How do you recuperate?

Posted on March 29, 2010 by Mark

After a grueling time throughout yesterday’s wedding shoot, I was just asking myself how does one recuperate from a long day’s work? That got to both me and Grace talking about those photographers who shoot two to three weddings in a row.

Now the story began yesterday when I was up very early for a shoot in Puchong. I dragged myself out of bed at 5ish and reached the groom’s place before 6.30am. By that time I was already wishing that I had slept earlier the night before but thanks to some printer problems, that kept me up till way past midnight. Anyway the shoot went on until about 2pm in the afternoon so that would mean we have already shot for 8 hours non-stop.

During the morning shoot where we were shooting at the indian temple in Shah Alam, we had to go about barefoot and walk around barefooted on the tarred road which was riddled with small pebbles and stones (extremely painful experience). And not to also mention that it was broad daylight and the road was definitely heated up!

By the time I got back home after the shoot, I was completely wiped out and my feet were aching! I just couldn’t help but take a long and refreshing cold shower and rest as much.

Now the question comes to mind, how do you recuperate from a long shoot?

I know some photographers tend to take power naps.

Others might go for foot massages.

Some eat extra energy bars.

Anyone knows a quick and easy way to recuperate some of that lost energy and aching feet? If you do know, please write them down in the comment section.

Note: This question is open to all, not just those in the photography line

Image by Maggie Smith – source

The Nikon Discovery Centre at Berjaya Times Square

Posted on March 2, 2010 by Mark

After it’s inaugural launch a couple of months back, I decided that I needed to send in one of my DSLR bodies to get it’s sensor cleaned. One of the big annoyances I had was that previously, sensor cleaning was a free service which Nikon Malaysia provided but recently since the 1st of February, Nikon has decided to charge for it. Anyway before I head into that bit, I was fairly impressed with the new Nikon Discovery Centre located at Berjaya Times square. A huge difference from the service office located at Menara PKNS at PJ State.

The showcase area wasn’t exactly ginormous or anything but it displayed quite a fair bit of Nikon’s equipment as well as had some 300mm, 400mm and 500mm lens mounted on tripods available to be tested out. I could spy on several taxi drivers sitting by their cars having a smoke and they never suspected a thing. It’s a pity the lenses didn’t reach any of the adjacent buildings but hey, I guess this is one of the few times I ever get to touch one of those huge lenses.

Anyway, back to my purpose of heading to the new centre was to inquire on how long is the current queue it would take to service my cameras which I intend to send them in as well as send in my D700 to have it’s sensor cleaned. Now you must be asking me why would I need to have it cleaned since it had a sensor cleaner in it as well. Well I kept seeing spots in my viewfinder and hence that sort of annoyed the hell out of me.

Upon arrival at the service desk, I was asked to pick a queue number. Now that was a surprise as I was the only person in line. But processes are there for a reason, I know, I implement processes in IT organizations so I do know how effective it might be. The moment I picked the number, it was already my turn so I brought my cameras to the desk and informed the agent that I wanted to have my sensor cleaned and inquired how long it would take to have my cameras serviced.

At that time, she informed me that it could take 7-10 working days so I needed to plan in my time so that I don’t have any shoots at that time and send in my cameras for a thorough servicing. Back to cleaning my sensor, I saw a notice there in regards to the charges and at first I saw a price of RM20 charged. Upon further inspection, I noticed that RM20 was to be charged for cameras which are still under warranty. All I know that, in order to clean the sensor for my D700, it would cost me RM80. That was the price I paid.

Oh well, I guess ever since Nikon has outsourced their services to Futuromic, there has been definitely a lot of good praises about their quality of service. Good things don’t come cheap. Not too annoyed by it, frankly I was glad it took them only 20 minutes to clean it. Now I can really consider getting a sensor cleaner myself and clean my own sensor the next time!

p.s. Even after getting my sensor cleaned, I kept seeing dust in my viewfinder only to find out that the dust is located in the viewfinder and not on my sensor. Just a point to note, the Nikon Center at Berjaya Times square can’t clean the viewfinder and they asked me to go to the Nikon Service Center at PJ State.

JoeMcnally’s Hot Shoe Diaries Workshop – Part 2

Posted on February 23, 2010 by Mark

Warning, more images to come

As a continuation from my previous blog post, after a heavy buffet lunch at Shangri-La (believe me, the food there was so good that it was so difficult not to want to try everything!), we all proceeded with our own individual assignments. Individual means that we split up into various groups and each group consisted of 4 team members. Each team would have a model assigned to them and we had to split our time to photograph the model.

Both Shen and Hafiz were in my group and I was the 3rd person to have a go. Part of our assignment was that we were able to borrow any of the equipment available there. From the image below, you would know that we took an Ezybox softbox with an SB-900 and an external battery pack together with another SB-900. We also made used of our own equipment as well. Since we only had an hour, we had to decide on our location as soon as we could. We had the beautiful Melissa first.

