Our Wedding II

Engagement

This time we went to photograph a wedding in New Zealand and after that in Bali so we’d be on the road for another two months.

Some time before that I’d shot my first engagement, a girl from NYC approached me to secretly document how she would propose to her girlfriend in Iceland, and I learned how much value these images have, especially when this is such an emotional thing. So I asked Komang of Luminosa Story to secretly capture the proposal for us in Bali.

Having spent here some time before, we already had our favorite places to go, some hidden, some very popular. One of them are rice terraces near Ubud thanks to a gentleman called Wayan who sells crazy expensive coconuts, but then he liked to sing and dance with us and when he plays his flute and drums the sound resonates in his little valley through the morning mist. Even after a year he remembered us.

It was the day before our sunrise session and when IT was supposed to happen. We were on a trip around the island with just a few things and I had this great idea that Suzie makes a picture of me and my bike on this nice path between rice fields. Guess what happened, the bike slipped and me and the bike fell down to the muddy rice field. Bravo.

I managed to get up and then I find myself sitting there and thinking “So tomorrow, after like ten years, you’re going to propose to Suzie and this is the only clothes you have.”

Sue helped me clean the camera, except she cleaned it so hard from the mud that she took off the black paint of the top Leica sign. My camera could certainly tell stories.

When we arrived in our hotel I washed my clothes and because it wouldn’t dry on its own in this humid Balinese air, I took the bike and went for a long night ride until it dried in the wind. It worked!

I loved the moment right before the proposal. She was just standing there, waving her hands in the air, I didn’t know why but it was beautiful. She had no idea.

Next the things are a bit blurry, but we think that’s not unusual. Thanks to Komang’s beautiful pictures our memories are a bit sharper, and we know what actually happened.