Yesterday was my last wedding of the year.

Going home late from the after-party, I have this profound feeling. Like I’ve just finished a chapter. A last page to a book. 2011 almost waved goodbye.

And with that, I am promising you one thing, and I mean it with all my heart:

I am going to shoot more of what I love.

To all my beautiful and loyal clients, who trusted and believed me for one of the happiest day of your lives, know that I truly gave all my best on your prewedding sessions and on your wedding days. If you can recall, I was there, shooting and moving and trying to be my best. I am honored, and I know how big a deal it is for you to choose me amongst all the others. And for that trust, I thank you.

But to tell you the truth, I am dying inside. A slow painful death.

It is because things has become too rigid, too predictable. Too many terms and conditions, too many preset expectations.

It’s a funny thing happening these days: Clients hire a creative person/entity to do creative work, but the end result is already set in their mind. Coming into a meeting with all the references from magazines and blogs, they know that they want to be shot like this, wearing this dress, on that location. And we, the creative persons, agree to this. Out of ignorance, out of our mediocrity, and out of our need for the business.

How about what the creative person wants and aspire? Isn’t that why you want to hire the guy in the first place?

What this ‘habit’ does is that it allows mediocre work (people with a shiny new camera) to look creative and get a lot of business, while at the same time, it is killing the real good ones (people that has a lot of crazy beautiful visions going inside their heads). Mainstream rules the day and get the paycheck.

When a real talented genius pursue his/her vision, they call him/her an ‘idealist’, a word that is a lot more connected to negativity than originality. And why is that?

Because consumers and markets supports what is common, what has been done, what has worked before. They are afraid of the new ones, the risk taking ones, the visionaries.

And for you creative people reading this: we are also to blame. We allowed this. We said yes, sure, why not. We learned and strived to achieve mediocrity. And then we stopped. And we feel good, because our mediocrity has brought us businesses. It is enough to know one type of prewedding session, and we will do it till the day we die. We need not to learn more, to make more, to offer more, to make changes more.

If we can proclaim ourself to be ‘the best’, ‘the most creative’, ‘the new way’, ‘the different way’, then we should prove it. By our work and portfolio. Not by words on a website.

And so is the state of the wedding industry.

And so is why I am dying. I am shooting too much of what I don’t want, while the visions in my head are gasping for air. And I know for sure, that I am not alone 🙂

I know the industry will not change overnight, and I know Edward Suhadi Productions cannot change overnight either.

But as the captain of this ship, I will promise you this:

We will change bit by bit, eliminating destructive dogmas and habits, and adding creativity and freedom to our work.

We will shoot more of what we love for the clients that trust us. We will not ask, “How would you like to be shot?”, but “This is how we are going to shoot you.” We will try never tried things and dictate on how things are going to be done from now on. Sounds arrogant, but believe me, it is the only way to give space and freedom for creativity and great work to soar.

We know that this might put is in the corner, and this will lose us some business, and some people are gonna hate us. But at least we go home knowing that we have done something wonderful to a few. We definetely not going to be the best, but at least we ‘really’ tried to be.

Bear with us. Some changes are already in motion. For you that have met recently with Evy, our saleslady, you know we have new terms and conditions in place.

Let you be the audience, and hopefully, a believer, of this small revolution.

2012 is going to be an interesting year.

PS: If you are a believer, help spread this writing. This is too, for your sake 🙂