Here was Shen attempting his shot with us helping out by carrying the C-Stand

This was my attempt within 10 minutes. Wished I had more time to get the lighting set up a little bit more elaborately

After the hour was up, we moved back into the workshop room where we were assigned another model to work with and we again had the usual 15 minutes. Our next model was Shirlyn who was a professional dancer (you can guess that Joe really likes dancers especially if you have read through both “The Moment it Clicks” and “The Hot Shoe Diaries”).

My first attempt to begin with one light first before adding in additional lights. The first idea that came into my mind was to try out a multiple exposure shot but with movement but after consulting Joe, that setup would have taken me more than 15 minutes of my allotted time. I then decided that I would stick with the simple double exposure and the results are shown below.

Double exposure, courtesy of a Nikon technology

Since I managed to set things up pretty quickly, we then experimented with a few other shots with a simple two lighting system. Again still sticking to small flashes.

After the assignments were over, we gathered downstairs for Joe to show us a little bit more of his concept and his ideas and how he actually came up with the shot.

Joe took out the big gun for this, the 200mm f/2 lens which is a huge lens and cost a bomb!

After the workshop ended and Joe had to rush over to Business.FM for a radio interview, we quickly had our books signed as well as took photos with Joe.

Not forgetting Drew as well

Ok, I definitely need to lose lots of weight. Totally put on too much recently.

After the workshop, I had to stay back a while for a secret performance practice which was due to be showcased the day after at Joe’s Seminar. This portion was for Louis’ talk on guerrilla lighting. Whilst waiting for Joe to get back from his interview, Ian was toying around playing with his Alien Bees and while he was still setting up his lights, I took this shot of Melissa using available light.

After a brief and expensive juice at the cafe, practice started and I somehow managed to spy this guy in the ballroom taking shots of the practice using an unmarked camera. Some say that it could be a Sony Alpha but others might say that its actually a new Canon. I don’t think it was a Nikon because of shape of it but before I start to speculate, we can’t really really tell what camera is that.

An unknown person with a Sony Alpha 5D Mk2

And of course Johan was assisting out the whole day that after almost 16 hours of carrying light stands and small flashes, it seems that he has really gone bonkers

This was how I spent my birthday this year with those crazy photographers as well as the honour and pleasure of meeting Joe and Drew as well as learning from him. I must practice what I learned so do drop me an email if you are interested in having your personal portraiture done.

A Simple Portrait Collection

Posted on February 2, 2010 by Mark

I finally gotten around to compile some of the portrait photos I have taken recently, and by recently I mean quite a while back. Anyway it was one of the requirements which Grace gave me and asked me to do which was due in January last month. Well, all I can say that it is always better to be late than never!

The slideshow contains some of the portraiture sessions which I shot whether it may be a couple portraiture, to a personal profile image as well as behind the scenes shoot.

p.s. Make sure that the video has fully loaded before playing it to enjoy the full experience

[xr_video id="9a4477ccb327442f8e5cea0e5f5952cd" size="md"]

Do let me know what you think of the slideshow in the comments section, thanks!

Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island

Posted on January 27, 2010 by Mark

I am sure many of you would have heard about this fantastic landmark situated in New York, off Manhattan Island. What a lot of people might not know about is Ellis Island. When I was traveling around in that region, there were many options to choose from and I always planned that I will head back to New York again in the future.

There are a couple of ways to actually see the Statue of Liberty, you can take a helicopter tour where the Statue would be extremely small. Of course that would cost you quite a fair bit but you get to enjoy the view of New York. If money is of a concern of you, then you can also take the Staten Island Ferry which is free! Only thing is that you need a 300mm lens to get a good view of the Statue of Liberty.

The last option, which was the option I took, was that I bought a City Pass (USD$79) that allows me to go to various tourist attractions around New York at a cheaper rate. The pass provided a tour which visits the Statue of Liberty as well as Ellis Island.

Statue of Liberty

Above were some of the shots that were taken from the ferry before docking on the island. I was amongst everyone else trying to get a view of the Statue and trust me, there were plenty of people pulling out their cameras and video cameras capturing the spectacular sight of a huge statue before us.

The first thing we did after we landed on the island was to get some lunch and walk around the park enjoying the cool New York breeze. It was a tad bit cold that day (I was wearing shorts at the time!) but it was still bearable thanks to my natural insulation

There is also a museum located at the back of the Statue of Liberty but note that the City Pass does not cover the cost of going into the museum nor does it allow you to enter the Statue of Liberty. Unfortunately at that time we were there, they hadn’t open the entrance or the section which allowed visitors to climb all the way to the torch of the statue.

All we could do was to admire the statue from the base. Of course besides just the statue, there is a gift shop and a restaurant which serves fish and chips.

The park was also filled with mini statues of various guys, I think they were the architects who build the statue. I think.

After debarking from Liberty Island, the ferry wouldn’t head back to Manhattan Island but it brings everyone to Ellis Island. Now you might have heard about Ellis Island from one of the popular movies, Hitch, starring Will Smith. In the show, his first date with Sara Melas (played by Eva Mendes) was at Ellis Island. So it was pretty cool to actually walk around the huge museum.

There were many tours about including live shows where actors would act out the reenactment of the people who traveled from around the world to head to New York to find a better life.

