It is no secret that my favorite assignments as a Bali photographer are prenup (a.k.a. pre-wedding) photo projects. Why ?

For several reasons.

When doing Bali prenup photos I am 100% in charge of where, when and what photos I take. And this allows me to give my very best. Which is usually reflected in the photographs.  

Secondly, it allows me to work really closely with couples. Because during a wedding couples are very busy with all that comes on a wedding day.

For a Bali prenup photo project, they are ‘all mine’. It allows me to build a strong connection and to get to know my couples very well.

And I cannot emphasize enough how important the connection between the photographer and the couple is for great photos. Only once a couple makes that vital connection with their photographer they become relaxed and lose their natural shyness towards being photographed.

Which in turn allows me to capture authentic emotions as opposed to fake-smiles and highly staged pictures. 

With Joo Ann and her lovely fiancé, I indeed connected very well from the outset.

During the day it often felt more like a day with friends than an assignment with a client. But before I ramble on let me show you some of the photographs first:

There is one more aspect which I would like to highlight. Some of you may know that my specialty is that I photograph mostly with vintage equipment and do everything by hand.

A way of photographing that is also known as SLOW PHOTOGRAPHY. 

It means to slow down when crafting images and not just indiscriminately clicking hoping something good will come out of it. It is all about planning and pre-visualizing the photos. 

Part of this approach is using vintage photo equipment.  So 90% of the lenses used in this photo project were 30-50-year-old lenses that were made for cameras that my father’s generation used.

Everything is done by hand – no autofocus, no auto-this or auto-that. All manually, by hand – the old way…

I had previously blogged about using vintage equipment for commercial photography on my main photography website – the article is quite technical and was mainly written for fellow photographers.  But I never thought that this would interest or attract couples looking for wedding or prenup photographs.

So it came as a big surprise for me when Joo Ann told me that she had found me out there on the web because of my writing about SLOW PHOTOGRAPHY. 

Let’s see some more examples of these fabulous Bali prenup photos:

Joo Ann, Wan thank you so much for this wonderful opportunity to do your Bali prenup photos. I wish you both all the best.

And please share with me your wedding photos after you had your wedding back home in Singapore. 

And on that note, I leave you with some more of Joo Ann & Wan’s Bali prenup photographs