Maggie and Dieter's Wedding a.k.a. Mind your manners

third time's a charm, they say.

Maggie and Dieter's Wedding is the third wedding that i have taken since i started - Fourth, to be honest, but the ultra first one was Joe and Christine's. Never got around to posting those because i didnt know how to use my camera when i took those. i did give them a nice wedding present.

Maggie, is a photographer. Admittedly, i havent seen her work, but still. She will know what a good photo is when she sees one.

She asked me to come at her friend's apartment, Barbara, so i can take photos of her when she gets ready. I got there earlier than she did, so i took photos of her shoes and her other wedding paraphernalia.

among all the weddings ive attended here in the united states, this was the first one that had a church ceremony inside the church. when maggie emailed me all the "photography requirements" for grace church, which was more restrictive, i bailed on photographing while the ceremony was going on. of course, i couldnt refrain myself from taking photos so i took these.

and wished so hard for a very good telephoto lens when it took what felt like forever for the best man to give the bride and the groom the rings.

one of the most important lessons i have learned from taking wedding photos - is to always interact with guests. this is me practising what i preach... (and have had my camera doused with screwdrivers while i was at it)

and the effects, to me are just wonderful!

 

the strangest experience i got while photographing this wedding was when the "official" photographer told me off. he said that "i was making it hard for him to do his job". well, mr. photographer, that's not nice. so unprofessional. and he definitely made me feel so bad - but whatever. i didnt say anything to him, and the bride's sister heard him and soon told his husband - to which he started imitating him.

thank you, for setting the bad example that i shouldnt be following.

going back to the good stuff... 

dieter sang to maggie - and it was the sweetest thing. aaaaaw.

 

 

to maggie and dieter (and gypsy and sebastian), thank you.

the rest of the photos are here.

hello, edible queens blog!

as the exact opposite of my preparation to get my flabulous body into a wedding dress, i joined a food group.

joe di stefano, one of the members, asked if he could use these photos for his blog at the edible queens website. words by jenni miller, other photos by jeff orlick.

Interestingly enough, my photo of jeff and his photo make a cute diptych

Photo by Jeff Orlick



and here's the link!

one more lesson out of this activiy: TAKE PHOTOS SERIOUSLY, even if its just for yourself.

shooting is eating

"oh look she's taking a photo of the food!!" (thats not my hand, btw)

I have heard of this comment one too many times. For the most part, id say half of the people in this world think its just weird to take photos of your food before you eat it. I, for the reason of documentation take food pics and also because food is a pretty subject.

I have, without even looking for it, found a group of people who eat for learning about new cuisine. i stumbled upon Jeff through yelp.com and he invited me to a food ambassadors group, to which i quickly presented to ambassador Filipino food. I popped my food ambassador's cherry at M&T Restaurant in Flushing, Queens.

The food was good, and it had none of that heavy greasy feeling after you eat from "americanized" chinese food. i highly recommend the place. (but this is not a food blog.)

In any case, i had to do some extreme multitasking acrobatics by doing all of these at the same time:

a. meet new people
b. drink beer
c. taste new food
d. listen to a food ambassador explain what we were gonna eat
e. eat with chopsticks (its easy, but gets complicated when you are balancing a camera on your lap)
f. take photos

another stupid stunt i pulled out was to take the macro lens instead of my other lens which i dont know the name of. my photos have the smallest DOF, i cannot focus well because my macro lens is light hungrier than the rest of my lenses, and i was trying my bestest to not look too weird to a bunch of people that i am meeting for the first time.

thank god i decided against bringing a flash. that would have been too much to deal with. everyone would also probably think im weird, annoying and a showoff.

the rest of the photos are here . (hopefully i get descriptions soon)

a photo a day x 365

Some Flickr users have a 365 project. This project consists of taking one photo a day for the entire year. I heard about this last year, but when i did it was probably too late to start it.

that, and i have this extreme laziness to download images from my camera.


Shanna, one of my photography buddies told me she was going to do the 365 project around new year's day and since this year is my "transitional year" going from singlehood to being a missus, i decided about doing the same project for this year.

The thing about Shanna's 365, and some others - they do it also to learn new techniques and to explore the craft. As i have mentioned, i have the extreme laziness, so i decided to take photos as they are, unedited, uploaded straight from my cameraphone (unless its really too dark) and is captioned with my current stream of consciousness of the day.

this is photo #1, taken on new years eve/day.

i am liking my project so far, thanks to my android phone.