Wedding Photo: Elvin and Tian Yen

I went to sandakan for a wedding assignment on 29 December 2007. This assignment was different to others wedding assignment because i used 2 digital camera that allowed me to use two different lens setting at one time. I use the 17-70mm lens as a primary which offer wide and zoom and 50mm f1.8 as a secondary lens for better lighting and depth of field effect. I had problem in getting used to this setting at the beginning but i managed moment later

The weather is a bit cloudy and not really ideal to take any good photo. The second problem that i had was not managed to look at the church in advance to get experiment with the church's lighting condition.



As usual, i started the photo shot at the bride's home. It is quite a home with warm reception from the father and mother of the bride. I use the 50mm f1.8 for a specific subject i want to take and a little bit portraits shot.



50mm f1.8 allowed me to take a portrait without artificial flash. Natural lighting from windows is a good for portrait photo for any subject.



The photo above was taken during a cloudy day. Even thou the light was bright enough for a snap shot, the color not really projected very well and accurate that caused by the imbalance of the white balance. Cloudy day can turn the day a bit blue dull.



The bride’s father looking at her daughter arranging the flower bouquet with the help of her brides mate. It is a classical example of wedding photojournalist technique.



A silhouette effect with outer glow of the bride's veil give a very interesting effect and give a curiosity and wonder impression to the bride when the most important day of her life is within the last few steps.



The twin is so energetic during the walk to aisle. The movement blur shot was accidental but it turn out to be a very nice photo.



The altar view of St Michael Church in which the light shine bright in two directions giving a balance of amount of bright and shadow exposure.



The bride was reading her vows on paper hold by Pastor Clarence.



While waiting for the signing ceremony to start, i managed to snap a photo in which the ring on the hand and the wedding record book that is a witness of many previous weddings.



The grooms kiss the bride reenactment because ceremonial kiss was too fast to be captured and i actually missed it. I always ask for second kiss reenactment because the couple was not anymore feeling nervous.



Flower tossing is a must for every western style wedding. This is among the must have event photo in a wedding.



Again, another movement blur photo that i turn out to be nice. The composition of the stair gives a swivel point to the photo.



Personal portrait shot on the couple's new room.



A syn flash setting that was turn out to be nice. The dinner hall is so big i had to compensate the ambient light of the background with the front subject to avoid a dark background.



Yam seng is a Chinese wedding cheer from the guest to the newly wedded couple for good and happy wishes.



The chains line of people project a very interesting interaction between friends all the way to the bride inside the car.

I took about 1500 photos on the wedding and processed about 200 pieces of photo to put in the customized photo album that i finished a moment ago. Most of the time spends on reviewing the photo and thinking the design and photo flow for the wedding book. Designing a wedding book not easy for me and i need about one month to create an original and different book for each wedded couple. The job become even harder on the day that two couple want a wedding book for their photo in which i use about 2 month to finished it because i don't want both book look the same.

To see more photo of this wedding, please click here for the bigger slide.

Portrait: Pat @ All About Kuai

I been quiet busy with two projects on progress. One of the job was halted due to the client didn't respond and it might took longer to finished the end product. At first i didn't plan to take any photo during working on a job. My friend Zi was asking to have a photo session and i thought this time it would be better to pay my attention on her camera. Kuai or Pat join last minutes and i took this opportunity to snap some few portrait photo on her.

Never have I expected that she quite relax with camera pointing on here. Some earlier photo shot taken with my friend was filled with doubts and lack of confident. I had a session with Debbie but i was barred to put most of her good photo. At the end i just put most of Flory photos. Anyhow, i got a few good experiences dealing with girls when doing a photo shot even thou i don't think i learned enough to deal it professionally.

We went to Tanjung Aru beach to snap few photos. The weather was not quite right and the cloud all over the sky. Sun not expected to shines and a bits of rains starting to drops luckily well after we finished.



I'm didn't do portrait shot for about more than a month. Basically, the more people snapped the more and vibrant the look will be. With few month gaps for a portrait or any photo job, i find it difficult to get used to every photo session. I saw Pat's confident on the beginning of the session but i was not quite ready for it because this is not really a planned test shot.



There are few warm up shot and after getting used to it, I tried for more vibrant and emotional shot.







Jumping snap shot was inspired from smashpop trend even thou he is not the one who started it. Zi and I spend few jumps until we got a good post. I choose to take a close snap shot but it seems that the shutter speed quite slow and the result was blur movement on her face. The later jump shot look more confident and interesting and even look better after photo shop touch up.



Side or profile snap is quite familiar among portraits photo. Again, I had problem on choosing which lens to use. For a portrait shot, lens with bigger aperture fits nicely because of the depth of field effect. I spent some shot with every lens i had.





Again a typical free pose shot. Playing with water didn't turn out great compared to the second photo that again a usual pose.





These last two photos was a blow. I never expected that i got this from her. It seems that she has talent posing for camera and if she wants to be in commercial it wouldn't be a problem.

Sabah Horse Polo Club: The Horses

I has an opportunity to cover photo and video polo match recently last week (15 December 2007). This is quite different because most of my jobs are more on weddings and not worried too much about the task. This job is quite new to me because i needed to snap photo and doing a video shot together at the same time. Luckily i managed to hook up my friend to assist me on that day.

I didn't sleep on the night before the event because of my different sleep pattern and i needed to wake up early to travel to the horse track field in tuaran. I never knew there is a new horse track in Tuaran that never being used.



