Xitang Water Village Engagement Session | Johnson and Tiff

During the short course of my career as a photographer, we have been challenged by extreme coldness or by big downpours quite often that we somehow just seem to shrug it off and go about our business. In fact we sometimes welcome them and use them to our advantage to create more dramatic and meaningful shots. But as creative as some people say we are, Mr. Weather I guess will give us a run for our money as during this trip to China for Johnson and Tiff’s engagement session, he was the one who got really creative and provided us with a combination of freezing weather (without the ice – so we can’t use it to our advantage) and then try to damp our spirits with a lot of rain. I can say it was tormenting, but there was very little that enthusiasm and a lot of willpower cannot do and so we went about everything like it was a nice spring afternoon and did what we had to.

We shot for two days in China, one in downtown Shanghai and the other in the old water village of Xitang. It would be undeserving to feature both together so we’re showcasing the first part only (Xitang) before the wedding. If any of you are fans of the Mission Impossible movie series, you would be familiar with this old town because of the significant scenes that Tom Cruise shot here in its third installment (which was my favorite of all primarily because of the excellent choice of leading ladies – Maggie Q and Michelle Monaghan). Thus we had some big expectations to fulfill. Not that, we were out to change all the Tom Cruise posters there with the photo of Johnson and Tiff, but something close to that. hahaha.

Xitang was really picturesque, but brutal to navigate into and the non-stop rain and cold winds didn’t help. Nonetheless we fought it, we were freezing, soaked, exhausted, and even bruised (well that’s Tiff only) but nothing compares to the entire experience of accomplishing our own mission impossible. ;)

Special thanks to Alexis Ching for the make-up and Joy Nayve for everything else. hehehe :)