Fig. 1. Ria Kristina Torrente, Manama, Bahrain, 2020. Image courtesy of the Photographer.
I. An Act of Love
To say that photography is an act of love would mean a love language towards a person, a thing, an event or nostalgia to materialize the mystery, feelings, attraction or fascination towards a chosen subject. The second chapter of the French author Hervé Guibert’s imaginative photography book without pictures called Ghost Image begins with the declaration, “Photography is also an act of love.”
In this chapter, aptly titled Ghost Image, Guibert reminisces about the time he photographed his mother, the photographic process that ended in a mishap, and the revelation of a power play in their family dynamics within the context of photography.
It’s fascinating how Guibert constructed the event from memory, extracting details of his thoughts and feelings toward his parents, particularly his deep love for his mother. He had only learned of her beauty, sadness, and hesitations as he prepared her in front of the camera, the way he remembered her image from his childhood.
“I took her picture. At that moment, she was at the height of her beauty….”
The author’s father, as generous as he was to share the magic of photography with his son, was an uncomfortable figure to his mother.
“The first thing I did was to remove my father where the picture was to be taken, to chase him away so that her image would no longer pass through the one he had created of her….”
My act of love for photography began when I left the Philippines in 2017 to become a professional photographer.
My naivete in my early thirties consisted of resisting adulthood and foolishly subscribing to the cliche “Find a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” But deep down, it was also a way to escape the nine-to-five desk job. I also thought this was the best way to cope with the unpleasant feeling of a quarter-life crisis while seeking to connect and relate through photography.
I applied for a job as a wedding photographer posted on an online job search and went to the recruitment agency in Manila. After completing the requirements and passing the interview, I attended the Pre-Departure Orientation Seminar (PDOS), a required seminar for departing overseas workers to learn about their destination country's general profile.
Without prior experience in wedding photography and with only a little knowledge of the country where I was going, I eagerly packed my luggage and left the Philippines without hesitation.
My head was in the clouds while up in the air, literally, on my flight to Bahrain, a small island country in the Arabian Gulf no larger than Luzon. I was eager and perhaps a bit naive in my enthusiasm to be among fellow photographers and engage in the activity we all love to do.
I arrived in Manama, Bahrain’s capital, in September during Muharram, one of Islam’s holy months. The day was overcast, the pavement and surroundings lacking color as I looked out the window while the plane landed on the airport runway. As we were driven to our accommodation, I only saw one or two people walking the streets. The buildings and vacant lots seamlessly blended into the off-white cement surroundings.
Reflecting on those initial impressions and images, I’ve embraced them as a blank slate, a fresh start for what I had envisioned and hoped for. But as I look back, my leaving wasn’t only an act of love for photography. It was an unravelling of myself I hadn’t known before as I navigated a world unknown to me and learned to see beyond the images and the purpose of a camera.
Leaving home, arriving in a foreign country, and experiencing the following events can profoundly transform who you are.
II. The Duality of Seeing
Fig. 2. Ria Kristina Torrente, Self-portrait, Manama, 2018. Image courtesy of the Photographer.
“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” - Anais Nin
I strongly believe in the duality of things — lightness and darkness, stillness and movement, visibility and invisibility. We have two eyes to see the world. Yet, we only use one eye to look into a camera’s viewfinder to capture what most of us perceive as the totality of a beautiful scene or fleeting encounter at a given moment.
I still prefer to look within the viewfinder despite the availability of the LCD screen. Seeing my subject in a smaller view gives me more focus and lessens the noise that surrounds the environment. There is intimacy in looking as my eye connects to the subject.
I’d like to think photographers are enveloped in their own world when they look into the viewfinder. For a moment, the world and truth are theirs to create. Afterwards, they no longer have control of what the picture means to the audience, regardless of whether it remains in a virtual state or develops into a tangible object.
As epiphanies unfold after the act of photographing, I’ve learned that looking and seeing are two different things. I look to connect, and I see to comprehend the realities of the world (or wherever I am in the present environment). A person can only empathize when she or he doesn’t live or experience the burden of a situation.
My short experience working as a photographer in the Middle East was a watershed moment. Due to the limited photographic visibility granted to the camera by their culture, I encountered many challenges, contradictions, and ironies in photography.