Talking about the number of immigrants, it sort of also reminded me of the old show, Gangs of New York where there were plenty of Irish immigrants in New York at that time.

So if you are in the New York area, these are one of the must go to places.

Staying at the Sheraton Hotel in Langkawi

Posted on January 16, 2010 by Mark

I was rather lucky to be able to go on two trips to Langkawi in 2009 and both of them were complementary. This time round, I stayed at the Sheraton and I was quite surprised by how nice it looked. Instead of flying using AirAsia, this time we decided on flying by Firefly which was a bit more convenient for me because it flys off from Subang Airport.

Because they were propeller planes and do not have jet engines, the flight takes longer as compared to Air Asia or MAS flights and the one thing that was quite unbearable for me was that our flight was the very first flight of the day and the airplane was extremely hot and stuffy inside. I was literally sweating bullets throughout the flight and it was the most uncomfortable flight.

Thank God the moment I arrived at Sheraton in Langkawi, the atmosphere was totally different. I was literally blown away by the service we received and the size of the chalet rooms we had.

The chalet’s were a little different than usual, it was located a bit of a distant away from the lobby so everytime you needed to go back to the lobby, you can either walk or call a buggy to pick you up. But of course, being a little bit further away from the lobby meant that you get a little bit more privacy and you also get larger rooms.

The view outside the chalet was quite nice as well.

Definitely one of the nicer hotels to be at in Langkawi. If you get the chance, I would definitely recommend staying in Sheraton hotel.

Charge Up Conference! and I am not there

Posted on January 14, 2010 by Mark

Anyway a quick word here on my blog, I am trying very hard to stick to my new year’s resolutions (I said I will blog more often) hence I am quickly sliding in this post here about the Charge Up Conference.

CUC2010 poster2 Charge Up Conference! and I am not there

Technically, the conference has already started and I am rather sad that I can’t participate in it for today’s session as well as tomorrow’s session as I am currently stuck in Putrajaya for training at the moment. At the very earliest, I will make it there on Friday afternoon. This year’s Charge Up Conference is the largest one ever with the largest group of participants.

This time round it will be in KL, held at DUMC. Check out some of my blog posts from last year’s Charge Up which was held in Penang over here, here and here.

For the participants over there, see you all on Friday afternoon!

Poh Seong & Chiu Yen’s Portrait Session

Posted on January 4, 2010 by Mark

When Chiu Yen contacted me via email about a portrait shoot, I’ve always been communication with her. The moment when I arrived at the shoot location, I was so surprised that Poh Seong was there as well. What a small world! Poh Seong is my neighbour and I used to go to the same high school as his younger brother.

After a couple of weeks of planning the shoot and finally the location, we met in KL at the Heritage Hotel for our portrait session.

I was really looking forward to this shoot and here are some of the images that I took during the shoot.

It was one of the fun shoots that I had and it was great to have been able to shoot both Chiu Yen and Poh Seong. I also have to thank @munz for helping me out throughout the day. She took some behind the scenes shots as well but I haven’t gotten around to posting them up yet.

Happy New Year and the launch of Stories.my!

Posted on January 1, 2010 by Mark

First of all I would like to wish everyone out there a fantastic happy new year. 2009 went by in a blaze for me and I really do look forward to 2010 because I want to put 2009 behind me and look forward to a brighter and better future ahead. I blogged about my new year resolutions and starting later today, I will be tackling them one at a time. I foresee 2010 to be a tough year where I will be facing a lot of changes and challenges but I am very determined not to live like how I lived 2009 and slowly change and improve.

In my post about Weng Jou and Yvonne’s portrait shoot, I mentioned a little teaser at the end of the post. Well, its now the 1st of January 2010 and I would like to also announce the launch of Stories! Want to know what Stories is about?

It’s finally here! After weeks of hard work, we are launching Stories by Integricity Visuals. Most of you would know that the team at Stories originated from the brand Wedding Story. In 2009, our photography services at Wedding Story has grown by leaps and bounds. It is with much excitement that we announce to you a specialized boutique wedding & portrait photography service from Stories.
With this new launch, we are pleased to give away special treats to couples who are interested to make a booking for 2010. We will give away gifts worth up to RM1,500 for the first 5 couples who confirms a booking with us!
Call us for a consultation to find out more details. Wishing everyone a wonderful New Year!

That’s right, I have been shooting together with Grace and the WeddingStory team and now I am pleased to announce the launch of Stories.

Weng Jou & Yvonne’s Portrait Session

Posted on December 24, 2009 by Mark

Sometimes the weather in Malaysia has always been rather predictable especially now during the monsoon season but there are times where I would be praying very hard for nice weather and bright sunlight. Unfortunately, the sun wasn’t up that day but although the sky was rather gloomy in some ways, we still managed to have some fun and enjoy ourselves in the park.

Yvonne contacted me via email after hearing about my promotion which I posted on my blog and after a couple of email exchanges, we agreed on the date and time where we will meet for me to photograph both her and Weng Jou.

Here are some of the photos I liked from Yvonne & Weng Jou’s portraiture shoot.