aliaa & amir

Aliaa, a JPA friend of mine asked if I could do some 'engagement shots' for her and her fiancee a last week.

The cloudy and rainy weather was prevailing in Melbourne for the whole week, so all I could do was to pray that it wouldn't rain that day. Fortunately it didn't :)

Another dilemma was not having Kim to have around for this photo session. I sent her to Michaels for sensor cleaning. I noticed quite a few specks on her when i didn't a blank wall test. Oh well, sometimes things happen, and for good measure, my trusty 510 was used for the job.

As usual, I brought out the leica 14-50, 35-100 and the FL 50 for the job in my 200 AW.

One thing that I disliked was that the 35-100 could not focus on the 510, probably due to a lack of AF points, even though i was only using 1 AF point. This is also compounded by the 510's "tunnel-like" viewfinder. So some of the shots were out of focus, unfortunately.

And now on to the pics..

I've been trying to set the white balance manually to get the right skin tone, especially since 510 uses cooler white balance settings that i'd usually prefer. Of course, it all can be corrected in Lightroom since I shoot RAW anyway, but i'd rather get things right in-camera.


A short stop at Union Lane. I guess Aliaa's a little too underexposed since she's in the lane's shadow area.


They stopped to look at some rings in Royal Arcade, so I asked them to be natural with each other and assume that I wasn't there so I could get some impromptu shots. It works, to an extent. Just remember to get the more formal and posed shots done and not be too carried away in the process.

I did a white balance correction here to remove the ugly yellow tint from the flourescent lights.



The candy shop has never failed to amaze me with all the colourful looking candies in glass bottles.


We tried a 'titanic' pose here. Probably the 7-14 would have helped more for this shot.


Even the most loving couples sometimes find themselves hard to express their affection publicly, so its my job as a photographer to ensure that they are feeling as comfortable (mentally) as possible during the photoshoot.


Stopping by the German pancake stall. I used some bounce flash here to supplement ambient light. Hmm.. perhaps we should've stopped for some pancakes first.



Tried to capture their expressions discretely as we waited for the City circle tram to take us to Treasury Gardens.



I whipped out the 35-100, whuch to my dismay misfocussed and made me lose some valuable shots. Oh well.. a lesson learnt here.


I should've perhaps stood back a little and capture more of the surrounding environment.


Walking down 'memory lane'


Alia told me that both of them have a 'secret' dream to be models in a photoshoot. I just hope that I've made their dream come true :)

Laters.