Dato Sri Micheal Manyin Ak Jawong

I was very fortunate to be appointed again as the official photographer for a VIP event. The first time was Datuk James Masing, the second time was Datuk George Chan and this time was Dato Sri Micheal Manyin Ak Jawong, the Minister of Infrastructure Development and Communication. Getting the right photos as not to embbaress the Ministers is important.

THE WAITING BY VILLAGERS

THE ARRIVAL OF DATO SRI MICHEAL MANYIN

I also wrote to the Borneo Post about this event and thanks to Georgette Tan for publishing it. To read the news I wrote, please click here.

Street Photography In a Different Town

Gee...I missed the photography outing (street photography) organised by Sarawak bloggers, but I'm sure they had a blast shooting people randomly and it looks like Norman is the first one to blog about it. Just click at his name to read about the event.

Well... on the same day, I had my own street photography at my hometown too but I was alone. Heheheh...It was late in the evening when I saw lots of birds flying, trying to settle down on the electric cables to sleep. So I decided to snap photos of them. I set my ISO to the max 1600. And guess what? Still got noise. I think it is time for me to get a better DSLR. What do you think?

Another reason for noise is probably due to the timing. It was a bit too dark. Should have taken the photos earlier. Hehehe

Jolin & Felicia - Kampung Wedding

It was a three-hour photoshoot session in a kampung at night. The hall was packed and the couple were busy entertaining the guests. Nevertheless, managed to grab hold of their best pose.

Framing Your Photos

While browsing Facebook a few days ago, I was amazed by photos of DeeLoner, which was taken by a Malay Chap from KL. I was inspired by how he framed his photo. I decided to try out the photo frame myself to see whether I can produce attractive framing for my photos.

You can visit his website to see his nice photos. : Click here.

Not in the capacity...

(The staff photo taken by me)

All these while, I have been doing wedding photography. When my boss asked me to take the staff photo, I was a bit shocked. My DSLR is not really in the capacity of taking large number of people and I do not have a wide angle lens. I was not sure whether I should proceed but finally, I gave it a try just to gain experience.

After the photography session, true enough, the result was below my expectation. However I learned a lot of things from this session. I look forward to studio photography soon.

Don't you know?

Hey! Don't you know I took your photos?

As I was preparing to take a group photo of the staff, I accidentally took these shots. I like them because they were candid shots and the people in the photo smiled happily to each other. I just love these photos.

Carl and Dorean

One of the hardest thing to do in wedding photography is that, when you don't have the luxury of taking prepared or posed photos of couples. Taking candid photos during wedding are not easy especially when the couples want to look their best in the photos although they do not pose for the camera. I really had to wait for the right timing to take photos and did a lot of shots for the final selection. (The lovely couple, Carl and Dorean)

(The serving of wine/liquor to all guests by the couples)

(the cutting of beetle nuts)

Butterfly - Macro Shot

Yesterday, I captured the photo of a butterfly. I tried the macro mode on my DSLR. These are the photos. I hope the macro function helps to produce better photos than the manual mode.

Pamela

As promised, these are the photos of the model shots during Alvin Leong's night portraiture lesson. The quality degrades a bit due to poor blogspot photo pixel (whatever they call it) Hehehe

At The Backstage

Hi guys!

Though I am on a 3-week holiday, I will try my best to update my blog and visit your blog as well. A few nights ago, I was appointed as the official photographer for one of the biggest Pre-Gawai Celebration cum Kumang Gawai Competition. I feel fortunate because the best thing about being the official photographer, I get to go backstage. Trust me, you get all kind of privileges. Allow me to name a few advantages:

First: I got the talk to the 2009 Kumang Champion and took her photo. She's very pretty and hot (the one in black dress)

Secondly: I got to touch all the trophies, flowers, gifts and this mock cheque of RM3,000. Cool huh?

Finally: I got to talk and take photos with all the Kumang (Traditional costume beauty pageants) at backstage.

For those of you who are not from Malaysia a Kumang Gawai Compettion is similar to beauty pageants. The differences is that it is only for Iban tribe and the contestant must wear Iban traditional costume.

I will blog about the whole event soon. But till then, I'm logging off.

