Sunday, October 31, 2010

I Do - A Japanese Wedding

Sometimes, all I want is pretty.
No deep thinking, no intense philosophies.
Just visual delight in the world around me.
That's the kind of head space I was in yesterday when I went out photographing.
No continuing visual themes - just snaps of whatever caught my attention
And so it was that I tagged this Japanese couple around Cathedral Square Japanese weddings are a common sight in Christchurch and I always enjoy watching the way they approach compiling their photographic record of the event. It often involves a team of half a dozen, as they rush about various (predictable) landmarks, arranging themselves in smiling poses, before moving on to the next. There's often a shallow, business-like quality to the whole business, as if they've read that this is how it's done in the West, so this is what must be done - preferably in record time with minimum fuss.
But if you hang about on the edges, you sometimes see small, poignant moments, subdued gestures of love, telling looks, the lean of one body into another. They're the moments many photographers, so caught up in the big event, the frenetic gallop between locations and the arrangement of silks and veils, seem to miss. Overt, public expressions of love of course, are not the Japanese way. But sometimes, a smile, a respectful bow, a shy kiss on the forehead say far more.

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