It’s still a little bit premature but since I am going to the US again this mid-October, am deciding to soft launch renatogaviola.com which currently features more of (but not entirely) US shoots from Las Vegas, New York and California (and yeah, some from the East Coast also like nearby Pennsylvania).
Far from being finished, this site currently contains more prenup and postnup sessions to highlight US scenes (outside of the actual wedding day) and is currently a support site to this, my blog site as well as my main site (renegaviola.com) which currently contains my photojournalistic folio.
So get ready to view this new site, best seen w/ the highest possible resolution on your monitor screen (1920 x 1200) so you can best appreciate those ultra wide panoramic shots, as well as the fastest internet connection (I am targeting US potential clients for this and their internet is blazingly fast). For Phillippine viewers, please be patient since the wide shots are large files that take time to load.
Have fun panning through the photos, some of them I may eventually take out in favor of another one.
The pastor that will marry Mich & Conrad is a long time friend coming from Tennessee. To minimize paperwork and other licensing papers being required from a non-New Yorker officiating a wedding, Mich & Conrad decided to first have a civil wedding in New York prior to the actual wedding day celebration. This was an impromptu decision which just happened in one afternoon as they invited me to come along.
In the waiting area, Mich does some touch-ups before our turn in Young’s room. We were actually surprised that some brides were well dressed for the occasion. Mich is reserving her curvy wedding gown for her wedding day (w/c legally will be a renewal of vows).
Conrad and Mich were actually very busy days prior to that special day, sleeping early in the morning after finishing their wedding chores. Conrad looks at some bouquet that another bride has. Their grand celebration in Chateau Briand will more than make up for the simple rites for today.
Once we were inside the special room, Mich’s mom was busy doing the photo . . .
. . . while her dad was doing the video . Ms. Young is the one officiating the civil wedding.
This is my 2nd time to be an instant godfather. I circled in the photo below where my signature can be found (one has to have a witness in the ceremony that is not related to the family). You can now call me the shooting Godfather from New York.
Ms. Young keeps on swagging her finger at the couple, seemingly to emphasize each couple’s sincerity for this event. Notice the two rings on her pointy finger and her thumb. At first I thought that this is where she puts the couple’s wedding rings before handing them over to them.
But when she hands over the other ring to Conrad, you’ll notice that has at least 4 rings on her hand (no I don’t think she has a ring on her pinky as you can validate later.) Must be something in Young’s persona transforming her to be the ‘Queen of Civil Weddings’ by having all those rings, call it wedding rings fetish.
She hands over the proof of the couple’s marriage, it is now legal and binding, Mich is happy.
She then points her finger once more to the couple. Her finger says ‘you know what to do next’.
Then she disappears from the pulpit.
Only to eagerly appear in one corner, volunteering to take photos of the newlyweds. If only public servants here in the Philippines can be as zealous as Ms. Young.
The camera in the photo above belongs to Mich’s mom. She also handled my heavier camera effortlessly. Here is final photo from my camera.
Thank you Ms. Young, you are really very young at heart, loving your job and tirelessly wedding all these nice couples in your little four cornered temple.
There’s this place in New York where couples go to get married.
People of different nationalities converge here. Some are probably Russian or Lithuanian couples from the eastern bloc.
Once finished, they go out of this special room.
And find their way to the exit. The exit is actually the entrance from the opposite end. Similar to airport security, one needs to pass through an x-ray machine and frisking before one can go inside. They are very strict in this area. But the security guard below I think is more than happy to entertain questions from beautiful brides like the one below.
This bride then goes to a special window, Window No. 5, also called the Chapel Window.
Big Momma also can’t help but also look at the booty of this J.Lo Latina. (Speaking of curves and hips, I have to ’shoot from the hip’ with no flash in order to be unobtrusive.)
And this one looks like Sarah Jessica Parker from a Sex in the City scene.
But wait, where is ‘Young’ here?
Dora H. Young is actually the Deputy City Clerk in that special room where the civil rites are done.
Up next, Mich and Conrad’s turn to be married by ‘Young’.
Probably the last in this fantasy theme series are some guestbook pages which I just did for Kat Recto’s upcoming debut.
