Merry Christmas!

Well I havent been posting and updating my blog for the past couple of weeks due to really tight schedule on my work and also preparing for some shoot. However, I just cant find myself lazing off without wishing the peeps out here who follow my blog a Merry and Jolly Christmas!



Anyway, lets recap what have I actually shot over the span of the last couple of weeks. To be honest - it wasnt much. But the post processing was really really tedious! Well, anyway, I did a quick Strobist Workshop at Putrajaya with Yannick and also Michael, and our model was the cute and lovely Vivien. It was her first time posing for the camera, so she was somewhat stiff. After some time - she did get used to it.



Then I did some test lighting over one of the weekends which actually didnt result in what I was trying to achieve. So... I guess I'll have to try it out again some other time.

And a quick blink of an eye or two - it was Christmas eve. I quickly grabbed my puppy (her name is Bubu) and took a few shots of her wearing her christmas outfit :P then made a wallpaper out of the photos. Its much more like a quickie job... I personally think I should have put in more effort to make the wallpaper - but the lady love it, so I'll just leave it as it is then.

Thats all for the moment, as I put myself back into preparing for a workshop which is scheduled on January 1st 2008, and also another wedding shoot this coming weekend. This time, I will need to travel for about 5-6 hrs up north to Penang to where the bride is. So adios and goodnight world!

Eu Bryan & Sing Ai's Wedding

Okay, now I know that I dont actually post up a lot of blogs here. Been literally busy for the past 2 weeks. I went back to my hometown, Alor Setar, Kedah (a small city up North of Malaysia, bordering to Thailand) to attend a friend's wedding dinner on the 1st of Dec. Eu Bryan is a long time buddy of mine. We've known each other since the jurrasic age (literally), along with a lot more of my class of '95 mates. Now he's tying the knot with a lovely maiden Sing Ai, and I would like to extend my best regards to both of them :)


Anyway I car pooled back with Ivan and Calvin on the morning or 1st Dec. Ivan drive thruout the way and I honestly enjoyed the trip. Sorta reminisce the days long gone back when we were all in high school. I was suggesting we should do more such short trips together and even bring along our girlfriends :P, maybe a warm cup of coffee in Starbucks Genting Highlands over a weekend night?? I know it sounds crazy but hey it could be fun.


Okay lemme get back to topic. So, Eu Bryan's wedding dinner. Lets see... met up with a table load of friends. Dr. Murali, Vincent Chan, Hong Peng, Eric Ooi, Calvin Teoh, Ivan and also Vincent Lay. It was good to see them again - especially Eric whom I have lost contact with for almost 10 years if not more!

The wedding dinner was a cool one. There was this huge space in the middle of the function hall for people to dance. Bryan's parents are an avid couple for ballroom dancing (I'm reserving those dance photos as for now :P) and they have invited many such enthusiasts as well, so this is one wedding dinner which I have covered (or more like enjoyed eating this time LOL) where the guests were enjoying dancing away rather than fully concentrating on the food laid on the table top. :P



Anyway, since I am now logged in using WiFi over at Starbucks Ipoh Parade, I'll have to cut this short and try to have another shot of expresso so I can be wide awake to drive down KL later. :P

Strobist Workshop @ Bukit Jalil Recreational Park

I organized a Strobist Workshop on Sunday, which was like just a day after the bridal shoot which I had over at Simon's place. For those of you who don't know what is STROBIST; its basically just a term used to describe those photographers who uses these smal flashguns on the loose as oppose to using studio strobes (those big big lights in layman's term :P ).

Anyway, we had Jeaney as our model and the location was at Bukit Jalil Recreational Park. A few of ShutterAsia's members participated in this workshop and we met up at the Bukit Jalil LRT station entrance. Once we were at location, I wasted no time and started the workshop itenary. It was a really fruitful workshop, as I am sure the participants learned a lot of new technical know-how on lighting and stuff. This is especially true when it comes to shooting photographs - the strobist way.

Jeaney is a sport. She poses so much so until it aches and yet she pushed her boundries. So, must really give her a pat on the back :) It was really easy to work with her, and I am sure the participants of this workshop would agree to this too.

Anyway, here are some shots which I personally took of Jeaney during this outing. I didnt shoot much as my job was to mainly guide and try to teach the participants on what I know about shooting strobist style. :)

The shooting actually ended around 6.30pm or so, and we headed over to Plaza OUG's CoffeeBean outlet to finish the workshop off with a quick Photoshop tutorial on editing and post processing strobist style photos. I think I did dropped a bomb on the participants by revealing a somewhat surprising photoshop "technique" to them. :P Anyway, thanks to all the participants and also Jeaney for making this workshop a successful mini-event.

