I’ve gotten into the habit of keeping a diary whenever I go on destination weddings, I have this idea in the back of my head of putting a book together or even an article for aspiring wedding photographers, but mostly its so that I can read it to V when I get back home.

This bit was written on the day of Paul and Cindi’s wedding. I was sitting on the beach, they were still dancing in the sand, I had a Kilimanjaro beer in front of me. It had been an amazing day end to end, and tomorrow I would be flying home.

“It’s 12:45am and I can feel the sweat sticking my shirt to my back. 12:45am!!! Its damn hot on the west coast of Zanzibar, the kind of hot that would make Tarzan want to go home. On the beach in front of me is a vocalist who sounds an awful lot like someone who learned English from a second language English speaker from an ex-communist country is annunciating the lyrics to Satisfaction … she misses the I can’t get no girl reaction line and substitutes another Aye cont geyt no say tease phaction … it sounds perfect for tonight. I take a photo of the bride and groom against the full moon and the beached hulls of the boats we came in on, leaving the shutter open to try and maximize the ambient light. I hear the shutter click shut just as she segues into Creedance Clearwater Revival. It’s been a hell of a day, Zanzibar style and I’m sunburnt and exhausted. I smile at a couple on the dance floor, seconds later my hangover kicks in. In about 5 hours the muezzin will be calling the faithful to prayer, loud enough to wake me up.”

I ended up shooting over 5000 images on the three days I was on the island, way too many amazing pics to show here. So just a couple from me. I took my Eura Ferrania with, so maybe a couple of arty images later.

They had the most amazing baobabs on the island, huge huge trees, and they were green and heavy with fruit. I’d never seen fruit on a baobab before.

UPDATE: I posted a couple of pics from the Ferrania on my non-wedding photoblog.

OK, Zanzibar was amazing and Paul and Cindi’s wedding was in the words of one guest … incredible. Coasting along the sea in a wooden boat to Kwale Island, watching elephant shrew outside my room, listening to the monkeys going ballistic on my roof at night, trying to hear the words of the priest over the roar of the ocean … all incredible memories.

Cindi and Paul were total rockstars, they even looked like rockstars, insisted on photographs with the baobab, and in the village – my kind of couple. Thank you both for your hospitality and warmth, the love and friendship of your friends and family are a reflection of your love for each other. I can’t think of a more perfect place for the two of you to get married than on the edge of a deserted island in the Indian Ocean, surrounded by your friends and family.

More in a day or so … btw if you’re a Nikon geek, my two Nikons, one which was recently calibrated and the other which is brand new, did not deal well with the massive amounts of light and contrast in Zanzibar. I ended up switching everything to manual and going old school.

I’m finally back from Zanzibar, which was beautiful and exotic and all the things you expect from a tropical island on the edge of Africa. Give me a couple of hours to unpack my bags, answer the 212 emails in my mailbox, and get the beach sand out of my camera bag and I’ll tell you all about Cindi and Paul’s wedding on Kwale Island. Until then, I did manage to do some work on the flight back. No, my fear of flying hasn’t gone away and yes I still fly tranquilized, but for some reason the tranquilizers weren’t working on the way back, so I edited photos.