Shutter ➳ CITRUS

One - A Wedding

All rights belong to the original author.

Yuzu's POV.

The alarm clock started making that annoying high-pitched noise again. I blindly reached over my bedside table and smacked it to stop, basking on the silence that followed. Reluctantly, I peeled my eyes open. They adjusted to the light that the morning sun brings through the windows as I stare at the yellow ceiling of my room for a couple of minutes to get my bearing on things. I stretched my arms over my head, trying to shake the remaining sleep off my eyes, and attempted to remember why I was awake at 7 AM.

Right. I have a wedding to shoot.

Yawning loudly, I get out of bed, fixing the duvet and stacking the pillows into a neat pile before I padded to my kitchen.

I should be having a heavy breakfast so I could go around my task for today without passing out but I was too lazy to cook anything decent plus I'm not really hungry. So I opened the cupboard and took the cereal out, making a detour to the fridge to grab the jug of milk.

Propping myself on the bar stool, I started eating my breakfast, thinking about the day ahead.

I find myself smiling. I love my job, most of the time it doesn't feel like work at all. I'm a photographer and I take pictures for a living. My dad said I was born for it. He often tells me the time I got my first camera, he and mum were stunned to see pictures that a nine year- old couldn't have possibly taken. Yugo's camera was all snapshots of girls in school while mine contained landscapes and people high with their emotions. I always got drawn to them, how colors of nature complement each other wonderfully. Or how beautiful the human face could be, expressing a wide range of emotions in just a matter of seconds. All I want to do is take those moments with my camera and immortalize it for other generations to see.

Seems very idealistic isn't it? Yeah, I haven't lost that idealism in me. Most of my mates from uni have probably lost it by now, having been exposed to the harsh bitterness of the real world where money is what really matters.

On our twelfth birthday, Yugo got a new Playstation while I got my first decent camera. From then on I was unstoppable, filling up one photo album at a time.

After college, I went to uni and spent four years perfecting my craft. It was worth it, probably the best years of my life. I got exposed to a whole different level of photography. It wasn't just a hobby anymore; it's a profession.

So here I am three years later and it's still fucking wonderful. I freelance, mostly because I didn't want to have a boss to order me around. In that way, I get to work at my own pace. I live by sending my works to various magazines and other publications and getting paid a decent amount for it. My works have been part of photo exhibits two times already, and they pay generous money for that. I was able to convert one of the rooms in my apartment to a studio with the money from both exhibits.

Sometimes however when Yugo and mum's wedding planning business is short with photographers, I fill in. This is one of those times. Mark, one of their regular cameramen, has his wife in the hospital so I took his post in the meantime.

I was rudely snapped out of my trance by the telephone ringing. I sighed, knowing who it would be. I went over to the wall on the other side of the counter where the phone hangs and answered on the fifth ring.

"Hello?"

"Took you so long to answer Yuzz," Yugo's voice cut through the line.

"Good morning to you too Yugo," I replied calmly. "What do you want?"

Yugo scoffed and I could feel his eye roll through the phone. "I'm making sure you didn't drink yourself sick last night, pass out on another house, and forgot you have work today."