A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of photographing Ludivine & Aurélien, a lovely just married French couple who’ve recently relocated to Vietnam. We were supposed to do the portrait shoot just prior to their wedding, but a scheduling snafu led us to do just just after the ceremony instead. That’s fine, the important part was that the images were made! They were staying at the luxurious MGallery Hotel Des Arts in downtown Saigon, where their wedding was also held, and were ready to don their dress and suit again to make the photos we weren’t able to a few weeks prior.
The shoot was to take place primarily in the hotel, due to time constraints and also the virus situation outside that made staying inside safer for everyone. This was to be a test of my creativity, to see if I could fill a few hours and make beautiful images in few small spaces. Luckily, the hotel is stunningly appointed, and surely helped me in this endeavor. I visited a few days before the shoot to have a look around and get some ideas on the spaces and things I’d like to use. I found some backgrounds and foregrounds I liked, including a lamp that you can see in the first image, adorned with crystals and candle-like lights. I really liked what these did for a few of the images.
We started off in the main lobby, where plenty of natural light was beaming in on some nice chairs, and when we exhausted that, I had some other ideas that we could do in the darker parts of the lobby using my trusty Profoto B1 battery operated studio light, which is perfect for things like this. Once we did everything we could in the lobby areas, we moved upstairs to do a bit more in the executive lounge and then finished up with a few more shots in their suite, which had a nice big window with views on Saigon. After all that, it was time to give them their Sunday morning back to enjoy breakfast and the room before having to head back home, and I went home to do the same.
I was really delighted with the images we created, and they even more so, which made me a pretty happy photographer that day! Here are a few of my favorite shots. I wish you guys health and happiness for many years to come!
If you have an upcoming wedding or engagement, once the world gets a bit more back to normal, give us a shout and I’d love to create some images for you as well!