Issues concerning gender, migration, patriarchy, and labor are actively intertwined within the photography complex in the region. I act as both a witness and participant in the (in)visibility of Arab Muslim women and the overlooked presence of migrant workers within my field.
III. Impermanence
Fig. 3. Ria Kristina Torrente, Manama, 2020. Image courtesy of the Photographer.
Manama, Doha, and similar prosperous cities in the Middle East within the Gulf Cooperation Council (or GCC, a political and economic union of six Arab states that include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman) are only temporary places of work for many migrant workers. The sweat, tears, and hard work of millions of laborers and professionals from South and Southeast Asia power the region.
The Philippine Statistics Authority’s 2022 survey on overseas Filipinos reported that Saudi Arabia is the leading destination for Filipino workers in the Middle East, followed by the UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar. The majority of OFWs are women, making up 1.13 million out of the 1.96 million OFWs from April to September of that year.
I’ve encountered numerous Filipino success stories and tragic accounts, including anecdotes and firsthand narratives from acquaintances working in the Gulf. In Doha, my recent second country of employment, I came to know a fellow Filipina wedding photographer employed in a different studio for 17 years.
Wedding photographers earn between USD 549.38 and USD 1,098.75 monthly under the kafala system, a sponsorship-based employment structure enacted throughout the GCC. Freelance photographers who can legally work and have their own equipment can earn between USD 247.22 and USD 412.03 per event.
The kafala system has been under scrutiny from international human rights groups for many years due to its slave-like and restrictive system, calling it a modern form of slavery.
The colleague I mentioned earlier now earns QAR 7,000 (USD1922.81) for her 17 years of service. In my opinion, it’s still not enough for her loyalty and dedication. I can’t say whether she’s genuinely happy and satisfied or only a projection to keep her pride for staying long in a country that pays so little and working in a notoriously laborious industry. Unlike in many Western nations, where one can apply to become a naturalized citizen after living and working for several years and meeting other requirements, this process unfortunately does not apply in the GCC.
IV. Outside Looking In
Fig. 4. Ria Kristina Torrente, An Arab bride preparing for her henna party. Doha, 2023. Image courtesy of the Photographer.
Sometimes, I feel like a fish out of water, while other times, I feel like a fish inside a tank, swimming back and forth and looking outside from the aquarium. As I become more familiar and equipped to photograph the wedding ceremonies of many different cultures assigned at work— Arabs, Egyptians, Indians, Pakistanis, Syrians, etc.—I find myself navigating with fascination and critical observation of the values, cultures, and wedding traditions different from mine.
In the book Camera Lucida, written by the French essayist and critic Roland Barthes, he wrote, “ The photographer teaches me how the Russians dress: I note a boy's big cloth cap, another's necktie, an old woman's scarf around her head, a youth's haircut . . ."
In the same way, my experience with Middle Eastern wedding traditions, particularly those of Arab Muslims from the GCC, has taught me about Islamic weddings: the bride’s traditional henna dress, the dowry, and the multiple wedding parties, among many other distinct features in their culture.
A Muslim wedding strictly involves separate celebrations for men and women. It begins with a small and intimate gathering called the melcha, during which the couple signs the marriage contract.
In one melcha I've covered, the bride’s father delivered the digital contract on a tablet for her daughter to sign. In a more traditional setting, a sheikh, followed by an entourage of male family members, is present to bless the bride.
After the melcha, an engagement celebration is held with the groom in attendance. The couple exchanges rings, and the groom ceremoniously adorns the bride with additional jewelry in front of their families. Sometimes, the melcha and engagement are held on the same night.
I vividly remember one melcha and engagement night. It was a small yet somewhat lavish celebration held at the bride's family home. The bride, wearing a long veil that concealed her face, had just signed the contract in the presence of the sheikh. After the men had left, the women, clad in abayas except those presumed to be from the groom's family, prepared for the groom's arrival.
Despite the crowded space, I found a good spot near the sofa where the bride was seated, ensuring I wasn’t blocking the view of the elders. As the entrance song played, the women began ululating with excitement. The groom appeared shy yet confident as he made the short walk from the entrance to the kosha (bridal stage). Upon reaching the bride, he gently lifted her veil, revealing her as if unwrapping a gift.
