Wedding Portrait in a Japanese Shrine

A few months ago I was contacted by Will who inquired about hiring me to photograph his marriage to Asumi.

To be honest I kinda freaked a little.  Weddings, you see, scare me.  It's the high pressure, once-in-a-lifetime nature of them that does it.  Not only that, weddings are just not my forte.  I'm a portrait/fashion/lighting guy.  I've shot one for a friend, as a favor sort of thing.  But the idea of doing it for complete strangers is not for me.

So back to Will and Asumi.

Will is photographer himself and it turns out that we actually attended the same Strobist seminar a few years ago when David Hobby was in town.  The thing is, Will knew why he was contacting me -- even though I tried to tell him a couple times I probably wasn't the right guy.  He was actually looking for a portrait photographer (ok, that's me, I'm cool) to commemorate the occasion of his marriage to Asumi.  The ceremony was to take place at the Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America, a Shinto Shrine.

They only wanted three images: two group portraits (one with family and one with all the guests) and one of the two of them in the rural setting of the shrine.

Three images?  That's it?

Yep.

Really?

Yep.

Ok, I can handle that.

We discussed the details over coffee and basically they were handing all creative control to me.  They were hiring me mainly for the portrait of the two of them and to give them the Ogalthorpe look.  This really didn't help my tension much as I was hoping for a little direction.

The ceremony took place last Monday.  To be honest I was nervous up until I showed them the final images.  I'm confident in my ability to produce my own work but when it comes to something so meaningful to two people, I'm actually very concerned about delivering images in line with expectations -- theirs and mine.

The shot below, they said, is exactly what they were envisioning when they hired me.  I was so very pleased to have met their expectations so well.  I want to thank Will and Asumi for inviting me to be part of this particularly special day.

I also want to thank Jill Evans, for assisting me and doing a wonderful job.  If you need a capable assistant with a sharp eye drop Jill a line.