You can find the magazine at your local Chapters/Indigo location. To see a complete list of locations where you can find the magazine visit the Kismet Magazine’s website.

I flew in to Edmonton the day before the wedding, and drove about an hour out of the city to a small town called Wetaskiwin. I met up with one of Angelina’s friends, Liz, and we drove around checking out possible shoot locations for the next day. We first visited the ceremony site, where they had erected tents surrounded by acres of fields. From there we headed to scout other locations, and it dawned on me pretty quickly that this was going to be a bit of a challenge. Wetaskiwin is a small town, and there really aren’t that many cool architectures or backgrounds that usually save the day in the city. They have a humble church, a city hall and a small lake. We literally drove from one end of the town to the other and back in an hour, and that’s with me stopping and getting out of the car to check out the locations. I decided that it won’t make sense to make a small town look like a big city. If fields and farms are what the town has to offer, then that’s what we should use. Near the lake, I found this vista/hill that seemed to be exactly what I wanted. And so it was decided, and I headed to the hotel to get some sleep before an early morning start.

The next morning, we started at Angelina’s parents’ place in Wetaskiwin taking her getting ready pictures. This was followed by the traditional Bengali Hindu ceremony at the site. We then headed to the vista for the couple’s photo shoot along with their bridal party. At some point during the shoot, for some reason we found Tejas running around the vista, with his dhoti unfurled in his hand, his kurta giving a detailed weather report including wind speed and direction. Funny couple they are. Of course, I got pictures.

After the shoot, we drove out to Edmonton for the reception at the prestigious Shaw Conference Centre. And if the day hadn’t already been awesomely eventful, there were pyrotechnics, our signature picture from their engagement shoot displayed on two 20 feet high projection screens, men racing to dress up in saris and some pretty interesting dance moves.

For Puja and Keith’s engagement shoot, we went to Sunnyside and a few other locations in downtown Toronto. Their wedding is coming up in a few weeks, with the traditional Indian ceremony in the morning, followed by what we are expecting to be an uber cool reception at a bar club in downtown Toronto!

Oh and if you haven’t already found out from our Facebook page, we are now proud parents of the cutest little baby girl. We named her Afroz Jahaan and she’s here to brighten our world (that’s what the name means!).

“That’s Al’s car – you wanna talk to him”, he said, pointing to a black 3 series BMW.

So I walked on over and just as I reached the door, before I could knock, I heard this raspy voice.

“Come on in will ya?”

His voice was neither rude nor inviting. I opened the door and stepped in. I looked around and saw chairs made out of small plane seats, old radio controls, and other pearl harbor type things. There was no computer or any other modern equipment in sight. The place had character alright,

“Well, what are you looking for?”

as did Al. He spoke while holding the phone that also looked like a movie prop. I can only hope the thing was working. I introduced myself as a photographer and told him I was interested in doing some engagement pictures on his property, and wondered how did one go about getting permits and stuff?

“No. And I’ll tell you why!”, he said before I could finish.

“Yeah, I’ll call you tonight!”, he said and put his phone on the cradle. Yes, the phone had a cradle.

He then looked at me and said. “Yes so the answer is no. And I’ll tell you why! Because they came before and I let them in. And I asked them what the pictures are for and they said it’s for personal keepsake. And I was ok with that. And then more and more people started coming. And I asked them where did you hear about it? And they said they saw it on YouTube. They lied to me. They said it was for personal reasons. And so now I’m not ok with it. So no you can’t take pictures here because people who came before you fucked it up and now I don’t want any more of that”.

“Right. I understand, but I’m telling you openly that this is not for personal reasons. I’m a wedding photographer and this is for my client.”

“No I don’t want it on YouTube.”

“It won’t be on YouTube but what’s wrong with that?”

“What do I get out of it?”

“Well you could give permits for shooting, and charge for it ”

“I don’t care. I don’t care about the money. I’ve been collecting these planes since 1986. And I don’t want them to show up on YouTube. And then I got google earth people calling me up. I don’t want nothing of that”.

“Alright I understand. I just thought I’d ask”.

He softened a bit.

“Well thank you for asking me properly. I appreciate it. But these people who came before you ended up going in the fields where they were not supposed to and it’s a mess. Sorry if I sound pissed off but that’s because I am pissed off and I want none of that anymore.”

And so we walked out of his office, said goodbyes, got in our cars and left. The last I saw of Al was through my rearview mirror as he sped off on a snowy off road.

I wasn’t upset. That I came all this way and nothing came off it. Or that he had spoken to me in not exactly friendly tones. If anything, he had this old world charm about him. The whole place had a feeling of a hidden treasure. It was just surreal. I was glad I had been there.

But I was unsettled. I wasn’t sure of what exactly. Partly, I couldn’t figure out what Al was so upset about? He told me that he’d been collecting this stuff since the 80s. And if you nurse a passion for that long, don’t you want people to know about it? He didn’t say that people came here and damaged his property or left it a mess, or anything like that. He was just upset about the fact that people had seen his treasure and then gone out and told other people, who were now coming to see it. It reminded me of this Dicaprio movie, The Beach. And I guess what unsettled me the most is the time and effort Al must have spent collecting these planes. He owns a slice of history and he doesn’t want to share it? How can that be? I mean I don’t even know a thing about planes, and I couldn’t tell a propelleramabob from a wingamagig, but it didn’t exactly take a genius to realize that underneath all these dead planes and parts were amazingly rich stories. Stories that Al was willing to let die. And in this day and age of Jersey Shore, formula driven music, senseless movie plots, and everything that is fake, these planes, their stories and Al are the real deal.

I managed to get this shot from inside my car before leaving.

So here then are some pictures from our first FOTO SHOTO session of the season. Check it out!

Email us for more information about FOTO SHOTO and booking your own portrait sessions!

- 8 hours of coverage by AliphAurMeem
- Full Resolution DVD with all edited pictures
- One Photographer

What you need to do is email us at AliphAurMeem {at} Gmail.com:

- Your story in no more than 500 words
- Your wedding details including date, venue and any special themes you have going on
- Your names as well as a recent picture of the two of you
- Join our facebook page at www.facebook.com/AliphAurMeem

What are the rules?

- Only One couple will be picked for 2011
- Only one submission per couple will be considered
- Incomplete submissions will not be considered (see above)
- Submissions on behalf of the couple are ok as long as the couple is aware
- You must not already be an AliphAurMeem client
- You must be willing for us to share your story and pictures from your wedding on the blog
- If picked, our standard terms of practice apply so you will be required to sign a contract – you will not have to pay for the services mentioned above
- You must not hire another photographer for your wedding. AliphAurMeem will be the only professional photographer at your wedding.

If you would like to see our blog entries for Jeet and Nidhi’s weddings you can see their Ottawa Engagement Shoot here, Jeet’s Mayan Ceremony here, their Sikh Wedding Pictures here, the Indian Hindu wedding ceremony pictures here, and finally their wedding portrait pictures here.