Bridal Studio Shoot

The girls from left to right : Aileen, Rachel & Nicole

Had a bridal themed shoot over at Simon's studio on Saturday, and boy it was a fun one. Rachel brought along 2 of her friends to join us for this photoshoot session. Aileen and Nicole are pretty much very sport to try out the numerous bridal gowns which Simon has. And off we started shooting Nicole first, followed by Aileen and also Rachel.

Cross lighting on Aileen

Simon's wife was the make up artist for the girls. She did a great job and I find the make up was very natural, and yet the tonal range did appear nicely on the photos. So, kudos to her on this.

A more contemporary, high fashion styled shot of Rachel

Simplistic approach on Rachel for this portrait

Simon and I started shooting around 11am, and then we manage to get a break around 3pm for lunch. Grabbed a few bites of MacDonalds for ourselves and a cuppa coffee from the nearby SS2 coffeebean outlet and off we went back again to shoot.

High styled lighting on Nicole for this shot

Shooting studio is fun. Proper lighting control is achieved and also the quality of light is better too with the usage of softboxes and other gear related stuff.

Anyway, we finally wrapped up the day's shoot around 6.30pm with some really nice photos which I wanna share here :) Rachel and I went to SS24 for dinner with Nicole and her boyfriend. Had a few bite of penang styled chee cheong fun and also a khau york rice. The food is so-so but I guess the hunger made it taste so much better. Hahaha..

It was a good Saturday to spend out with Rachel afterall. :)

Louise & Kok Tsong's Big Day

I covered Louise & Kok Tsong's wedding last Sunday. I was the solo photographer, and in fact, my very first time covering for the groom's side. I think I shall say that it was rather amusing that the couple requested me to cover the groom's side rather than the bride's side. Under normal circumstances of a solo photographer covering a wedding day, clients (or rather the brides :P) would want her photos taken and her big day recorded on her side. Grooms are... well, just like any other men, are rather much easy going with the photographing.

Anyway, I arrived at the groom's place in Cheras, and started off my task recording down those special moments, as well as minor details which the bride might love to see. It was funny how my mind work at that time. As I kept on clicking my EOS 40D, I kept on thinking, how would the bride wanna see her husband's preparation for the whole day would look like. It eases my job a lot more. I flow with the feel of how I would normally shoot. After all, that's a crucial part of my workflow which is an unseen element in my job. I call this "feel" - a passion for wedding photography. This passion enables me to capture those special moments the couple would embrace and cherish over the time the see the photos I took for them.

It is also this passion which drove me to kept on shooting until almost midnight; despite being hit by fever and also a bad flu, which was like a brewing storm. :P

Anyway, it was overall a fun and easy-going day. Thanks to KT Lee, the videographer who made time fly faster when we were both sorting and editing the photos for a video montage preparation for the dinner at night.

I arrived home close to about 2am, feeling all drowsy and woosy, but happy that my photos made both Louise & Kok Tsong feeling happy and satisfied.

Rachel (my the other half) waited for me and cooked me some bak kut teh instant noodles with 4 biji of meatballs. How sweet of her. :) We shared the noodles and I poped some panadol soluble before tuckin' into bed and dozed off to lala-land.

Pauline & Eric

Shot a full wedding day event last Saturday. Pauline is from Kota Kinabalu and Eric is a local Klang chap. Loving and fun going couple.

Pauline's got this place in Ken Damansara, which is a condominium located (I would presume) in between Petaling Jaya and Damansara. Security was a pain and made me waited at the guardhouse for about 10-20 mins before I could go up and get on going with my job. But then again, thats good security for the residence :)

Anyway, Pauline engaged a Taiwanese MUA, who I must say have done a very good job. :) There were some confusion when the groom arrived cuz there are 2 entrances to the residence building. So I had to run my butt off together with the bride's "sisters" to another entrance :P when the groom's entourage arrived. Luckily I didnt miss any shots which I already had in mind. ~ phew~

The day went smoothly and I manage to capture loads of pics. The most memorable photo of the day would be a group shot (family photo) which took place at a rather small area which accomodated 61 people all together! To add some funk to it - I had like about 1-2 minutes to get it done; right from the moment I answered "Yes I can get it done!" to the groom's mother. And it went something like this :

1. Situation : I realize landscape mode would be a no-no for this big group shot due to the location constraint. There's a nice zig-zag staircase which I can use to create layers of people so that they dont get their face blocked. The ceiling is very high, about 2 storeys approximately, and ambient wasnt helping much.

