I had a blast photographing Kumiko and Ichi this Autumn. The weather was perfect and I think that their love comes through in every single photograph. Unfortunately we were interrupted by some unexpected guests but I think everything turned out well in the end. Have a look at the following series and let me know what you think.

Photography : Paul Hillier
Bride: Kumiko Yoshida-Horikawa
Groom: Ichiro Horikawa
Make-up: Karlee Morse
Assistent/BTS: Brian De Rivera Simon
Zombies: Andra Mares, Tetyana Starchenko, Andrei Volintiru, Wing Lam

Words can no express how excited I was when meeting with Kumiko and Ichi about doing their engagement shoot and they asked about doing something different. Things quickly snowballed into the project you see above. Shoot day was long. Karlee arrived first thing in the morning to get started on zombie make-up while I took the couple out to do the traditional engagement photographs with morning light. By 11pm we had the first set of zombies to chase the couple with the last two joining us around 1:30. We were able to follow a pretty tight timeline to get the shots we wanted but left enough room for “targets of opportunities”. An example of this is when we saw how the shadows were falling and took advantage by snapping a birds eye view of the chase with the motion captured in their shadows.

What could have been a very long day turned out to be a joy due to everyone’s enthusiasm at every step. Lots of planning helped but of course but enthusiasm is what got the project started and got the project finished.

The following is a mix of some of outtakes and behind the scene shots by both Brian and I