The next event is the henna party, a women-only celebration similar to a bachelorette party. Guests are expected to wear colorful traditional Arab kaftan dresses called jalabiya and have elaborate henna tattoos on their hands and arms. Green and red are typically the dominant colors at most henna parties. The bride is adorned lavishly with gold jewelry from head to toe.
In some henna parties, a regional tradition called jelwa is observed. During jelwa, guests surround the bride, draping her in colorful silk cloths and swaying them to the beat of traditional live music.
In one corner of the celebration hall, expensive jewelry sets and bundles of cash enclosed in glass cases, signature perfumes, saffron, oud (an aromatic woodchip made from agarwood) and bakhoor (Arabic incense), and many other extravagant items are displayed. The groom gives these gifts to the bride, called dowry, as part of the wedding contract. Nowadays, it’s common to see a bank card displayed instead of cash at many engagement and henna parties.
Finally, a western-influenced wedding celebration takes place, featuring the bride in a white dress holding a maska (flower bouquet). Halfway through the program, the female guests will start wearing their abayas. For the photographers and videographers, this is the signal to get ready because the groom and male members of both families will make their entrance.
While randomly scrolling through Instagram one day, I discovered the works of Tasneem Alsultan, a Saudi-American documentary and wedding photographer. I was delighted to see her images of happily married couples around the GCC with short quotes of their love stories openly posted on social media.
With consent from her collaborators and as an insider in her own culture, Alsultan can share these images, unlike my restricted role in the region as a photographer or videographer capturing and witnessing the spectacle of a grand Arab wedding.
V. In the Company of Women
Fig. 5. Jerlyn May-os. The photo and video team at the wedding venue in Doha, Qatar in 2023. Image courtesy of the Photographer.
“Photograph who you are.” – Bruce Gilden
I grew up surrounded by women for most of my life. My mother, aunts, and grandmothers raised me and played pivotal roles in my upbringing. Many of them worked as OFWs, while my uncles served as father figures and never left the Philippines.
My elementary, high school and college years were spent in all-female educational institutions. In my early to late twenties, I pursued a career in the corporate and freelance world while also nurturing photography as a hobby. However, at some point in life, uncertainties and burnout may lead to a longing to escape, to get lost, or to disappear. Following my desire to do nothing but photograph, I made a decision that unknowingly led me back to an environment surrounded by women.
In the Philippines, families celebrate a girl’s coming of age at eighteen with a traditional birthday celebration called debut. In the GCC, big debut-like celebrations are held for Arab women when they get married, usually when they turn eighteen or in their early twenties. In one of my experiences capturing graduation photos of Bahraini women, some of whom are already married, their portraits often include their children and husbands.
It's said that we attract what we embody, and I believe that part of who I am has been shaped by the diverse women who raised me, crossed my path, and profoundly influenced my life. I have found myself drawn to observing the lives of people from different cultures, especially women. I am increasingly aware of where to direct my attention and focus my lens, aiming to understand women's roles in various societies.
VI. A Grand Wedding Built By Migrants
Fig. 6. Ria Kristina Torrente, Table setting preparation by Filipina servers, Doha, 2024. Image courtesy of the Photographer.
The majority of workers involved in organizing weddings in the GCC are migrant workers from countries like Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, and the Philippines.
During major wedding events, which typically take place on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, our long day begins at 9:30 a.m. All staff are expected to continue working on editing tasks before heading out for the exhausting day of covering wedding events. Last-minute checks are conducted to ensure all photo and video equipment, around 10-15 heavy bags and hard cases, is loaded into the van. We leave the studio at 2:30 p.m. to reach the venue.
Our specific roles depend on the assignments given by the manager, such as the assistant, photographer, videographer, or managing the switchboard for live streaming.
Upon arrival at the wedding venue, usually located in prestigious luxury hotels within the city, preparations for the wedding hall are just beginning. Large trucks are parked near the entrance, carrying materials, tools, and equipment to construct the bridal stage and decorate the entire celebration hall.
As soon as you enter the hall, the noises of hammering, vacuum cleaners, and men loudly talking in foreign languages can be heard. Everyone is busy building, arranging, and cleaning simultaneously. Bangladeshis and Pakistanis are carrying out these tasks, with occasional involvement from Filipinos in carpentry work.
Our team usually sets up at the back of the LED screens, where we find two or three people, mostly Filipinos, preparing the table details such as the flowers, mixed nuts, chocolates, fake candles, ramekins, etc. Security guards, mostly black men and women, will roam around to ask for IDs or visitor badges.