2. Solution : Showed the groom where I need his family members need to stand thru my EOS 40D LiveView and my SIGMA 10-20mm on it. He gets the idea and started ushering them up the stairs. I poped a 430EX flashgun on the first floor so it will fire into the ceiling, and set it to slave mode at high power. Next, I ran downstairs and the people are already in place.

3. Execution : I set my 40D to f10 (if I recall correctly), adjusted my 580EX to full power and direct it to fire into the ceiling again. Now, 2 lights should be enough to give me a nice bounce light to illuminate everyone's face. I took a shot, knowing everyone's gonna get agitated very soon. chimp at the LCD, looks nice. and took 4 more for safety measures.

Job done.

A few pat on the backs and a nice Bak Kut Teh for lunch... and off I went to get ready to cover their dinner event :)

Again, it was a fun dinner event, and I manage to do some Strobist style shoot for Pauline and Eric. The whole thing got wrapped up by abt 11pm and that's the end of the day for me.

Congrats to Pauline & Eric.

My Greatest Achievement on Flickr Explore!

I manage to get one of my photos up on Flickr Explore Front Page on the #1 spot! The photo of Jeaney with the dark dramatic sky behind her secured the highest spot for a duration of 8 hours on 20th Oct 2007. I'm very happy with this unexpected result, and it will serve to drive me to strive for more in the future.

Jeaney & Stephenie

Did an outdoor photoshoot and guided Danny along with using off shoe flash techniques a couple of days ago. Jeaney and Stephenie were our models for that day. Being a sport they are, the 2 girls braved dirty leather couch and also an abandoned car park which was kinda dusty and would give a definite ewww factor to most girls.

Anyway, I did some cross lighting with backlight fill for the whole shoot. Danny was clearly very very much attracted to the lighting technique now, and has bought a pair of radio triggers for himself. Sweet! Another buddy to go for flashing photoshoots! :P

Here's a composite image of Stephenie which was done by layering 4 different images into 1.

While here's two image of Jeaney getting all styled up.

Somehow, as much as I liked this photoshoot's outcome, something is still amiss. I wonder what it is. Hrmm...

Jenny & Jerry Ong : Wedding Dinner Special!

Oh wow. What a night I had shooting the newly wed couple - Jenny and Jerry Ong. It was a very special dinner 'cuz Jerry actually sang a love song upon entry for his beloved wife. And his voice is good too, mind you! This is definitely something different, and I'm sure future couples who is reading this might get some funky ideas for their own future wedding dinner. :P (guys - dont kick me please!)

Anyway I got to know Jerry from a local online photography forum. He's an avid shooter as well, and this is more like a favor I'm doing for him. I took many shots last night... approximately about 400 over shots which covered from the begining until the end. Although there are many shots which I personally like, this one below is one which I favoured most of all. Unfortunately, the bride's not in this picture. Anyway, there's something about this picture that just speaks for itself. The toasting moment the groom, Jerry, had with buddies.

This shot was taken at super wide, from a table height level. I am able to capture this shot thanks to the technology in my EOS 40D which comes with a LiveView mode. It enables me to see how the overall picture is gonna be like at odd angles where I cant possibly peek thru the viewfinder.

Anyway, to keep things short and simple - I would like to congratulate Jerry and also Jenny.

Cheers!

Jerry & Jenny's Wedding Dinner

I'm gonna be shooting another wedding dinner this coming Friday night, the 19th October 2007. It's gonna be an auspicious event for Jerry Ong and his wife, Jenny Chong. I've known Jerry via ShutterAsia.com - a photography related forum which I am a moderator there. Jerry's a nice chap to chat with, even I've only met him once.

Anyway, the dinner's gonna be held at Damansara Palace Restaurant. I haven't been to the location, but with my current know how to light up a wedding dinner - I doubt I would have much of a problem. I don't think that place could be any worse than a 20ft. high ceiling with tungsten chandaliers which I've encountered at Concorde Hotel, Shah Alam's Grand Ballroom.

In fact, I will be accompanied by seasoned shooter Siew Khee for this one. So, this is gonna be one hellu'va fun time.

Until then, I'll get my batteries all charged up :)