Photography: The Proposal aka OPRIBY

(Refer to NZ’s post titled The Proposal)

It all began somewhere in May, when I came across this unbelievably well-shot proposal by Shay Stephens on the digital grin forums. In case you were wondering, the photographs are not available because ..

Quoted from Shay Stephens’ website: “Our server is undergoing remodeling, and the website is currently constrained to one page. If you were looking to browse images, I have to apologize as they are currently not available for browsing.”

Dang.

The pictures really are fantastic though, here’s one I managed to unveil courtesy of kiss me daily.

Fantastic isn’t it?

-~-

Sidetrack: related articles on proposal photography:
NY Times – Will You Marry Me? Say Cheese!
shoppingblog.com – Marriage Proposals Gone Wild

-~-

That same week, NZ and I began tossing around the idea of actually doing something like that for his own proposal.

K: http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=60134

NZ: wow… super nice. not possible in sg tho… coz too many people in the way

K: hahahah arrange la. do when u come ;p

NZ: hmm… think abt it lah. where u think is a good place to do it? i think i may need to find some extra cash to buy the ring…

K: scratches head. scenic spot? eh i noe, how bout during the ski trip.

NZ: st kilda? oh… also can but there… hmm…

K: the photog would be a prob though; st kilda would be easier

NZ: hmm… maybe u and nic can find some good spots for us lol

K: maybe time to find a photog in aus and do the job ;p

And with that, I dropped an email off to the first person I could think of; Chandra, a friend from the Monash Photography Club (MPC).

BTW, would you (or other people at MPC) be interested in helping out to do a photography shoot for my friend’s wedding proposal? He’s coming over in mid July, and planning to propose to his girlfriend over at St Kilda : ) Inspiration would be something like that, minus the rain bit ;p

http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=60134

Let me know again if you’re interested, and we’ll talk out the pricing bit : )

He was pretty fine with the idea, as it turned out.

yea, done easy. gimme a date. Can organise for a couple of guys with long lenses to be setup out of site and get a few paparazzi style photos without her knowing, then we can come in later, say hi, and take some posed photos. that sort of thing yea?

Chans

Everything went on from there. I did a location scout with Chandra in late June, and came up with the plan. The idea was to:

• Have lunch over at Beachcomber Restaurant (I preferred Topolinos actually, but it was too far from the beach to make the plan workable)
• Confirm with Chandra via SMS that he was in position at the pier
• Inform Chandra on the clothes that NZ and MS wore; he had never seen them before after all.
• Let NZ and MS walk along the beach, NZ to do his stuff and period.

It was a pretty simple plan, but I was gnawing my fingernails over the probability of bad weather. Chandra mentioned that he would shoot regardless of the weather, but no normal girl would agree to walking along the beach on a blustery rainy day with howling winds (least I don’t know of any that do!)

In short, we were screwed if it rained. I hate it when things are out of my control.

The so-called briefing of the actual day plan: map and instructions all in a single package. NZ did not have time to fly down for a rehearsal, so I had to make do with this.

LS had just touched down on that same morning, and was unmercifully hauled off to St Kilda for the scout, thanks to her for being the stand-in model. If you look at the photographs, you can make out Cookie (shivering!) sticking out of the bag I carried.

Everything stayed the same way until the day of execution.

So..

We had lunch at Beachcomber’s, as planned.

ZM’s fishbone picture.

The weather was perfect; sunny and not too cold. And they were off for the walk.

The moment of truth.

“Get up!”

“Dowan paisay la, GET UP!!”

But she did agree in the end, on that fateful day at the beach by the sea. With the seagulls, the bright blue waves and the 400mm lens zooming from the pier. (Not to mention three other digicams taking separate perspectives of the event).

And of course, the happy looks.

The ring on that finger at long last.

We met up with Chandra after that, and did several posed shots at the pier.

Helpful photographer #1: ZM

Helpful photographer #2: Nick

My camera was in the pocket more than 1/2 of the time during the event because I was carrying Chandra’s backpack + MS’s handbag; very very depressing to be reduced to a mere porter.

So I took this to cheer myself up.

A romantic kiss by the setting sun.

And all’s well that ends well. I’m looking forward to their wedding next year!

---

Tags: beach, Photography, proposal, shenando, St Kilda

You might be interested reading in these posts:

• St Kilda revisited
• Friends over in Melbourne: July edition (or better known as NZ and MS’s trip here) #4 – keinday, St Kilda
• St Kilda