JW Invades Greece !

A few hours after the wedding of Roselle and Stephen,  I found myself packing my gear and getting ready to fly into Santorini, Greece to photograph the beautiful wedding of Michelle and Vince.

This is not the first time I’ve traveled abroad to photograph a wedding.  It was quite the adventure getting through security, as usual.  I have a very specific way of packing what I need to take with me on my carry-on.  Essentially, I don’t pack any clothes other than an extra shirt and a pair of shorts.  I have all my gear in my carry-on, which is the Think Tank Airport Takeoff roller.  It’s awesome for traveling and both Kevin and I have them and flew down with them.  My checked baggage consists of my back up camera and a few lenses in bubble wrap and zip locked and wrapped again inside some clothes.

I flew out of the state-of-the-art and contemporary Terminal 1 of the Pearson International Airport.  Here’s a photo of the ’tilted spheres’ inside the terminal.

As I approached the security check point, I mentally prepared myself for a grilling.  I had some time, so I decided to have some fun with it and be as vague as possible.  The conversation went kind of like this:

Security: “Excuse me sir, can you tell me what are these two devices you have here ?”
Joee: “Oh, sure.  Those are my remote triggers…”
Security: “…and what are you planning to trigger remotely ?
Joee: “…off camera devices…”
Security: “…what sort of devices ? — SIR, please step this way !”

I know, I was asking for it haha  So, I spent about 45 mins educating and shooting the breeze with a few members of security. C’mon, I can’t be the first photographer that has brought on remote triggers in their checked luggage, am I ?  Anyways, I did a few impromptu portraits of them and I wish I was able to keep them, but they made me delete them lol

I arrived in Zurich for my stop over, which was BUSY !

And on my way to Athens:

After I arrived in Athens, I jumped on the small plane to Santorini.  I ran into more trouble here as they deemed my roller too large to bring on as a carry on.  I refused to gate check my bag and after about 10 minutes of going back and forth, I just gave in and complied.  I took out my laptop, camera body and my primary lenses with me on the plane and sat there with everything on my lap the entire flight.  As I looked around, I noticed how spacious the foot storage was, so I made sure I brought everything on board when I flew back home, which they had no issues with at all !

I took this photo when we landed as guy #5 (l-r) chucked my roller on top of someones luggage.  Geez.

Funny thing happened as I left the airport.  I was so excited to leave to see what Santorini looked like that I totally forgot to pick up my checked bag !!!  So I had to wait for someone to grab it for me.  Luckily, my luggage actually made it, not like the couple I met in the claims line, Richie+April, who happened to be friends of Michelle and Vince.  Their baggage arrived the next day.

I arrived in my room at the Loizos apartments. “Room 112, where the players dwell…” – Notorious B.I.G.

There was another wedding going on.  Naturally, I went to see what the photographer was doing…or not doing lol

Kevin arrived a few hours later and we decided to take a stroll to check out some sites before it got too dark.

We turned in a little bit early.  We grabbed some food to eat on the way back and I just have to say that I have never tasted such goooood chicken pita’s in my life !  I had chicken pita every single day !  The food was awesome !  Now I know what authentic Greek food tastes like.  It’s just not the same here.

The following day, we had the wedding rehearsal and then the entire group went on a sunset cruise on the Thalassa.  We ran into some donkeys on the way.  They were everywhere !  And so was their poop.

We stopped off at the volcano to do a hike.  The hike up was killer !  I swear it seemed like forever !  But everyone made it.  It was a beautiful view up there.

There were a bunch of Polish dudes taking photos of this model.  I remember them checking out me checking them out.  I think there was some lens envy haha

It was a blast meeting everyone and hanging out.  The weather was awesome !  Not too hot and not too chilly.  I definitely miss it.

Michelle and Vince’s wedding write up is coming soon…

-Joee