Life’s been a bit of a global whirlwind this year, I’m just glad to be back home in Singapore right now, have the Sunday to myself and some time to write! Minus the heat and construction, everything is beautiful.
Pulled through an intensive string of near-daily photo shoots last month. It was one pre-wedding after another as clients rushed to have their albums taken before their year-end weddings. I developed more wrists muscles and finger veins with that workload, but tried to keep as healthy a routine as possible to cope. Although in reality, it’s been odd hours awake and a restless mind (constantly in editing mode) trying to get to sleep… until I was forcibly taken away from the computer for a week’s off, and to compensate for all the continuous days I’d been working.
I was due to do Edmund and GIna’s pre-wedding shoot in Munich, so Mad and I decided to meet a week earlier to soak in the nature in Bavaria. I arrived in rainy Munich, starry-eyed from a lack of sleep (got upgraded to business class on Emirates and couldn’t pass up the chance to watch movies on their big screens. ENjoyed Karate Kid ALOT!). We managed to check out the Altstadt (old town) where part of the shoot had been planned, before leaving the city for the National Park. We did a hike, only to realise how much more proper gear we needed to bring next time, and also did a few recces around lakes before my clients arrived for the shoot.
Mad drove me to Salzburg in Austria to fulfil my “Sound of music” fantasies. The city is just gorgeous, we vowed to return in the winter when it’s all white. A day was spent in Innsbruck, and another around Neuschwanstein, Germany’s fairytale castle, before heading back to Munich to meet my clients for two days of shoot.
Then it was off to on a train ride to Berlin for a lot of other work. Tried to keep awake as much as possible because I’d wanted to see more of Bavaria from the window.
A week later I got myself on a pre-dawn flight to London, wanting to squeeze in some shopping before shooting Kenneth and Christine’s wedding the next day. Managed to meet up with Rydwan for breakfast. Good ol’ Ryd gave me a treat. As it was too early for check-in, I’d left my luggage at Victoria station but lugged all 15kgs of camera gear in my backpack, shopping in London for hours with it. Found a second-hand store and bought a pre-owned ivory wedding dress for something like 49pounds, excellent workmanship, straight classic no frills cut. It’s finders keepers, who knows I may wear it.
Then the next day, shot the wedding. Was very, very exciting. I cried as they said their vows. Christine made me take home a jar of her home-made cookies which were YUMMY. I was extremely exhausted by the end of the day, left the wedding, and for some reason decided to take a walk. Reflected on the witnessing of Kenneth and Christine’s wedding, it was such a day that touched my heart. With my backpack and some very sore feet, I walked and walked and ended up at Picadilly Circus among crowds of theatre goers. Then ..ok .. might as well walk back to the hotel. It took another 45 mins probably. I crashed in bed, woke the next day, packed and rushed to Gatwick airport where I would embark on a London-Munich-Dubai-Singapore. Flight delays all round..Too much airline food.
Two sunsets and one sunrise later, I was back in Singapore, lost in translation and time zones. What happened there? Plastic watch read London time, metal watch read Berlin time. Luckily my iphone automatically updates itself to Singapore time.
Rushed to buy a copy of Her World magazine after hearing from Dylan, the lifestyle editor, that my article and pictures of Tasmania have been published as a 6-page travel feature. Super. Happy!
Then, another string of four shoots plus one day for adminstration, and I was off to Adelaide for Stanley and Suyin’s pre-wedding shoot. They are such a wonderful couple we got to hang out together, they took me to all the popular eats in town, hung out after the shoots with their friends, and also managed to squeeze in shopping hours when Suyin did hers. Got four bags of different mushrooms for mum from Adelaide’s fabulous Central market, a bottle of trutti frutti extra virgin Olive oil from the Adelaide Hills for myself, and a tub of Australian crunchy raw meadow honey. Mum cooked a bag of the mushrooms immediately after I’d passed them to her!
On the flight back to Singapore, the views from the plane window were just gorgeouss, passing through South Australian beaches, crystal clear sea and the great red Aussie outback. There were 3 babies in my section and the Qantas stewards really took to nannying them. I’m impressed.
Glad to be grounded for now. There’s a queue of edits waiting to be done. But wait, this IS the best part, watching the pictures get ‘completed’ in the way I’d envisioned.
Exhausted? Yes. But there’s so much more to see and do. I’d work so hard for this and wouldn’t trade anything else in the world for all the beauty and experiences the camera has given me.
Travelling and photography are main pursuits life. Surely, this is basking in a good dose.
Maslin beach – one of our shoot locations at Mclaren Vale.
After the beach shoot, sneaked in this shot of three men fishing. They’d arrived in a rugged jeep the same time we got to the beach. While we were taking pre-wedding pictures, they had caught a really huge fish. Just watching them and hearing their jolly laughters from a distance gives such a beautiful feeling.
A self-portrait against our rented van in Adelaide.
by mtan2
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