Hello folks.  Sorry for the delay once again, but I’ve been super busy as usual.  I have a lot of cool and exciting sessions that I hope I can post here in the next few weeks.  So definitely check back often.  I will try my best to update the blog quite frequently before the summer rush starts.

The following images below are from the Nikkah, or marriage ceremony of Nadia and Aasil.  Now the reason why I say this is the marriage ceremony and not a wedding is because in the Muslim culture, a couple is often officially and legally married before the actual wedding day.  This was not their official wedding, but the actual marriage process of getting things legally done.  It was quite a day, and I had loads of fun photographing these two.  I’ve known Nadia for a while, and I wanted to make sure I captured her true goofy self 😉  It was also very interesting to meet Aasil for the first time.  Like myself, he is a fellow photographer, and takes the hobby pretty seriously.   So I had to make sure I stepped up my game a bit.  Both of them are working and studying abroad, so the entire event was planned in the states by Nadia’s best friend, Yasmine… who’s marriage ceremony will also be coming up soon on the blog!  I had fun throughout their day… but the best part had to be the Afghan food that was catered at her house for dinner 😀  Man I love some kabobs… and they were soo good at her party… err… ok, sorry… I’ll stop salivating… on to the post.  There’s a lot of pics, so give it a bit to load.

Marriage Ceremony

The After Party

Just for fun

Traditional group shots?  Fohget about it

I love this shot.  If you know Nadia, it’s soo her.

Yours truly with the couple

Couples Session

Happy Valentines Day to all you lovebirds.

This is a Nikkah ceremony/Couples session for Zafar and Saima.  This was officially my first shoot of the year… shot on 1/1/09.  Unlike traditional Western weddings, the Nikkah is a special ceremony that is practiced in the Islamic faith.  During this ceremony, the couple basically agree to marry, and sign the proper documents.  After this ceremony, the couple is legally married.  However, as culture would have it, the marriage is not official until you throw a big celebration/party for friends and family… so that’s still to come.

They wanted to make the nikkah ceremony personal and more family involved, so they kept it nice and simple.  Afterwards, we headed to an awesome location to do their couples session.  Saima looked absolutely gorgeous, and Zafar looked like… well, Zafar (just joking man, you looked good too) 😀

I had such a great time working with them both. Check out the images below, and feel free to leave any comments 🙂

These are the Couples session pics…

My favorite shot from the set!  This was lit only by the light above her.

Zafar didn’t have his ring on him… so I just ended up taking Saima’s ring shots.

My 2nd favorite shot 😀

So I’m up on the seat trying to demonstrate the pose… and this is what happens…

I’ve met both Sid and Deepti while I was in school at ECU and NC State.  Both of them are totally awesome, have great personalities, and just plain fun to hang around.  I’m not just saying all this to be nice, they really are very chill to be around.  When I found out they were dating, it just somehow made perfect sense to me.  Their personalities and coolness makes them perfectly compatible, almost like peanut butter and jelly 🙂  I just had to take advantage of the opportunity, and get them a photo session.  I told them that we want to demonstrate pure love, and closeness between the two.  Whenever we would setup for a shot though, they would either bust out laughing, or just get side tracked.  Either way, it was great fun, and we got some pretty cool images.

* I apologize ahead of time for all the black & white / sepia images.  This was during my “minimal color” phase, and I was experimenting with different b&w conversion techniques.