I will not write about the events in details, but only to show some horse and some others photos I took during that day. My first impression on the horse stable is old and under maintained. The horses look messy but my friend told me that before it is even worst. Taking care a horse stable is not an easy task because it is so complicated to do plus the expenses is high. That is why few people can own a horse even to play polo.





I brought two digital cameras and one video camera on that day. I felt that two digital cameras are necessary because of the limitation one lens can do. By having two cameras fitted with two different lenses, one can snap more variety of photos instantly without keep changing lenses during the work. I started with 50mm f1.8 lens to take some portrait of these horses. I sense their shyness towards me when i pointing the camera towards them.





Later, when they know what i am doing, they just continue with their routine. At least they are not running away for my camera as most did in my wedding jobs.





This horse basically getting used me snapping his photo. It looks like he trying hard to pose for my camera. Luckily he didn't bite my camera as i was pointing the lens so close to his nose and mouth.







A worker gave the horse a bath after the match.



The horse barn.





Another side of the barn.



I will post up photos of the polo match on my next post.

Portrait Features: Debbie (Lady Stiletto in a Suits) and Flory

We had been planning it for weeks for this portrait session. I suggested taking her portrait after looking at her Bali vacation photo. Debbie look so relax and natural in front camera because i guess she was taken by many professional photographer previously and indeed she did. Nevertheless, the rains put the plan on hold for weeks until i spot a clear evening day to shoot. First at all i really worried that she will not get used to me as a stranger taking her photo and then she brought her friend Flory. Flory is happen to be her childhood friend and at that moment i think there will not be any problem.



This is Flory, Debbie's good friend. She have a very good face feature for commercial shot but because of her lack of confident, the photo taken quite lack of emotion. Not so deep eyes, high cheek bones and nose and a good smile. It is quite hard to take her photo because the wind blowing her hair covering the face. I managed to take only some lucky shot of her.




This is one of her lucky shot. I shot the photo with flash face close to her face. Some over burn highlight after photo shop on the face even thou the picture look underexpose. Again, this photo was intensely photo shop to match the shadow and highlight and color correct at the face and manipulation effect at the back.




She looks gorgeous on this shot. The depth of field that focused on her and Debbie* blurred at the back make the combination look nice. Again, the eye contact looks perfect. (*Edited)



This is an act setting. It looks like a natural pose but actually not. I like the emotional outburst of laughter and give a happy moment feel that often seen in wedding photos.



At this time, i believe that she look more confidence over herself. Some of people look so anxious over big camera and cannot give a very best expression towards it. She still have some problem looking direct to the lens thou. If you aware of it, most of the photo of her holding her hair from the strong wind at the time.



Again, she is holding her hair.



A nice and natural position pose. There are some photos of her that i didn't really photo shop because most of the frame was over or underexpose. I will find more time to look at it one by one.



The photo above was taken with a flash sync setting. I don't know if it can consider it a flash sync photo but it does look like one. This setting although my shot not really a perfect one the most used in studio photo shot for commercial and weddings. I use a infrared remote flash setting to shot this photo and it turn out not so good until i did some correction in photo shop. The truth is, too much correction on the photos are not good because it mean that one photographer shot skills not up to the standard yet.



A straight looks on the camera with 8 o'clock flash setting. The ambient blue background look nice thou it should be warm. This was caused by the fast shutter speed only being able to get little color spectrum and my color filter to even out the skin's white balance color tone.

Basically, I rate this set of photos as good and more room for improvement. This time I only concentrate using a single 50mm f1.8 lens for a portrait setting and a bit 70-300mm zoom lens. I like the depth of field effect when taking a portrait because it more focused on a targeted subject. I have one actual couple pre wedding shot test shot with my friend on December. I am still thinking the location for this session and would like to find a newer place beside going again to resort or hotels. Maybe can be more casual or more people location setting. Well, we see how then.

What i have in mind for a Portraits

Photo above was taken by me using my friend's cyber shot hand phone camera. I like the depth of field that focuses on the ring foreground and the faces blur at the background. The actual photo was actually out of highlight and shadow. I do a heavy photo shop touch up on the photo and ended up manipulate some optical illusion on this photo. I'm not sure if i can call this as a portrait or not. Somehow, I feel that this is not right as a portrait itself or might not interesting enough to be one.



My friend's little brother has a good look and style from my point of view of portrait. I don't know if my concept is the right way or not because i didn't have any formal education such as flanegan. Everything has to base on heavy reading via internet and some others example. Photo above have a dark shadow on the left side. I like the natural light setting gentle on his face and the shoulder with him not looking at the camera giving an impression that he is thinking.



This photo was heavily touched up and put effect. I got this idea from clarice who took a nice self portrait of herself and in another hand, I took others people portrait. The mirror reflection my friend and iPod wording sure give a double meaning. The subject have an iPod and happy with his gadget. Not looking at the camera gave the face a smooth looks. The motif and pattern blend in softly and over burn color giving it a nice effect like a lomo camera.

I have some friends volunteer for my portrait test shot. One is a personal shot and one a real couple mock up as a pre wedding test shot. I do it for free at the moment because I need to get the feel of working with people and make sure the equipments that I had adequate for the purpose. With rain almost every day for a week, I have to wait for a good weather and most important for the subject to get ready without hesitation of me taking their photo even thou it just a test shot. I wish I had the time and resource to do lots of experiments of photography but with limited and not so perfect sets of equipment that I had to spread among the photography, video and graphic, I ran out thin.