FP: Chinese Wedding Photography

[FPjohn]

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/11/02/beautiful_me

yours
FPJ

 

[raytoei@gmail.com]

one billion chinese can't be wrong 🙂

seriously, this is why i shoot film and not a 5d2...

 

[Neare]

Yeah I see quite a few Chinese weddings in NZ and it's always a huge deal. The bride is dolled up so much they basically look like different people. Last weekend there was this Chinese run photostudio out shooting called "jis". Some friends and I just had to have a giggle at the name 😀

 

[dfoo]

Yup, I was married in China... our "wedding" pictures took an entire day. Three costume changes, different looks and different venues. Its a different world!

Chinese marriage goes through three basic stages for the majority of couples. Each of these stages are normally separated by many months. For my wife and I we were registered in April and our marriage ceremony was in Oct. The stages are:

- Registration. This is the technical act of registering your marriage with the civil authorities. Takes a couple of hours, and then you are hitched.

- Wedding pictures. This is what that article was talking about. It can occur at any point, but generally occurs between registration and the marriage ceremony.

- Wedding ceremony. This is the ceremony for family and friends. Takes 2-3 hours and features 3 basic stages for the bride and groom each with its own costume. My wife had the typical white dress, then a formal dress followed by a qi pao. Each of these, of course, has to have a grand entrance into the dining area. The guests eat, drink and smoke and generally make merry. Once that is over everyone goes home. Of course, you have a different photographer/videoographer for this section.

I'd post pictures from each of these sections from our wedding, but my flickr pro account expired and I cannot get pictures back that far 🙁 Irritating.

 

[hipsterdufus]

And there we go. If you want to make a living in photography, move to China. 😛

 

[dfoo]

I realize that most likely you are being facetious. However, on the off chance you are not I wouldn't advise that! Firstly, your primary customers are Chinese, and likely you are not. Even if you can speak Mandarin language _will_ be a barrier. On a more positive note, a white face could be a plus as it can give face to the couple. However, it is a very crowded market. There are loads of studios, some very highly experienced. Our wedding photographer/videographer was a former producer for CCTV. Lastly, the pay is not very high. I can't remember exactly how much we payed, but it wasn't very much.

 

[ZeissFan]

What does "FP" mean in the title of this post?

 

[L. M. Tu]

I've been to weddings where it seemed as if the wedding itself was held solely for the purpose of taking photos and videos of it or that, at the very least, the ceremony and other rituals and celebrations all had to be organized around whatever obligatory set pieces the photo- and videographers required. I've ignored, snarled at and even cussed at a few of these guys. It reminded me of the reason why, for several years, I stopped bringing a camera with me on camping and backpacking trips. At a certain point, I realized that the photography was interfering with my enjoyment of the moment.

 

[Out to Lunch]

The same in Saigon, Vietnam where you'll usually find one film crew and one photographer with a few assistants preserving the event for posterity. The prices are much more reasonable though: I've seen clean and well produced photo albums at a cost of less than USD 1,000.

 

[dfoo]

For sure we payed way less than that. I think it our wedding photography/video was something like $350-$400.

 

[FPjohn]

What does "FP" mean in the title of this post?

Foreign Policy.

Yours
FPJ