Ryo & Kahori

Alright, I know I have been slacking on the blogage lately, and I don't even have an excuse aside from the fact that I am avoiding everything electronic whenever I can. However, everyone needs to hear about this super cool Japanese wedding that I got to go to last Saturday :) Above are my friends Ryo and Kahori. Karhori's parents are my neighbors and they are seriously THE nicest people ever. I can't really explain it, but let me just say that they have made our stay here in Japan wonderful and my experience of living out in town awesome!

First, the day started with me taking a taxi to the wedding site with Yuuna (kahori's sister). We all waited in this room for everyone to arrive. They served hot water with salt and Sakura blossoms. It was oddly tasty and very cool looking. Although I must say if you drink it when it is no longer roasting hot the salt will kinda get to ya :)

Ryo and Kahori also waited with us in the room. I thought that was odd, but that is cause in America we do things quite differently... their Japanese wedding outfits were super cool!

Here is post ceremony. The ceremony was IN that shrine behind the family there. I will likely never have the opportunity to set foot in a shrine again. It was really cool. Sadly, no cameras were allowed, but I was soaking it up in hopes to never forget a thing. I felt like I was in a discovery channel show on Japanese weddings. It was very traditional. Someone playing the flute (I think) and a drum pounding (which I could see the reflection of in a glass and it just looked cool). This man singing something like you would hear in... I don't know what... an old cathedral or something. Then a lady doing some dance with some bells that looked kinda like Thai Chi. Sake for them. Sake for us. Clapping, bowing... it was COOL. And check out Mr. Cameraman below. I think that was a medium format (the rest of the time though he was using a Canon 5D).
Oh this guy... he was my favorite. He held this awesome umbrella over Ryo and Kahori as they walked and it looked SO stinkin' cool. If only I was able to get a pic of that. I was too far in the back though, and here he obviously did not hold it open :(

Kahori, surrounded by family and friends. She looked beautiful!
These girls made me laugh. They were so giggly and funny. All in her face dancing around chatting and making a big fuss over her. It was hilarious!

Me with them of course :) I feel like I look like Julie in these pictures... scary!
Cake cutting was the #1 thing they did. Kinda backwards for us Americans, but that's cool. I like different.
No smashing in the face. And after they fed each other the parents came and fed them. Ryo somehow always was fed a ridiculously huge bite though :)
The food... oh the food! It was AMAZING. 5 course meal. Best Ever. This was course #1. #2 was soup which I did not photograph, but was absolutely amazing!
Course #3 was fish and rice and I did not photograph that either but it looked and tasted equally amazing as the #4 course of steak!
#5... dessert. So great! I LOVE Kiwi. All of it was really really tasty.
They went around and lit the candles at all the tables and got a picture with all of us. The candles were super cool and sparkly for the first 30 seconds or so that they were lit.
See!?!
The light in this room was AMAZING! We had a view of the ocean and the whole wall was straight windows. A photographer's dream!
Love the light. LOVE it!
This is Christina. She grew up with them from about age 5-15. Her dad was Navy and at 15 she moved to Hawaii and so her gift to them was to perform this hula dance. She was also AMAZING. I have never seen a hula dance performed before, but it was really awesome. Very sweet and actually emotional. I looked over at Kahori and she was dabbing her eyes. It was really beautiful.
I don't know why, but I am pretty sure this is my favorite shot. They are just there. I think they thought I was just checking my settings (probably cause that is what I told them :) and definitely weren't ready for the shot and I LOVE it!
Me again... looking like Julie
The family! They all looked fantastic! Love the kimonos!
Shin (the father) is an awesome artist. He makes the coolest stuff out of wood and this is my absolute favorite sign I have ever seen (and I have been to a lot of weddings!).
He made this little display too. Very cute! Overall, it was a really awesome experience and I am so happy that I was able to be a part of it. Not only that I was able to go, but that they invited me! I felt quite special as it was not an enormous wedding. It was weird cause I didn't know what people were saying, but the girls I sat with did speak English so that was nice. Though, I hope I did not offend the groom's mom when she came to pour me beer and I had NO idea what she was saying and probably did not respond as I was "supposed to". I didn't know that the parents were coming around to pour beer. Had Shin and Hiromi come to my table first I may have caught on, but at the moment, I didn't even realize that it was Ryo's mom! I was looking for help from my Japanese English speakers, but they were in a conversation... All was fine though. The best word to describe the whole wedding... ELEGANT. Everything was perfectly elegant. A great experience indeed!

Spring Portrait Party!

I am having another family portrait day! Saturday, May 1st Jenn Webber and I will be throwing a Spring Portrait Party at Kannonzaki Park. There will be twelve 25 minute sessions available between 8am and 5pm. Jenn Webber will be providing something to drink and a nice treat to walk away with. This is a great opportunity to get some nice family portraits done before it warms up (and also right before Mother's Day)! Kannonzaki Park is a beautiful location for pictures (the photo above was taken there) and it is a fun park to explore! Please contact me if you would like to schedule a session!

Dance Pictures!

So, this is what I was up to yesterday afternoon. I photographed a bunch of the dance classes that are at the Community center here on base. These kidlets were the first group and they were SO cute! All these little animals and one farmer Jon :) It was kinda crazy with people everywhere for a bit, but everything went well and we got a lot done. There is a recital at the end of May that I will be at to photograph all the other classes.

