of my grooms to check out the Temple of Heaven and that turned out to be just amazing. Fennie and Halim also fielded their preferences to shoot at the back alleys of Beijing, a spot just outside the forbidden city, as well as at the National Center for Performing Arts. It was a very good mix of the old and new and we contrasted that with a combination of daylight and nightlight set-ups.

Now all those locations were a first for me, but those were just a few of the many firsts that I mentioned. Fennie and Halim were also my first Indonesian couple. I know it’s easy to assume that they are Chinese, which they are but of Indonesian nationality – and it is in Beijing where they met, fell in love and decided to stay together forever thus there wasn’t a place more fitting to have their pre-wedding photos shot. Aside from that, Halim is also the first person I personally know that is a Chinese Herbal Doctor. Seriously, that may seem peculiar to some (and even to me at first) but it is very fascinating. Halim took me to the biggest store that sells Chinese medicine and it was insane, he tried to explain to me what the items there do to you and I swear, I was like a kid in a museum and I couldn’t get enough of it. It is some of the most interesting stuff I’ve ever heard.

I hope you also fancy some traditional Chinese theatrical make-up because I loved Fennie’s idea of putting them on for their first look and it turned-out really beautiful.

Overall, because of the very tight schedule, I only stayed in Beijing for a total of 36 hours. Despite this, I felt I’ve learned and accomplished more than a week’s worth of things. Thanks to Fennie and Halim who wanted nothing but the best for their pre-wedding photos.

As a side note to this already wordy post, I was forced to travel to China alone for this shoot and it was a bit daunting. Everything of course went more than great and aside from the huge preparation that Fennie and Halim did, I owe a huge thank you to Siane who helped me throughout the shoot. I couldn’t have had a better shooting partner that day :)

So enjoy the photos, it’s not always you see pre-wedding photos from beijing as unique and and as beautiful as these. :)

Here is the second part of the photos from our wonderful pre-wedding photoshoot in Paris with Paula and Karim. In the first installation of this one-of-a-kind set, we featured the shot from the Louvre Museum and the evening shots with the Eiffel Tower, today we share with you the those shots from the Palais Garnier (which is the Paris opera house) and the more heart-warming shots around the Eiffel Tower.

Needless to say, because of how easy it was to work with Paula and Karim and how such a metrophoto couple they are, we were able to create something that’s really special, really unique, and still with all the love and with all of Paris written throughout the photographs. We’re all very happy not only with the engagement session pictures but also with the experience that came with it.

I hope you enjoy the second part of this series and appreciate love in Paris in a truly different perspective.

I have shot in the world’s most popular metropolis – New York City, London, San Francisco, Hongkong, Seoul, etc., and they are my very favorite locations to shoot because they are modern, cosmopolitan, and full-of-life. But I must admit that the idea of shooting in Paris gave me butterflies in my stomach, because no matter where I’ve been and how popular those cities were, Paris is still the city of love, and one of the most photographed at that. So the challenge really wasn’t to show love, which would be fairly straight-forward, it was the opportunity to show love in Paris in a different perspective, in a way that would be different to what people would instantly expect from a prewedding shoot in Paris.

So armed with nothing but the desire to shoot beautifully in Paris AND a very good shooting tip that I got from one of my awesome wedding photographer friends form Singapore, we went on and shot Pau and Karim’s e-session in the most well-liked spots in the city. And what I found out was that there was absolutely NOTHING to worry about and absolutely EVERYTHING to love about Paris. The city uplifts you, embraces you, and consumes you.

We shot throughout the day and I just loved the diversity of photographs that we got, thus I decided to split the posts so the viewers can appreciate and feel the photos more. Today we’re featuring Pau and Karim’s prewedding photos from the Louvre Museum and the evening shots with the Eiffel Tower.

So please enjoy the photos and do watch out for the second part of the feature tomorrow :)

Every time I post a feature here, I try to be concise with what I write – making sure that I just pick out the most interesting and meaningful things to say so as not to put off readers and make them skip the write-up altogether. Because write-ups are important, we purposely always say something about a particular shoot because it elevates the visiting and viewing experience a notch higher. The odd thing about today’s post is that it is very hard to summarize everything I wanted to say, there are interesting stories about the flight, the people I was with, the location, the food, the big and little things we did there, and so much more. What I’ll do is cover what I can while of course focusing on Amanda and Chris, which is what this should really be about.

Amanda and Chris are God’s gift to me, and really I’m not just saying it because for other photographers, it may not be so true. See, their values of excellence, of looking at the bright side of things, of asking ‘why not’ instead of ‘why’, and of putting other people’s feelings in great consideration are very much inline with the values we practice in Metrophoto. It is like if someone will form a team for Mission Impossible: Engagement-session Edition, the three of us will be the pioneering members.

