Melissa and Donovan called me from Kota Kinabalu to ask whether I would be interested to fly over to be their wedding photographer for their big day in Sabah. Melissa is Kadazan which is an instant draw card for me. I have been the wedding photographer for a number of Sabahan’s in Kuala Lumpur and I have always enjoyed the traditional Sumazau dance which seems to get everyone up onto the dance floor regardless of race or religion. The church service was in Sacred Heart Cathedral. Melissa’s sister sang beautifully in the church and later the following day at the wedding banquet which was held in the Hyatt hotel. The interesting drink in the bamboo cups is the local rice spirit, akin to Japanese Sake I believe.
Points of interest for wedding photographers reading this are that for this wedding I used FujiFilm’s new X-Pro1 camera which was on loan to me, and for the super wide photos I used Sigma’s new 12-24mm. Both performed admirably. The other thing I hope you notice is how far back we stand from the action. Whilst wedding photographers cannot be invisible (which would be ideal!) we do try to be as unobtrusive as possible. A good longer lens like a 70-200 zoom really helps to achieve this.
Actually it’s the traditional Kadazan dance is called the Sumazau 🙂
Thanks 🙂 Corrected