Mid-Autumn's Just Around The Corner: Photoshoot Once More With Neighbors

- August 18, 2012, Saturday.

- This year's mid-autumn festival will fall on the 30th of September. Since I had some time to spare tonight, I invited my neighbor Charmaine, and former neighbor Riezeryl, to assist me with my photoshoot tonight.

- I usually have my photoshoots in my living-room-turned-studio, but this time, I decided to have it inside my bedroom. I don't know why I had not thought of this before, but shooting inside my room greatly improved the quality of my photos, mainly because of the lighting. My neighbor Charmaine served as the photographer, while Riezeryl served as the all-around assistant, and lighting person.

- As a "tradition," I served dinner for all the participants of the photoshoot as a "token of appreciation." The three of us had a Chinese dinner after shooting the Korean "chuseok," and the Japanese "tsukimi" photos. Both chuseok and tsukimi, as well as the Vietnamese "tet" are all mid-autumn celebrations, just like the Chinese "mid-autumn festival," fondly called the "mooncake festival."

- After dinner, we proceeded with the Vietnamese and the Chinese photos. I had some food-props in the photoshoot, such as mini Korean cakes I bought earlier today, a mooncake, and some sweet peanut/bean rice balls that substituted for the Japanese "dango," an almost similar rice-based sweet that is eaten during the tsukimi celebration. After using them for my photoshoot, I shared these food-props to my wonderful "crew."

- Just before we ended, we also took the time to shoot photos for the upcoming "diwali," the pan-Indian celebration of lights. It will be celebrated this 13th of November. For this series of photos, I shut off all the lights, lit a small candle, and used a powerful flashlight as a "spotlight," and also to create sort of a halo effect. I think that went better than expected.

- After the photoshoot, we packed up, and rested, and played around with some of the costumes/accessories that I had. Usually, having my crew/participants play around with my items also served as part of my "token of appreciation."

- This month-long delayed photoshoot finally pushed through (darn storms and monsoons,) and I couldn't thank my neighbors enough for the hard work they've shown, despite my photoshoots as not being "official" ones. It's just something I do to share cultures, to showcase my costume collection, and just to have an opportunity to hang out with my awesome neighbors. I can't wait for the next photoshoot!!