More shots of Perth

Posted on June 20, 2008 by Mark

I wanted to post these photos up on Tuesday initially but a high fever got the better of me. So instead of working and getting my changes into production this weekend, I ended up lying in bed, resting and resorting to loads of medicine to cure my fever and flu and headaches.

The few days I was in Perth was really good. Weather-wise it was near perfect except for the 2 days where it rained but other than that, the sky was just so awesome. The air was so fresh and the temperature was perfect!

Thanks Munz who brought me around and became my tourist guide, I headed over to Fremantle on my first day to see the sea and also the markets about.

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Over there I tasted some of their famous “fish and chips” at Cicerello’s and it did taste nice but honestly, I thought the ones in the UK were nicer. It was about the same as the ones that I had in Sydney previously though.

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The sea seemed so calming and there were so much activity about the pier with loads of people lining up to get their food and they had this fantastic system where once you ordered your food they hand you a buzzer. Once your food was ready, the buzzer would buzz and prompt you to collect your food. I guess you can’t really have it here in Malaysia because everyone would just nick it.

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The one thing I admired about Perth was that the public transport system was so efficient and we travelled about easily without a hitch except for that one occassion where I had drive a friend’s car down south to find this secluded macadamia nut factory. Wait, was it walnut? Can’t really remember because the ones that I brought back was quickly gobbled up by my dad who thoroughly enjoyed them.

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One interesting point I would like to make was that I saw this street basker who was rather unique. First of all, he is playing the bagpipes. Scotland is way off but here is this guy playing it with his lung’s full capacity but not only that, he plays it to the background of ROCK music.

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Of course after looking at those photos above, it makes a lot more sense now, right?

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For more photos from my Perth trip, do visit my Flickr set for higher resolution photos as well.

Profile Shoot for Sze Accessories

Posted on May 15, 2008 by Mark

The one thing I always admired about my friends is those who are keen businessmen or in this case, a keen businesswoman. Take it from me, I hardly like to take any sort of risk and I always worry too much about the consequences and other areas. But then again, this isn’t about who I am but rather about a shoot I did a couple of weeks ago.

Sze is a good friend of mine whom I have known since we were in primary school and when I found out that she was going to start up her own business selling handmade jewelry online, I was in complete respect for her. After hearing the initial news about it, I did blog about it before previously and since then so many things has changed. Welcome to the world of Sze’s Accessories.

Now, her online presence is getting stronger, getting first hits on Google and more and more sales are coming in. Why not? Her products are awesome and they are one of a kind! Yes, you heard me, one of a kind as she doesn’t make the same one twice!

Anyway since she found out that I do shoot on the side, she asked me if I could do some portrait shots of her for her profile. I was totally excited about it and two weeks ago, I shot her indoors. Lighting was tricky but the condo we were shooting in was excellent. Here are some of my favourite shots.

I like the photo above the most as it has a little bit of reflection as well as there is a natural rim light on both sides. Looking at the hair you can see the rim light there and there is a rim light on the arms as well. See, available lighting can be quite awesome as well!

All shots were shot with available lighting and no flash was used. Because we were shooting indoors so I had to bump my ISO higher than that I can go if I were to shoot outdoors under the sun. It was a fun shoot and I look forward to shooting more profile shots and cover shots.

If you are still looking for a gift to give a loved one, don’t forget to head over to Sze’s Accessories and choose your perfect gift. I mean, what more could you ask for especially when you have so much to choose from and its definitely one of a kind! Best of all, it is relatively cheap and well priced. People always say that we should practice what you preach, well I will be choosing something from Sze’s Accessories to give to MT. As proof I will blog about it and take a picture of the item.

My next profile/cover-shot assignment is in two weeks time and this time for a cover shot of a magazine. This really puts me under pressure as I don’t have any studio equipment or special lighting but I shall trust in God and the gifts he has blessed me with.

I will be away this weekend shooting a wedding in Singapore. Really really looking forward to the shoot, hope that there is an internet connection in my hotel room.

A quick post

Posted on April 30, 2008 by Mark

After a whirlwind of workshops and conferences, I am finally back in PJ, back in the office and pulling in my usual work. Yes that means concentrating fully on my day job and taking less time to view photos online or even go on Facebook (except for the occasional checks).

This will be a quick post as I will be trying to put up more photos here as I try to shoot a little more to continue to improve on my skills and to train my eye to pay attention to the little details.

I shot this image whilst I was at Life College over the weekend. I know there was a sign that said “Do not open the windows” but hey, it was already open . By the way, I also have proof of who opened the window. Lets just say that you shouldn’t do things like that when you are surrounded by loads of people with cameras around.

Here is a shot of a beautiful girl I shot while I was having dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Sri Hartamas. Isn’t she gorgeous?

And when she wasn’t looking, I quickly took this shot of her which was a little closer than the previous shot. Next time I would definitely want to take more portrait shots of her. She is just so beautiful!

Anyway, this post is meant to be a quick post. A little excited to watch Iron Man tomorrow night. Until then, tata!

