{"id":297,"date":"2010-02-10T21:06:53","date_gmt":"2010-02-11T03:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bestofweddingphotography.com\/blog\/?p=297"},"modified":"2012-05-24T23:54:13","modified_gmt":"2012-05-25T05:54:13","slug":"jamaican-adventures-with-amy-leroy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bestofweddingphotography.com\/blog\/jamaican-adventures-with-amy-leroy\/","title":{"rendered":"Jamaican Adventures with Amy &amp; Leroy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">Check out this 10 min video to see some highlights of the whole story.<br \/>\nAnd be sure to choose the HD version and click the little button to make it go to full screen.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">If you have a slow internet connection, just pause the show and let it load for a while before you watch.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><span class=\"youtube\"><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"480\" height=\"295\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PJJQ_vtustY?wmode=transparent&amp;fs=1&amp;hl=en&amp;modestbranding=1&amp;iv_load_policy=3&amp;showsearch=0&amp;rel=1&amp;theme=dark&amp;hd=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">After corresponding for two years with Leroy and            Amy it was great to finally meet them in person in Negril. We met on            the day before the wedding at a beautiful cliff-side restaurant called            Rick&#8217;s Cafe. After an            evening of dinner and drinks, the party bus came and took us all back            to the Rockhouse Resort.            The party gathered again back by the pool&#8230;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">The highlight of the evening was the Queh Queh            ceremony (an old Guyana tradition) where everyone danced and sang songs in a circle around the            bride and groom. Then the bride was taken away to a hiding place (which            is easy to do at the Rockhouse since the place is like a maze anyway).            Then everyone formed a long line behind the groom (still singing and            dancing) and snaked around and around the area searching for the lost            bride. And of course if she couldn&#8217;t be found then the wedding was off!            Or so the tradition goes. I suppose in the old days this gave the bride            one last chance to run for the hills! But Amy was in no mood to run            and Leroy eventually found<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">her hiding in the shadows.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">The wedding day had not a cloud            in the sky and everything fell into place perfectly. Immediately after the ceremony we took some family group shots then did a couple shots of Amy &amp; Leroy out on the cliffs with the sunset in the background. Amy was quite the trooper as Leroy and I helped her out across the razor sharp Coral rocks in her Jimmy Choo spike heels.\u00a0 I doubt Jimmy had that in mind when he designed those shoes. The shoes will never be the same but the light was so beautiful that I it was worth it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">The reception lasted            far into the night. One of the most hilarious things I&#8217;ve ever seen            in the several hundred weddings I&#8217;ve attended was the &#8220;dance-off&#8221;            that took place very spontaneously between the local Jamaicans (the            DJ and Rockhouse staff) and the Groom&#8217;s relatives from Guyana. Pictures            simply don&#8217;t do justice to something as fast moving as this dance but            I can tell you it was a RIOT! I haven&#8217;t laughed so hard in a long time.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">As I was shooting table settings in the late evening, one of my 5D cameras (the one I&#8217;ve shot probably 200 weddings with) started making a funny noise when the shutter went off. When I held it over a table and took the lens off, the mirror fell out on the table! Yikes!\u00a0 I always bring two camera bodies so it wasn&#8217;t really a big deal. The next day I walked down the road looking for some super glue but the tiny little Jamaican stores in that area don&#8217;t carry too much in the way of glue &#8211; except for finger nail glue. Upon closer inspection, I realized this stuff was the same cyanoacrylate chemical as super glue so I took it back to my hotel room and glued the mirror back in place. It&#8217;s still going strong, but yes, I am overdue for a new camera body. Maybe I&#8217;ll convert this one to Infra Red.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">Two days after the wedding (and barely recuperated            from waaaay too much rum punch) Amy, Leroy and myself met up with my            long time Jamaican friend Ricky, for a drive out into what I call &#8220;the            real Jamaica.&#8221; We drove out to Roaring River where we swam in the            river and got the royal tour from a very real Rasta. He chopped open            fresh coconuts, pick local wild fruits and herbs, and even cooked us            lunch in what was perhaps the most humble setting I&#8217;ve ever eaten anything.            But the food and the Jungle and the swim in the river and the leisurely            stroll through this humble pastoral village could not have possible            been more filling both to our stomachs, and our souls.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">More driving through the countryside and up into            the hills along twisting bumpy rocky roads that would barely meet the            standards of a goat trail in the US, finally brought us to a private            bird sanctuary nestled back into the thick Jamaican jungle. We arrived            late in the evening as the bird life was at it&#8217;s busiest. Strange calls            floated out of the Jungle, and the strangest of them all was the high            pitched twittering of the Doctor Bird, Jamaica&#8217;s national bird. Like Tinkerbell, this tiny creature seems so strange that it could easily have jumped right off the screen of a Disney movie.\u00a0 A tiny hummingbird that glows and sparkles iridescent green and blue as it rushes here and there on wings that twitter loudly sound as it darts through the thick tangle of forest branches. The iridescent green tail            feathers split into a V and trail behind the tiny bird nearly a foot.            So busy is it that most human activity goes completely ignored and it            often passes so close that you can feel the wind from it&#8217;s tiny wings as it zooms past your face.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">Leroy and Amy, I can&#8217;t thank you enough for inviting            me to share in your Jamaican adventures.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img class=\"p3-flash-gallery-holder p3-placeholder p3-gallery-imported aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/ppt-doc.googlecode.com\/svn\/p3-flash-gal-placeholder.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><img src=\"https:\/\/www.bestofweddingphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/p4\/placeholders\/slideshow-placeholder-1000029724.jpg\" class=\"pp-slideshow-placeholder pp-gallery-placeholder slideshow-1000029724 mceItem\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a title=\"Glen Johnson's YouTube channel\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/gjohnson6207\" target=\"_blank\">Check out more YouTube videos from this photographer.<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Check out this 10 min video to see some highlights of the whole story. And be sure to choose the HD version and click the little button to make it go to full screen. If you have a slow internet connection, just pause the show and let it load for a while before you watch. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestofweddingphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestofweddingphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestofweddingphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestofweddingphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestofweddingphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297"}],"version-history":[{"count":49,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestofweddingphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestofweddingphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions\/310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestofweddingphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestofweddingphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestofweddingphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}