Kelly's Wedding - Part 2

The bride was eagerly anticipating for the arrival of the groom and she didn't have to wait long.



The groom was quite on time and he waited in the car for a bit before the bride's brother opened the door for him. Get angpow you know :)



The father began a prayer ritual to get blessing for the wedding. I was trying to capture the movement but I think I might have chosen a shutter speed that was too fast. Next time must try slower.



The groom had it easy though when he picked up the bride. No need to wear any underwear on the outside, no make-up, nothing except some simple games right outside the door.



Of course, the people watching still found it amusing. Wait till it is your turn :P



And finally, once he got in, its time to take a look at his bride. The woman he will spend the rest of his life with. Look at her joy, a happy day indeed.

Part 3 next Monday as I will be away in Singapore :)

Kelly's Wedding - Part 1

I was given the chance to shoot Kelly's wedding recently and this is my second wedding job. I hope that when the CD is passed to her, she will love the photos. I was shooting with Timothy, my partner in crime, and also the source of my wedding jobs. The bride told us to come later but of course, we wanted to shoot the preparation section as well and to her surprise and joy (I hope), we reached there two hours earlier.

Of course, we immediately set out to capture shots and I took the above shot of the altar table with some sweet offerings. I believe it is tong yuen or some would say tang yuen.



Of course, since she was busy with her make-up, I decided to shoot other stuff first, like her wedding dress. It was a simple off white dress and it looked quite nice indeed.

I concentrated on the little details first because ada macro lens ma :P



Then I decided to go for a full shot and converted it into B&W as I think it removed the distraction of other colours in the room.



We then kidnapped her shoes and tried to find a place to shoot it. I thought the red colour pillar of the altar table outside made for a nice contrast with the white shoes. I then cross processed it to give it a lomo feel.



We went back into the room and now I tried to capture some of the make-up stuff. The tools of the trade of the make-up artist couldn't be any more different than mine. Then I thought, it differed in looks but the concept is still the same. I have different lenses, she have different brushes.



And the make-up artist working her magic. Again, using the macro lens to isolate the tip of the make-up brush. Or is it the eye-liner?

Next up, Part 2, where we take a look at some shots when the groom arrives.

Random shots of bugs in Genting

And we end the series on Genting with random shots of bugs. We have the Common Grass Yellow butterfly which was everywhere. Unfortunately, they are also quite shy which makes photographing them a challenge.



This is another of my personal "shot of the day". It is out of focus but capturing a bee in flight is probably one of my proudest achievements. It is relatively clear la. At least can still see it is a bee.



And this is another bee, feeding on a flower. Not flying but what the heck, bees are cool. Annoying to shoot but cool.



And the last shot? A bug that is on everyone's hate list. Cockroach. Although the jungle cockroach looks way better compared to the ones we usually see.

What is next on my blog? Might probably be some wedding shots.

Lord of the flies...

I am back! And the first shot I share with you is porn! Bug porn! Wonder if I can blackmail them for loads of cash? They probably don't care though.



I have never shot a hover fly before so I was rather excited to get so many chances here. They fly away quite fast though. Kurt, Liew and Lordmint probably shot it on so many occasions that they got sick of it.



The above is my favourite shot of the hover fly. Somehow when I see it, I just feel like I did something right although I am not sure what. Next up, I'll wrap up the Genting series with a bunch of random shots as usual.

Hoppity Hoppity Hop!

These are not the stuff that goes bump in the night. They hop. And hop. And some people find them scary. Katydids and grasshoppers can look pretty freaky but they are quite docile. None of them will attack you anytime soon.



They are also quite patient when you are snapping away. Unless you actually touch them, most of them will stay there and you can shoot until you fill up all your memory cards.



They can come in all shapes and sizes. But they are mainly green. Blends in well with everything.



Doesn't stop enthusiastic macro shooters from finding them though. I'll be away tomorrow and will only be back on Monday. Not too sure if I'll be able to blog but drop a line or two if you miss me :P

Arachnid mania!

I went for a macro shoot somewhere in Genting with Lordmint, Liew and also Kurt. Kena belajar from the sifu sifu so I tagged along. This first post is dedicated to all the cute spiders I met there.



I believed most of the species I shot were jumping spiders except for probably the ones on the web. Since jumping spiders do not spin webs and stay on them, you pretty much find them on leaves, branches or any other surface, except on web.