One thing I learned last night... I do after all like the strobe lights that I bought in the fall. Apparently they work much better when they are plugged into American electricity... yeeeeeaaaaah, I have two lights, HAD two lights. One of them exploded after about 3 shoots. I sent it back to get fixed and a new one is on the way. So last night I made do with one light and it all worked out. It AMAZES me though how fast the recharge was with American electricity! It was crazy folks, really. So, with that, I plan to avoid using my lighting at home from here on out which shouldn't be too hard cause I love the window light at home anyway :)

Spring

It is spring. The blossoms have come and gone and we are in the lovely changes of cold and rainy one day and warm and sunny the next. I find it funny that so many people complain about spring weather... "What is up with this weather lately! It is so weird! Japan weather is crazy..." On and on and on. In what country/world/village are these people from that they did not experience a normal spring? It is not Japan, it's called spring. There is a lot of the world that I have not seen, so maybe I am wrong, but as far as I know spring is this way pretty much everywhere except Southern California. but even there, it happens, it is just on a much smaller scale. Don't worry, I kindly take every opportunity to enlighten people about the reality of spring :)

I have been taking lots of pictures lately for fun. I haven't really had time to go through them, but I have at least been taking them. I figure since we are leaving soon I should really document more cause I have not done enough. Above is a Sakura tree in Kamakura, and below is a tree right in front of my house.

Shugo impatiently waiting for me to take pictures of flowers on the side of the road...
Below is the neighborhood I live in. There is a orange-ish pink (maybe salmon) colored house in the middle and it's a cafe right next to our house. Our house is the one with the green roof right next door.It's a nice little "country" area. Not country to me, but country to the Japanese. It is a pretty area though and there are some really nice hiking trails nearby.

Oh puppies... I didn't get a puppy, but I still want one. It was for the better though cause I have been too busy lately. My plan is that upon our return to the states we will get a new puppy. A French Mastiff puppy. Only because they are the cutest things ever! One problem though... I am wondering if our military life is really suitable for multiple animals. And multiple LARGE animals at that. We will be going to Florida next and will be there less than one year. How easy is it to have two large dogs and be moving every 2-3 years? What if we go overseas again? I am sure life would be easier without puppy #2, but who wants an easy life? Easy life = boring life. Right? Right. I don't know... any of you military people have any opinions about animals?

For now Shugo is doing a dandy job keeping me company. When Brian is home he is a little more whiny cause he expects more attention when there are two of us. But when Brian is gone he is very mellow (maybe depressed...) and sticks by my side the whole time (unless I am on the computer). Last night though he was extra sweet and sat in the room with my while I worked on the computer and he sat at my feet while I practiced piano. He woke me up twice last night growling into the night though. Not fun. He may have been seeing things cause I saw nothing. Or maybe the stranger out there was scared away by his growling (I had the sliding door open). Shugo is my bodyguard and he knows it. I like it just being the two of us, but I think that soon enough we will have to make an addition. If I don't have a new dog within 6 months you can assume we just won't be getting one. So look forward to meeting our new pup. He's out there somewhere, or maybe not. Maybe he is just a twinkle in some dog's eye at this point...

Audra and James

Look at how cute they are! This is my friend Audra and her husband James. Audra used to walk Shugo for me until she got a job. She was the first person that I had walk him that was able to do it consistently and she was SO dependable it was quite lovely. I was a little worried that we were going to get rained out, but it turned out that we had PERFECT weather. My favorite weather conditions is cloudy with a little bit of sun poking through. And that is what we had! It was great! I photograph SO many people at Mikasa Park and Ikego campgrounds, it was REALLY really nice to do something different with them. On our way out to a park near my house we stopped at this super cool wall that I have always wanted to photograph someone on. I just really like the color and it has so much character. So not only were Audra and James super cute to photograph, but I was able to go to a couple places that I have never photographed anyone at before and it was SO nice. So thanks Audra for wanting something different :) The shot below just proves how fun they were!


I think the shot below is my favorite.



We found an awesome blossom tree! It was... well... awesome! Ha!

Stacy and Ayana

On Saturday I photographed Stacy and her daughter Ayana. Ayana was super cute and absolutely loved the camera! Lots and lots of energy, but when you love the camera as much as she does it makes my job pretty easy :) Yay for that! I was worried it might rain, but we lucked out with nice overcast skies. They were so stinkin' cute together!



How sweet is that picture below? I love it!
I am telling you, Ayana really loved the camera!

The Gaskins Girls

Meet Andrea, Lauren, and Kathryn. It is their last year here in Japan and they really wanted pictures with the cherry blossoms. So what better way than to have them climb in the cherry blossom tree. The shoot was great. We had AWESOME weather, but there was one horrible thing that happened. At our last location (the one you see here) I had to switch cards. Somehow between pulling the used card out of the camera and the unused card out of my pocket, I got mixed up and put the SAME card back in! I didn't notice. I didn't check. I immediately formatted the card. When I got home I downloaded the two cards I thought I used. One of them downloaded images from the Hathorn shoot on Saturday. I immediately knew something was wrong. I checked all my cards in camera and computer and saw that I was missing all the images from the first half of our shoot. Crap! I thought maybe my camera had some horrible glitch, but then looking at the image numbers it was clear that 350-ish pictures were taken, but there was no sign of them meaning only one thing. I had put the same card in twice. HORRIBLE.

It was probably the most embarrassing email I ever had to send. The ONLY reason for them getting pictures was the cherry blossoms. The shoot was Tuesday, and Andrea is leaving town today (Thursday). We planned to redo it yesterday, but of course it was raining. And today it is sunny. Why.

At least though we have these images! I am happy with them, but I know there was another spot we were at that was so much cooler. It's ok though. We got some awesome ones below! Gotta love the blossoms!





I love the shot below. They were all just waiting for me to say go. So cute!