One of us will go to the bridal suite to inform the bride or a family member that our team has arrived. Sometimes, when some family members don’t speak English very well, we use the word tasweer, meaning picture, to communicate who we are more easily. Despite language barriers on some days, we managed to navigate through the entire event surprisingly well and deliver our services.Around this time, the bride hasn't started her hair and makeup. It will take three to four hours to begin the photo shoot. Half of the team will start setting up the khalfiat (background) and photography equipment in the bride’s room or at a dedicated room to do the photo shoot, while the other half will set up additional equipment such as the AV mixer, video cameras, wireless transmission devices, converters, etc., in the wedding hall.
By five or six in the evening, the wedding hall should be completely done and all male workers have left. Every fine detail should be perfect: the carpet laid without ripples, the bridal stage immaculate, LED screens functioning smoothly, and plates and utensils elegantly arranged on the tables.
Our team should have captured all the details of the wedding hall before any guests arrived. The wedding hall manager briefs the servers and security team, and last-minute checks are conducted on the tables.
Every scene feels like a well-rehearsed performance, with familiar faces taking their places. The kitchen staff and servers are from the Philippines, India, and Nepal. Chai or coffee (qahwa) servers are often black women from Nigeria and Ethiopia. The singers, band members, and DJ are of Arab descent. With their mix of modern and traditional instruments, male band members wait backstage.
The first guests, dressed in luxurious attire and bedecked with expensive bags, shoes, and jewelry, arrive around seven in the evening, creating a glamorous competition among themselves. The wedding hall becomes a haven for these women to express themselves freely, revealing their skin and the curves of their bosoms and swaying their hips to the rhythm of the music without the scrutiny of men.
When the DJ or band starts playing Arabic songs, they walk towards the aisle and start dancing. It's a recital handed down through several generations. At every event, from the engagement to the wedding, they dance the same steps to the same songs, maintaining their timeless appeal. They move with the rhythm, resembling galloping horses.
Family members shower the dancing guests with money, creating a display of wealth between the two families. It’s a performance to add to the spectacle, with the money typically reserved as payment for the DJ or band. Assistants, wearing a niqab and holding plastic or paper bags, sweep up the money. On the side of the stage, you'll frequently see them counting the cash and putting it into a large suitcase, which they can fill in one night.
At grander weddings, it's like money is endlessly raining down, catching everyone's eye. Three groups compete to grab the bills: the DJ or band's assistants, the servers, and our team. Our strategy is to move as discreetly as possible without getting caught by the assistants, guests, family members, or our manager. On the other hand, the servers rush into the aisle, bumping into guests without care, hoping to grab a share of the money. It's a chaotic scene, a power play, like scrambling for scraps at the feet of the masters.
You would often hear Filipinos struggling for money ask, 'Saan pupulot ng pera?' (Where to pick up money? / Where to get money?). In this industry, you can literally pick up money to send home or keep as an allowance to get you by for a couple of weeks!
The Photo Shoot
Inside the bridal suite, the assigned team begins photographing the jewelry, shoes, bouquet, dress, and other details while awaiting the bride. Around 8:30 to 9 p.m., the photo shoot with the bride begins. As an assistant on duty, you are tasked with carrying and arranging lights for the photographer, ensuring the bridal dress and tarha (veil) are in place, and maintaining neat hair and perfectly arranged jewelry for the shoot.
Sometimes, brides hire an assistant to ensure they look perfect as they walk down the aisle and throughout the wedding. Bride assistant services is a growing business within the Middle East wedding industry. The employees are also mostly Filipinas.
Usually, only the bride and a few family and friends participate in the photo shoot. The couple's photo shoot takes place after the wedding celebration. The bride will make her entrance between 9:30 and 10:00 p.m.
Bride and Groom Entrance
As the lights dim, silence falls over the hall in anticipation of the bride's entrance. Two servers stand on each side of the door, holding the bakhoor. Videographers strategically position their cameras to capture the best angle of the bride's entrance to show on the LED screens while photographers are poised in their designated spots.
The first eight to ten minutes of the wedding entrance, known as the zaffa, are crucial for capturing photos and videos. The bride walks down the aisle to the tune of a traditional wedding entrance song called Hab Al Saad. Guests greet her with high-pitched ululations. In rare instances, some brides opt for non-traditional entrance songs. I recall one wedding where the bride made her entrance to the instrumental version of Lana Del Rey's 'Young and Beautiful'.