Amanda and Chris are based in Bohol. They actually own the stunning Peacock Garden Luxury Resort and Spa in Baclayon, so we flew there for a few days to enjoy the resort and have the e-session shoot. I can still vividly remember one of the first things that Amanda and Chris told me while we were inside the car surveying the area. They said, “Oly we chose you to photograph us because we really love your style, we believe that the way you conceptualize and compose your shots are not like any other and they are a good representation of who we really are. So we don’t want to limit you in any way, just look around and let us know anything, as in anything, you want to happen and we’ll make it happen. We want the shoot to be without limits and our only request is to have a shot at the roof and with our cats.” I may have exaggerated that a bit, hahaha but seriously, that’s how I remember it. I was so glad to hear that (who wouldn’t be) and so excited to have shoot. While it wasn’t the first time someone had told me to do what I want for the sake of the shoot, here in Bohol, we had a whole town of resources at our disposal.

So just like a child who can have everything, I set my mind on what we could possibly do. As a limiting factor we decided to shoot within the area of the resort so it wouldn’t be the typical Bohol sceneries. First concept was at the pond (more like a huge puddle) I found while we were driving around the hacienda. The place was murky and looked treacherous but I thought it would look nice to have a swing hanging from the tree and have them sit on that swing. I thought the was far-fetched because of the time constraint and the difficulty of the task, but I still asked anyway. After all, they told me to just ask. So I told Chris if that’s possible just a couple of hours before we were set to shoot there and he just said: “ok i’ll talk to my foreman and will let you know”. He asked me how big I wanted the swing to be, how it will look like, what color, etc. and after five minutes he goes, “ok it will be there after we have lunch”. You can just imagine the look on my face (very happy and dumbfounded at the same time).

Second concept, that shot at the roof that Amanda and Chris requested. They wanted this because it was in the very roof of this house that they spent time watching the sunset during the first times they were together, it had a deep meaning to them. Now I’ve done shots on top of a roof before, quite frequently actually and this seemed rather easy and common. So I thought maybe we could again make the shoot a little more unusual by asking to bring a couch on top of the roof as part of the concept despite the fact that I have no idea how that will be possible given how high the house is and how huge and delicate the couch is. But Chris said ok. Really he just said ok and asked which couch I wanted, like I was just asking for a cup of water. Somehow they covered the couch with a big sack so it wont get damaged and use an improvised crane to lift it up – it was awesome :)

Now I was two out of two in my impossible requests. And I have a third one, definitely the hardest to pull-off but also definitely the most important concept of all. While we were on a buggy tour during the first day, we passed by a flooded rice field where bare Mahogany trunks stood up at the center. It was far-off and seemed inaccessible but it was beautiful. I thought that if I can get a couple of small boats to go there and have Amanda and Chris to be there as well, it would be the knockout shoot that completes this series – the idea being inspired when I remember scenes from the movie The Notebook. So I asked Chris once again. If you think he said yes right away you’re wrong. Because he asked me first the actual size and the kind and the color of the boat before he did. hahaha. Seriously, it took a while to know if this was attainable. Since the spot was a flooded rice-field, there weren’t really boats nearby, the boats will have to come from the beach which were kilometers away AND through a road only buggies can traverse easily. They also had to paint the boat rustic brown and remove the outrigger. For someone who’s a little used to doing some crazy things, even this made me raise my eyebrows. But there was no turning back, and I was determined to put my vision into reality, and that’s what we did. With the help of 11 people, a van, a truck, two boats, a raft and a paddle-board we did it. We got lost finding the place again and didn’t catch the morning sunlight but we still nailed it.

People who are reading this can interpret what we did in different ways. That maybe this was a little too much for a shoot and that maybe beautiful photos can still be achieved even without going through all of these. But isn’t what we went through made the very experience so much more memorable and unique? That if it weren’t for all of those, there will be no numerous paragraphs that precedes this that tells an interesting story that is unique to Amanda and Chris? That the photos, no matter what happens, will be one-of-a-kind and they will be proud to call their own? That the experience will be special it will make their whole wedding adventure simply more gratifying? I don’t know about you but like I said, just like Amanda and Chris, who is a true-blooded Metrophoto couple, we always look at the bright side of things.

Enjoy the photos, and special thanks to Madella and Steve of the Make-up Studio for dollying-up Amanda, to Ernest and Ria Pascual for helping coordinate the shoot, to Mimi and Karl for the paddle-board lessons and paddle-board assistance, to the Peacock Garden Resort crew whose craftsmanship and the willingness to help made all these happen, to Veluz for her priceless inputs and most definitely to Chris and Amanda whose great love for each other had inspired the seemingly impossible to be possible. :)