Firsts - Ohona & Rafid Pre-Wedding Shoot

location: martin place / royal botanic gardens / Grounds

A Whole Bunch of Firsts.

For a long time, I was thinking about how to begin this post, unironically not realizing that was the entire conundrum of beginnings. You see, we get so overly caught up and overwhelmed with creating this masterpiece of perfection in our minds, that we forget to every truly begin.

So in-line of the theme of firsts, I’m super excited to announce the introduction of the SHURU Blog! This is the place where we spill the secret sauce, talk all things ranging from photography and documentation of our shoots to other things. Who knows what and where the trajectory of this blog will go? Isn’t that the beauty of beginnings?

What better way to talk about firsts, than to start with our shoot with Ohona & Rafid at the beginning of this year. Rafid had reached out to us asking us about doing a shoot with his (now) fiancée Ohona. Rafid & Ohona are both long-time friends of us, so we took extra care in trying to understand what their vision was from scratch. I was super glad to find out that they had a really unique vision, one of which embodied the concept of Old Money. Think Crazy Rich Asians, but apply it to Bengalis. So, I guess Crazy Rich Asians?

With a mood-board and plan set out in play, we decided to hit up the art gallery and then walk around Sydney City. Sydney City is a genuinely unique place with it’s bold architecture and it’s Victorian-era buildings would have given us enough room to play with backgrounds & to lean into color-scapes of the rich colonial eras.

As soon as we walked in to the art gallery, security guards hounded onto us like a sniffer dogs onto a Jamaican man at the airport. So it turns out, you're not allowed to do photoshoots for commercial use at certain places. We definitely had to play it very sneaky, but eventually I could sense their discomfort from being watched - very antithetical to the concept of Old Money.

It was definitely a big yikes to begin our shoot, as comfortability is a very large component of the direction of our shoots at SHURU. We always get much better shots, especially when you're in your natural element.

Takeaway NO.1:

Don't do photoshoots at art galleries without obtaining permission. Or alternatively, have a really good back-story if you do.

Afterwards, flew like a breeze. With the pressure of not being followed continuously, we walked through the Royal Botanic Gardens. The cool shade from the trees provided us enough domain to experiment with so many options to try the endless stream of ideas that I had on the day. Even though it was their first couples photoshoot together, they were extremely open and trusting to trying new things.

Motion is lotion (for the soul)

Photography is about freezing those moments forever in visual format. Yet, being able to show motion well is all about showing intention with action & highlighting emotion within that moment. Luckily for us, Ohona is very photogenic and showcases this in a way that resembles fine-art.

Moving on...

We stumbled our way to Martin Place & entered the grandiose of the urban corporate rat cage. Pardon my French, I believe I'm allowed to say that, as an ex-corporate. However, instead of being stereotypical with the choice of photo locations, we decided to think outside of the box, choosing locations that resembled their vision.

When choosing locations, it's always important to also understand how different colour palettes affects the overall message of your photos. Rich reds & grand greens go a long way in communicating a strong message.

Last but not least.

To finish the day, we headed to the Grounds of The City. After a long strenuous day of posing and shenanigans, we had an incredibly delicious meal from the Grounds. They were incredibly accommodating & it felt like we had come full circle, from the tumultuous ride at the art gallery to a unbelievably wholesome experience at the Grounds. They were even happy enough for us to take some photos within the venue and I was overall quite impressed with the place.

Who knows, perhaps another photoshoot there next time?

On behalf of SHURU, we were super grateful to have the opportunity to record Ohona & Rafid's first couple shoot before all the wedding madness, that they're probably enduring right now. It's these shoots which really light our creativity on fire and allow us to get to know our couple on a new level. It's also why we call it our bread & butter, because it's what we love to cook.

So on that note, that wraps up our first blog post.

• First blog post
• First couple shoot in the city
• First shoot for Ohona & Rafid

A whole bunch of firsts.