The bride’s family and guests will shower her with money. After the money-showering ritual, the celebration continues with a series of photo shoots in the kosha, followed by dancing. Between 11:30 p.m. and 12:00 a.m., the bride’s male family members and the groom, along with his family, are expected to make their entrance.
Female guests prepare themselves by covering in abayas, in adherence to Islamic tradition, which mandates that unrelated men should not see women. Following the groom's entrance and the departure of male family members from the hall, another round of photos will be taken with the couple, their family, and friends. The bride and groom will then exit at 12:30 a.m.
After the Wedding Celebration
The couple’s portrait will be taken in the wedding hall lobby and the bridal suite. Asking the bride and groom to kiss on the lips for the photo shoot is not allowed. It's easier to photograph the groom, who often prefers to wrap up the shoot quickly.The photo shoot session with the bridal couple usually ends at around 1:30 a.m. However, some of us can’t go home until the dancing in the wedding hall is finished, which typically ends at 2 a.m. By the time we finished packing up the live stream equipment, cameras, tripods, etc., the men and other staff who built and helped prepare the wedding hall had also arrived to dismount the stage and platforms and clean up.
As I stared out the van’s window on our way home, I couldn't help but question whether all this exhaustion was worth it. Glancing around, I noticed my colleagues, also silent and possibly lost in thought. Were they contemplating the same questions as I had? Each of us had our own reasons for being here, yet in that shared silence, it felt like our reflections seemed to converge.
We typically get home between 2:30 and 3:00 a.m., feeling both exhausted and hungry. In just five hours, chaos will break out as everyone rushes to prepare their food, take quick showers, and wearily climb into the van, trying to catch some sleep on the way to the studio, where work starts at 9:30 a.m.
VII. The Visible vs. The Invisible
Fig. 7. Ria Kristina Torrente, A blurry. A dream. A wedding that cannot be seen. Manama, 2019. Image courtesy of the Photographer.
The Middle East’s wedding culture has a lot of restrictions when it comes to photographing Arab Muslim women. It’s strictly prohibited to take their picture without consent, even in exclusive women-only parties.
We are hired specifically to photograph the bride and groom. We take pictures of family members only if they request it or if we believe their inclusion is important for the family album.
Snapchat is a popular social media platform among Arabs because it allows users to share images and videos for a short period. Photographers and videographers are prohibited from posting about the events on their personal social media accounts or publicly sharing the images and videos after they are no longer affiliated with the studio.
Photography studios promote their services on social media by sharing photos and videos of bridal details and wedding hall decorations with the client's permission. This approach reduces advertising costs and allows potential clients to view the studio's portfolio of work for other clients.
Middle East weddings also appropriate from Western trends as long as they do not violate their Islamic culture and practices. Even though Arab women and their weddings may not have high visibility in public settings, the value and functions of the photograph as a product aren’t diminished.
In Sandra Dans’s Readability, and Wedding Signifiers in Wedding Photography, the author stated that “wedding photographs rarely exist for the sole function of being viewed by the photographed persons and those to whom they choose to give access.”
But in the Middle East, especially in Arab weddings, photography’s primary function for “memory-keeping, private documentation, making images to mark a personal milestone” is strongly exercised.
Dans asked, “What does it mean for a wedding photograph to be readable?” As a social function in Arab society, clear wedding signifiers must be applied to a wedding announcement that is separately circulated among the bride and groom's families and friends.
“The exact wedding signifiers may vary from place to place, culture to culture, and even
from time to time, but their function is the same whenever they appear,” said Dans.
The groom’s photograph can be placed in the wedding announcement. He is wearing the traditional Arabic white dress called the thobe, the bisht cloak, and the ghutra headdress. On the other hand, a henna party invitation for the bride doesn’t have her photo but is designed with Arabic calligraphy and Islamic symbols like the crescent moon, lanterns, and floral patterns.
Dans also mentions the gendered aspects of weddings: “grooms are usually framed in images as relaxed and affluent... Their preparations usually take mere minutes (compared to the bride who takes hours)... The groom is coded as wealthy. Brides, on the other hand, are framed as virtuous and virginal ingenues...”