Far from the witch we featured in our previous article, we now feature a fairy princess Kat who wanted to mix some “Enchanted” movie theme alongside her other fairy character.
The first one below will be the cover page of the guest book.
Most pages feature painterly effects as signature compositions. The effects look better with the enlarged version and on actual print. (Click on each image to see a larger vesion.)
. . . and the last page in her guestbook . . .
The real fantasy celebration will commence on Kat’s birthday this 9th of August.
In this next installment of our fantasy/hollywood themed write-ups, we once again feature Chay & Dexter during our continuing post-nup in New York. Before we proceeded w/ the shoot, we decided to have a refreshing course inside this club which is walking distance from Broadway st.
From outside going in, we were greeted by some ghoulish characters including this character who helped us w/ our menu. Must be witching hour . . .
Like Dr. Jekyll turning into Mr. Hyde, things started to change inside this place, ghostly characters seem to come alive, while humans become looking like characters from beyond.
There are eyes following Dexter’s every move . . .
Mesmerizing Dexter into becoming ‘monstrous’ in the dark.
But Chay makes sure that her ‘Igor’ behaves well.
We went out before Dexter totally transforms into one of the characters at the club. Chay is happy . . . the welcome guy is eyeing another customer in red, must be their favorite color inside the ‘club’.
[More photos in the future, it just doesn't blend well w/ this series if I show them all now.]
Speaking of Spiderman, Cathy decided to get married in St. Brendan Church w/c is very near her place. According to Wikipedia, “the gothic styled St. Brendan church, located in the Hancock Park section of Los Angeles, also serves as a location for various Hollywood productions like Spiderman 3, Desperate Housewives, Fight Club, etc. etc.”
The sun was high up during Cathy’s wedding, directly behind the church, so we decided to pass by again so I can take more establishing shots.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), there was another movie being shot so instead of taking a clear shot of the church’s facade, this is what I got.
The parking lot at the back of the church was filled w/ production vans, I don’t know how they fit them all there. You can see the Paramount Studios and Warner Bros. logos on the 2 vans below.
These burly men won’t be going to church to pray I suppose.
And the extras sitting across the street most probably are the “true” bogus churchgoers.
One guy saw me while I was having a “drive by shooting”. Being part of the movie production team, he is paparazzo friendly to me.
Here is the scene from You Tube where Eddie Brock Jr. prays inside the church and transforms into Venom, the black Spiderman, his archenemy. The opening scenes are true but the bell tower on top of the church is just “make believe”.
So there is much Hollywood history where Cathy got married. Their photos coming up next . . .
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Ok, after watching the video from above, you can probably relate to some of Cathy’s photos inside the church. But first, let’s see how the church looked liked from the outside.
The time is around 10am and the sun was at the back of the church, hitting my lens & lending some flare effects on the photo.
Cathy wanted to make sure that I took a photo of the stained glass that you can see in the middle part of the church from the outside. Let’s take a look at what’s inside the limo first.
That’s the view from the driver side up front. Now going inside the church, this is what the stained glass on the balcony looks like.
I also made sure that the stained glass was shown during their blessing and during the ‘you may now kiss the bride’ scene. Here is the ‘during the blessing’ scene. The ‘kissing the bride’ scene soon followed and is similar to the one below.
It’s actually a medium sized church and the aisle isn’t really that long. Here is Cathy during her ‘movie like’ entrance . . .
And immediately followed by a dramatic lighting from the sunlight beaming through the majestic ceiling above.
Another view from the balcony . . . still remember the video above? The church is full of stained glass.
A shot of the couple sharing an intimate moment during the sermon. They met in a church group.
A guest capturing the moment when the couple was exchanging their vows.
The priest asked Ray & Cathy to kneel and pray to the Madonna at the side of the altar. Cathy is a practicing Catholic, I remember the priest telling a story about how Cathy donated some funds to help build a project here in Manila (can’t remember if it was a chapel or a school).
And they went back to the altar to pray w/ the angels seemingly ‘praying’ with them.
I wish that I can visit St. Brendan again in the near future.
