the tausog girl

Last year, I met Noreen, the mother of Fatima - one of the contestant in Bb Pilipinas-KSA, and she asked for my service to cover the wedding of her niece. The wedding is actually today - Friday.

Just like what I do in Singapore, every time I have a wedding photography coverage, I make sure that I wake up early to give me ample time to prepare my gears and to make sure that I arrive on the site ahead of everyone. Today was no exception. I arrived on the venue at around 8:30am and ... waited for 2 and half hours before the couple arrived. Gee.. I would almost walked out because they informed me that the wedding would start at 9am. Tsk.. tsk.. tsk... I missed the punctuality of the Singaporeans.

11:30 am

Again, I was inside the reception hall waiting for the first part to start - the Muslim Rites. But no one was there. All I could see was errand boys fixing the place for the reception, and none from the couple or family. In my frustration, I went out and headed towards the ladies dressing room. I know they would kill me for this because I breach the protocol of entering the ladies area but.. I need to know exactly when the wedding starts and how it will be performed. No one answered my queries and upon realizing this wedding is ill prepared, I draw my attention away from the couple and starts shooting with the guest and the entourage.

Call it a blessing in disguise. I actually enjoyed shooting with the bridesmaids and sponsors with their wonderful traditional Tausog clothes. And of all the ladies that I shoot, I was particularly interested with this beautiful Tausog girl named Shameem. For the first time, I saw an unadulterated beauty of a pure Muslim Filipina. Of course, I asked her to pose for me but she politely refused saying it is forbidden in their religion. I didn't take that no for an answer. So I took Ate Noreen to "coerce" the girl to pose for me which she managed to convince but on the condition that I can only take 1 picture.

Hah! 1 picture? She's crazy!!! But I agreed, somehow. Now how can you pretend that you only are only taking 1 picture? hehehe.. simple.. turn off the flash.

I took Shameem on a bronze door and asked her to strike some pose. I have literally showed her how to do it, and then told her that we may need to test several pose to make sure we get the best one. I explained that I have to view her from behind the camera to check if it is alright. For her to know that I
have taken the shot, she would see a flash, then she could go away. Hehehe.. Is she naive to believe me? Hehehe... well, that's how convincing I am.

I didn't tell her that I have taken several shots during the test pose. I only set the flash gun trigger after I got what I wanted. The result? Hehehe.... a dozen beautiful pictures! Here's one of her pix.

You may not agree with me, but I like her beauty - natural and pure Pinay.