This is particularly true for Arab weddings, where grooms take only a few minutes to get ready while brides spend hours preparing. While grooms or Arabs generally don't need to project wealth, both the couple’s families can afford to pay for lavish weddings despite the financial burden. With a deeply patriarchal culture, men must be able to provide and support their wives financially and serve as their guardians.
In the same way, brides don’t need to look virtuous and virginal. They must embody a woman who carries the Muslim faith and traditions, dress modestly, and become submissive to their husbands. However revealing their wedding dresses are at parties, the photos will only be seen by the women in their inner circle and their husbands.
Regarding the photographic gaze, I question whether the influence of the male gaze has liberated our imageries. Without the objectification of our subjects and as a woman photographer taking control of capturing the image, I’m not convinced that there is originality in the way we create our pictures of Muslim women and weddings.
What if they are mere copies of generations of wedding images I thoughtlessly adopted when I became a wedding photographer? What if the stylized wedding images we create are also Western-influenced? Is originality important even if we adhere to accepted norms in Arab culture and satisfy our clients? I’m curious to learn about the provenance of Middle Eastern wedding photography and whether it has always been a woman behind the camera.
In the chapter Photographic Writing in Ghost Image, Guibert is inspired by Goethe’s vivid descriptions in his travel journals. He wrote, “he (Goethe) was creating a form of travel photograph, a postcard.”
“We might think of a journal as a form of contact sheet, an orderly arrangement of images waiting to be developed, but it is not quite that.”
My work involves taking wedding photos, but I think about the migrant workers, like myself, who work hard to create these grand dream weddings. As I regularly witness how weddings are made, I can only write about my experience with the workers behind the scenes.
Unfortunately, I lack tangible material or photographic evidence. They are my ghost images.
VIII. A Diabolical Practice
Fig. 8. Ria Kristina Torrente, Self-portrait. Abu Dhabi Airport, 2020. Image courtesy of the Photographer.
“For the text would not have existed if the picture had been taken… For this text is the despair of the image, and worse than a blurred or fogged image— a ghost image… – Hervé Guibert
In a 2009 article published on the Arab News website titled “Wedding Costs: Traditions and Reality” by Lisa Kaaki, Middle Eastern wedding photography was already a “multimillion-dollar business with an annual 20% growth” despite the financial crisis during that time.
Fast-forward to 2019, The Arabian Business website published that the Gulf wedding industry is worth almost $3bn annually. The article's author, Dr Mona S. AlMunajjed, wrote, “In Saudi Arabia and GCC countries, around $1bn are spent every year on wedding jewellery and bridal dresses.”
The positive numbers from recent and past reports indicate that photography will remain a rapidly growing industry in the Middle East. Despite workforce localization policies in the GCC aimed at reducing unemployment among citizens, hiring foreign workers will continue to play a crucial role in minimizing potential negative impacts on economic growth and productivity when they eventually leave the country.
Most photography studios in the GCC hire Filipinas specifically for women-only events. Filipinos generally receive lower pay compared to locals and other foreign nationals. Despite the perceived glamour of being a wedding photographer in the Middle East, the job can expose women to labor abuses.
Working long hours, receiving low pay, facing passport confiscation, delayed salaries, lacking insurance and health benefits, and enduring verbal abuse are among the challenges I've faced in the Gulf countries where I've worked.
I initially went to these countries driven by my love for photography and idealistic ambitions. However, this experience has opened my eyes to the harsh realities of being an OFW. Not all of my colleagues share my passion for photography; for many, it's solely a way to earn income and support their families and aspirations back home.
I have worked in two different photography studios across two countries, and in both cases, many of the promised commitments were not fulfilled.
In my last employment, I decided not to finish my contract. I covered my own expenses to return home. My mental and physical health and peace of mind are far more valuable than chasing hollow ambitions abroad. I often think about my colleagues who endure heavy workloads and a toxic environment every day until their contracts end.
They opted to stay.
I hesitated as I stared at the piece of paper. I wanted to take a picture of it on my phone, but the manager stood in front of me. I had to sign it first before I could receive my final pay. The contract stated I couldn't complain, affirming they had provided everything I needed during my stay and that I received the correct amount on my last day. But it was all false.
All I wanted was to leave and never return, so with a heavy heart, I signed.
June 2024
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