Selvi and Otto’s Singapore Pre-Wedding Shoot

Shooting at a familiar location is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is obvious; since you know the area relatively well, you can always fall back on old ideas and compositions and you’re almost guaranteed decent images. The curse? Well, the curse is actually the temptation to embrace the blessing wholeheartedly. Leaning on what you know to be safe rather than actively searching for something better, or at least something different. I find that personally, I achieve my best work at the edge of discomfort: not too overwhelmingly foreign, but at the same time not too safe either. All these thoughts came to the fore during this shoot. The client had requested a familiar location, Gardens by The Bay, and I was determined not to rely heavily on my past work and concepts. 

We started early in the morning which gave us the luxury of space and some measure of privacy. If you’ve ever been to the Gardens you know it is notoriously crowded at almost all times of the day, and usually it would be nearly impossible to get shots like these (at least not without heavy Photoshop work).

I definitely gravitate towards framing and texture, trying to see what I can nestle my subject in, and what textures I can incorporate to balance or add intrigue to each image. Sometimes framing is subtle and makes use of background elements. I find that shooting at f2.8 on a 50mm or 85mm gives the subject tack sharpness throughout but melts the background away beautifully and allows you to incorporate background elements as shapes and textures rather than detailed objects.

Of course I also revisited some older ideas to see if I can somehow improve on them. All things considered, I felt like it was the right balance between old and new, and I thank the couple greatly for their patience as well as willingness to try out all my weird and wacky suggestions. That’s all for now :)