It is always a great pleasure to shoot destination weddings in different countries of different cultures. The weddings in China have a completely different schedule setup compared to the ones in the US, which normally started very early in the morning (some even before the sunrise) and ends early in the afternoon (in my case, the wedding ended with the grand lunch). During my trip to China in 2016, I was kindly invited by two of my great Chinese wedding photographer friends, Leslie and Freeman, who worked as a team in Qingdao, Shandong Province and shot over a hundred weddings a year. I was always curious about how the western photojournalistic style worked in a traditional Chinese wedding, so I accepted the invitation and joined them for two weddings in the weekend straight in a row. Frankly speaking, I was more than excited to see how these guys shot and interacted with the couples as well as their families and guests on spot, at the same time I tried to observe and feel the essence of capturing the moments in these characteristic weddings. Yes, Chinese couples were expecting a lot of posed portraits and faked moments captured by the camera, however making them ignoring you and your camera was not that difficult in the end as far as I could notice. With so many guests and family members packed in a small hotel room, and with 3~5 video photographers and 2 other wedding photographers standing there, you were easily invisible by the couple and others. And then when the moments came, you could go ahead and click the shutter without anybody's notice.
So here comes a few of my favorite frames taken in this typical joyful Chinese wedding by my portable Leica M9 + Summarit-M 35 f/2.5 and Nikon D750 + Nikkor 85 f/1.8G. Special thanks to Leslie and Freeman of Storyteller Photography for their kind invitation and treatment in this wedding. Enjoy! ~~~