Photoshoot in Kuching

I'm going to take a long break in my kampung (Village) soon. I am not sure on when I will be able to blog again. However, I think I should end the week by sharing with you my latest photoshoot at the Rajah Cour with these two. I brought along extra flash light and tripods to support the surrounding light and I did some adjustment on the "luminance curve". Thanks to Krisno for helping me out with the photoshoot.

A Kid Portraiture

Wow! It has been a long time that I have not blogged here, since I was busy doing my other blog called "To Sir with Love" This blog mainly talks about teachers. If you are a teacher by profession, feel free to click at my new blog yeah? Even if you are not a teacher, your support to make this blog rich and famous is indeed welcome. Hehehehe...

Anyway, let's talk about photography will you? I just set up my backdrop (A stand and also a plain blue cloth) So, I asked my son to be the model of the year! And I asked him to promote my new perfume (Wild Country) from Avon (i think Avon should pay me...hahaha for promoting their perfume). Using available light, creative editing using photoscape and photoshop CS4, here are the snap shots! Enjoy dude.

Digital Capture

Instead of carrying a DSLR around and risk damaging it, I usually bring along my digicam Canon A560. It is light, small and easy to put in a pocket. I think many bloggers would bring around their digicam too right?. Before this, I noticed many bloggers just write their thoughts in a blog. But since the creation of digicam, bloggers are starting to put photos in their blogs and I fully support this style of writing. Photos help to make our blogs interesting and to visualize what we write. To some bloggers out there, although the way we write our blog is a personal preference, may I suggest that you include some photos in your entries?

Oh well...bringing only a digicam around might have some disadvantages for me especially when I see something rare. For example, yesterday, as I was driving back from Asajaya, Samarahan, the sky was amazingly beautiful. However, I was upset because I did not capture the beauty with my DSLR. I know the photos below seemed beautiful but they would produce excellent result with a DSLR.

The Classical Feelings?

Location, location, location. Although photos can be taken at almost everywhere, I still think that a good location is an added bonus to a photo. One of my favourite locations is always old buildings or structures. I do not know exactly why, but they always give me the sentimental and classical feelings. Modern architectures are way too complicated and tall. I am not saying that they are not good and beautiful but I simply love old buildings, just like some people who love classical music and songs like Beethoven, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and the Beetles. Simplicity in old buildings also attracts my attention.

Some of the blogs I read, the authors love to shoot macro objects, and beautiful landscapes . If you notice in my blog, I like to do portraiture and shooting people at old buildings. Here are some of the shots I love. I don't know about you. What do you think?

Eliminating Background Images

Ed Godden is a professional photographer. He has 14 years of experience in sports and press photography. But he also likes to take photos of nature especially in a Rain forest. I read one of the lesson he taught in a Digital Camera magazine on taking photo at your own backyard. I find it interesting because although I have been in photography for two years, I have never thought of doing what he did. He taught us on being creative with our macro shot by eliminating background images.

It is simple. Unfortunately, I didn't have two items, a sturdy tripod and also a thick white cardboard. Anyway, I proceeded with my experiment. Feel free to comment yeah?

(This is the first shot I took. As you can see, there are background images)

(Then, I put a white A4 size paper. The best material will be a cardboard)

(Then, this is the result. I have a white background and I definitely can frame this photo up)

The last photo was edited through these editing tools:
1. Colour curve
2. Contrast Enhancement
3. Sharpening
4. Vignetting

Macro Shot Busted

In the world of photography, there are no boundaries of what you wish to capture. But as for me, I won't be able to do a macro shot yet because I do not have a macro lense.

Doing a macro shot is not easy as we think. I know there are many digital cameras sold out there that offer macro function. However, it has a limitation as compared to a DSLR with a macro lense. If you observe the macro shot I took below, it might seems nice but there are a few weaknesses;

1. The background is still too obvious. You cannot really see the bee.

2. The bee is showing its back. It is better if we can see its face and the legs.

3. The bee is lack of detail. You cannot see the fur and the wings clearly.

This photo is taken using my standard lense (18-55mm Nikon). Therefore, when shooting a moving macro object, you need to really have to wait patiently for the bee to position itself nicely and use a macro lense. If you would like to see a good photo of a bee, click here.