Chapter 1: From Cats to Weddings

Have you ever wondered what Tofurious is about? I assure you that Tofurious is more than just some Asian guy who enjoys eating Chipotle. Read on, my friends. Read on.

To start, my name is Lawrence Chan and I am a wedding photographer. Interestingly enough, I didn’t start my career as a wedding photographer nor did I study it in college. Actually, I studied Political Science at UCLA because the topic of wars piqued my interest.

Anyway, like most wedding photographers, I start my story with a friend who asked, “Hey Lawrence, do you think you can shoot my wedding?”

“Are you serious? I’m not a pro or anything,” I answered. And I wasn’t lying; I just happened to have the slickest and most expensive DSLR of our little group because I liked gadgets.

“What if he misses a shot?” asked Nancy (Rob’s fiance).

What if I do miss a shot? I thought to myself.

“Don’t worry, Nancy,” I interrupted Rob’s train of thoughts.

“We can just pretend to do it again.” Later I learned this was taboo in our industry. You simply cannot miss a shot.

“Yeah, what he said,” Rob chuckled.

Wow! I was going to shoot a wedding! This is big league stuff! This was a major upgrade from shooting my cats.

I had a Canon Rebel XT with a Tamron 28-300mm lens. The salesperson told me that a 28-300mm lens would cover the whole range of photography. This made so much sense – 28mm covers wide and 300mm covers long. Little did I know it was a complete piece of poo poo.

One day before the wedding, I decided to upgrade and picked myself up a Canon 420EX flash and a 1GB memory card, which was a major improvement from my 128MB. Locked and loaded, I was ready for whatever the wedding day was going to throw at me.

Nancy and Rob had a Chinese tea ceremony at a beautiful temple. I was happily clicking away while the monks were chanting, the tea cups were being passed around, and the people were laughing and smiling.

Then it happened.

My memory card was full. I was like uh-oh. I thought I had planned for any obstacle, but this was definitely unforeseen. Nancy’s words of “What if he misses a shot?” echoed in my head.

Okay, stay calm Lawrence. Now, think…THINK! Before another second passed, I just stood up and shouted “STOP!” No joke, I really did.

View Other Chapters:

Chapter 1: From Cats to Weddings
Chapter 2: Riding High On Referrals
Chapter 3: TheKnot Frenzy
Chapter 4: Searching For Myself

Related Posts:

• Chapter 4: Searching For Myself
• Chapter 3: TheKnot Frenzy
• Chapter 2: Riding High On Referrals