Just Because: Trish and Joel

"I carry your heart" by E. E. Cummings.
Probably my favourite poem in the world.

Meet Trish + Joel.
Thank you for your beautiful faces that gorgeous afternoon, across a random patch of backyard in the hood we both grew up :)

Friends: Just Because

These past couple of weeks have been MAD. Like M.A.D. With capital letters. And exclamation marks. 

Shoots have been running wild, dotting my schedule more frequently than the spots on a leopard. And the weather has been CRAZY?! It has totally been spinning my weeks haywire. So I am officially apologizing profusely if my posts have been erratic, if shoots have been moved around, if my emails have been even more topsy turvy (ALL will be replied by end of wednesday), and for anything else that has been out of the norm. The crazy will subside in the not too distant future, so hang in there with me :)

Anyhow, the weather hasn't been entire cruel :) God recently opened the skies long enough so we could take a little trip out of the busy in the city, and into the tranquility of autumn in its all its splendour for what I love to call a "Just Because" session. You know, because I am a HUGE believer that you should never need a special reason to take photos. Life is amazing in itself, and to be able to document it, document you at various points along its colourful spectrum is reason enough...

So several months ago, Jo and all her friends write in to me, to ask if they could get their shots taken. And instead of settling just for a 'typical' headshot session, I asked the girls if they were up for doing it JSP style - that is, with a slight fashion twist. Because, seriously, as a girl myself I think we girls don't have enough opportunities to feel and look fabulous. To feel beautiful. To dress up and look gorgeous. And what better opportunity to express your fabulousness than in a "Just Because" session right?

So I asked the girls to get their hair and makeup done, and then put together 2 outfits each (one dressy outfit, and one funky casual outfit) which expressed their style and personalities. Our aim was something feminine, romantic, with a touch of vintage. I couldn't love them more for listening to my advice, and for having such fabulous taste, because here is what ended up in the camera:

Here is Edith, all gorgeous in the yummy light we had! :) I LOVED her hairpiece... actually, I loved ALL of the girls' hairpieces. Vintage hairpieces with feathers, lace, and the like are all the rage in the fashion scene at the moment I'm so glad they took on my advice and brought some along! :D

Meet Grace :)

And here is Jo!

Here is Jenny (on the left), and Lucy (on the right) who showed us this gorgeous place :)

The girls opted to do their make up on the day (which I LOVE!! Make up done right just brings out everything that is already beautiful about a girl's face! And just looks awesome in photos!!). The make up was done by the fabulous Lauren Leffler, who I think did an AWESOME job on the girls. 

I believe EVERY girl deserves to have a beautiful photo of themselves. 

This is why Autumn is my favourite season of the year... the light gets softer, and the colours that start to come out are just stunning. 

One last one for the two sisters :) I hope I get a cool shot with my sister one day!!


Thank you so much girls for a fabulous afternoon! It was perfect and I had the BEST time :D I hope these images made you smile as much as they made me smile :)

Alia and Johan: Just Because

Mark Twain once wrote: "Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century". It pointed my understanding that love should grow, deepen, and feel more as time soldiers past us. Sadly, in reality, what I have observed is quite the opposite. Alot of couples drift, they grow apart, they divorce, and in my opinion the saddest - they just fall out of love.

It is my most ardent belief that couples do not show they love one another enough. You know, in those special little ways. We often get so caught up with work, children, worries about money, worries about our careers, what we wear, how we look, how others see us, that we often forget or take for granted the person who stands by us through it all. That same person who watches us cry, who watches us pick up the pieces, who sees us when life is good, and also when life turns black. Because, well, they are always there.

And it's saddening because love is such a beautiful thing. It starts off with a million and one fireworks that explode in a cascade...a shower of colours, and a fire that would light the darkest corners. Sure, love matures, but does it necessarily have to fade into a routine of dry stagnancy? I sometimes wonder where that passion goes. The stubborn idealist inside of me refuses to believe that people become so lazy, or so selfishly caught up in themselves, that they forget the little ways they used to extend their heart out to their loved one. You know, surprise notes. Gifts for no reason. Calls just to say 'I miss you'... Then I meet couples like Alia and Johan and their love and adoration for each other seems so ardently apparent and visible, that it really warms your heart to be allowed witness of it. And I am reminded that the idealist inside of me isn't really stupid or naive after all.

I remember remarking to the couple during our "just because" session together (they were already married when I shot them!), saying that I just LOVED the fact that they were not shy or embarrased to show their affection towards each other. To which Johan confidently and proudly replied "It's the way of the French" :) I believe him. But really, I think it is just that they are THAT much in love :) You could see it in the way they looked at each other. The way they held each other's hand. The way that they just are.

Their session brought me back to my roots, and roped me back to why I fell in love with photography in the first place - being able to capture the essence of a couple's love for one another. As a photographer, we sometimes get so consumed by having to be (or pressured to be in my case) so perfectly and artistically creative (which is important) or getting the craziest most abstract angles that we often get lost and forget that the real soul of taking the kind of photos we take, is to bring out the spirit of who two people are together and what they mean to each other, to the frame. It is about capturing love. It is about capturing a soul. It is about bringing to surface what makes them, them. That, to me, is what a real photo is, in our kind of photography-line. To photographers out there reading this, remember that, in the crazy tidal waves of industry pressure to be this or that with your style :)

Thank you for an awesome time together Alia and Johan! I had a real blast. Thank you for being completely yourselves and showing how much you mean to each other. My camera loved you back for it :) I only hope I meet more couples like yourselves in the future, and that in a quarter of a century, you will be more crazily in love than you already are :)

Here are my favourite shots from their session!

*Edit* To those who have asked/emailed/messaged - the locations I shot in for this shoot were Sentul Park, and Carcosa :) And yes, Johan and Alia have great fashion sense! :)

Here's one of those very RARE wide shots I will take.




And here is their slideshow!! :) I put a different kind of melody to their photos because I thought it suited their fun personalities :) Enjoy!