I find them very cute with their big round eyes :)



They are also very sensitive. Sikit sikit jump away :P The above shot, I was holding down the stalk. After I shot it, I gently let it back into the place and got up to let Liew shoot. But... the spider jumped away.



So the above is not a jumping spider because got web mah. But what spider is it? I have no idea. I just loved the green background with little traces of web showing.

Next up: Bees? Flies?

As requested....

Since only two people voted, and the vote was girls. Therefore, a girl it shall be. I only have two pictures lah, not a big fan of portrait. Went there to shoot a bit and also become lighting assistant.

And here are the results of my shoot. The above shot was PPed according to the steps given in a popular portraiture book by a local photographer, Dr Teh Ban Hup. His book can be purchased here.

The shot below was PPed at my fancy :P I just simply burn and did stuff to it.



Ok, so thats it for girls. Or girl. Its back to bugs next. As usual, all shots taken with D90 and 105mm.

HDR of dogs?

Well, I practically try to HDR everything, although I have now toned it down. I now Lucisart almost everything :P But HDR is pretty fun and a simple shot can look different.



The Siberian Husky was one of my favourite subjects to HDR. There is something about their blue eyes that screams to be featured.



And then of course, Tim spotted the difference in the eyes and I was so fascinated with it that I tried to bring it out even more. Might have failed in that. Made him look like he had one eye less. :P



And last, well, I love the expression. It was just hilarious. The shots might have gone through too much noise reduction so details are lost. I blame Flickr's editor. Or it could be my skills. Nah, let's blame the editor.

Next up: Bugs? Girls? Wildlife? You decide!

A few more doggie shots...

I will need some help here, to identify some dogs. The only I know is... The Golden Retriever above.



And of course, this one, the big Chow Chow. So cute :D



What is this Chinese lion looking dog? I swear it looks like one of those old lion dance costume kinda animal.



And this grumpy fella. Why so grumpy? What dog can be so grumpy?



Wahh and this one is super cute. I want to take him home :P



And finally, we have ol wrinkly face, who was tied up to a tree the whole time. So pitiful. Next up, we have dogs and HDR. Yep, I HDRed dogs. :P

Doggie action...

And as promised, action shots! Ok lah, the shot above is not too action but its a prelude of things to come. The retriever was swimming back and forth to pick up the bottle. The owner just sat in the shade and kept throwing the bottle back. And the retriever will happily fly into the water to get the bottle.



Then the dog race began and it turned into a catching game. Some dogs were just clueless on what they were supposed to do. But it made for some great shots. For example, look at man below. He is obviously pointing to the dog where to go. Look at the dog, is he listening?



Well, the results...



Obviously, never listen lah. He went chasing after the white dog instead. But of course, there are those that listened and you can see the enthusiastic dog running happily to the finish line.



But how do the dogs know where to run? Well, pretty simple. They got encouragement at the end of the line.



What a sight, right? Pretty fun to see the antics of the owners. Next up, we have more doggies on show!

Who lets the dogs out? Who! Who! Who!

Well, there was a Responsible Dog Ownership Day at Bandar Utama so I thought it will be a good experience to shoot some lovely pets. Lots of dogs, big, small, cute, ugly, garang, not garang - you can find them all there.



Of course, lots of golden retrievers, lots of shih tzus, lots of chi hua hua, lots of chow chow... well you get the point, lots of dogs.



The dogs were well-behaved, there wasn't any poops anywhere which made the whole experience rather pleasant. Some dogs were extremely pampered. No need to walk, owner carry under umbrella.



So lucky... Next up, some action shots! :D

Somewhere in China..

No, I am not in China. A while back, the Hutchens brothers came over to Malaysia to give a talk about their recent documentary, Somewhere in China. Its a really interesting documentary and the two brothers combine their skills in videography and photography to present a unique view on China.

The above is Jeff Hutchens, the photographer. He presented some of his shots in a 6-minute video show and it was largely impressive. There were some shots that I would have deleted before it even hit the editing screen but when he presented it as part of a video, everything looked in place.

Goes to show that sometimes a single photo can't stand alone.



After the talk, we were so inspired (ok lah, we had nothing to do), we went around the hotel shooting random stuff. For example, the sun!



And the above shot I call, "Flame going strong" to signify that the passion for photography is still burning strong. Or something like that.