More Photos from Penang

Posted on April 19, 2008 by Mark

Its Saturday and I am completely worn out from the week. I completed my training at IBM at Bandar Utama and on Friday I was completely surprised when I received a certificate for completing the course, DB2 LUW for SAP, and on top of that, the trainer, Jeremy from the IBM Development Centre in Toronto gave me a 1Gb thumbdrive for being able to answer the most questions during the Thursday session.

So now you know that I was busy at a workshop and then needing to log online to my client’s VPN and check my emails. Hence the delay in getting some of these photos out. I hope you enjoy viewing them. Here are more of the shots I took in Penang during the “From Ordinary to Extraordinary” workshop.

Here is a shot of Reynaldo indoors before we headed out to our on location shoot. He wasn’t looking at me as he was looking at Louis at the time but I do like his suit. Stripe suits are slimming!

From the shot above I know that I needed to step a little more to the left to capture them with a completely blue background.

$Samantha\'s dimension$

I thought that this shot was a little more on the funky side. I find it difficult to try to get the shot with my 85mm lens when everyone else was using their 70-200mm lens. It was only after this shoot that I learned the term “Don’t ask for permission, ask for forgiveness”. Next time I shall be moving my big butt in front of those with the 70-200mm and get my shot and then tell them, “Aiyah, so sorry ”.

To me at the moment in time it was just another shot with someone posing with interesting props. Now as I posted this up, it came to me as a good representation of how Malaysian drivers are. Constantly waiting in “No waiting” zones and constantly parking at “No parking” zones. How ironic.

An attempt of a glamor shot with a touch of macho-ness. Notice that the tie was caught in the wind. Thank God for the wind as it was rather hot that day. Yup, this was shot outdoors as with the other photos taken here.

Max and Vicky spending a little intimate time together with at least 15 photographers breathing down their necks. Well not literally but I really wonder how it would feel at the other end of the camera. The shot can be improved of course with a little better composition.

Managed to execute this shot with the motion blur I wanted but I was so engrossed with the effect that I totally forgot about the background. Funnily, I was reading about this in a blog post, about how an amateur and a veteran shoots and how the newbies would miss out some areas like the background and the framing and concentrate on the subject while veterans would take everything into account. Yup, I totally fall into the amateur category.

Thats it for today folks. As I find the time to run my other errands, I will post up more photos up here soon.

The One with all the Photos

Posted on April 16, 2008 by Mark

Well, not all of the photos are up yet but I did manage to export them out of Lightroom and added the border and watermark on Photoshop before uploading them to my blog. Decided to upload them straight to my blog rather than upload them to Flickr and then copy the codes over here.

First photographer I know to have his own notebooks

Took this shot when we were presented with notebooks to write down our notes from the lectures. I would have loved to use this notebook but I brought my trusty “Photography Notebook” along with me to Penang. This notebook contains a few other notes from my other photography workshops which I attended.

Presenter with an Apple?

I am glad that I finally gotten my Macbook Pro after waiting for a month for it to clear SIRIM and arrive at my supplier’s doorstep. A huge thanks to Siva who helped me to order in the Macbook Pro and also bearing with my constant SMSes, asking when is the stock arriving. From the shot above, Louis is explaining about what the slide shown on the wall contained and what it meant. Want to know more? Sign up for his workshops here.

According to Louis, my Macbook Pro wasn’t well “trained” enough and he offered to give me his well “trained” Macbook Pro and swap it with my “untrained” one. Too bad Louis, I am going to train mine in my own special way

Show by example!

Here we have Louis explaining to the models on what he intends to do with them. It was good that Louis and Arden hired models who were not experienced in posing. This really made us work hard to get them to pose properly!

Shooting with a D3 and a 70-200mm f/2.8 VR lens

Noticed that the white balance of both the shots above this and the previous ones were different? That is due to the light coming in from the window versus the yellow ambient room lighting. What I learned here is that you don’t need a fantastic location to create wonderful shots. Look at all the equipment everywhere in the room. And yet, I managed to steal a shot with my 85mm lens.

Using my Nikon D300 and 85mm f/1.8 lens

Using my Nikon D300 and 85mm f/1.8 lens (portrait shot)

No studio lighting was used to get these shots and we relied heavily on natural lighting. A round of applause to our wonderful models for that session, Samantha and Reynaldo. Appreciate you guys tolerating a newbie like me during the workshop!

Looking at the time now, I am already late for cell group. Hope to get more photos up here soon.

More to come soon…..

to be continued…

Lionel & Gek Sim’s Wedding

Posted on November 21, 2007 by Mark

Sometime back in September, I managed to get my two friends to agree that I could be one of their “unofficial” photographer. Being very new towards the whole area of photography and having never shot a wedding before, the feeling of stress and worry kept on creeping to me wondering whether if this is what I want to do. At the end of the day, I thought I was satisfied with my shots and I am looking forward to shooting more weddings in the future.

Well that is the end of the photos which I am posting here for the moment. You can view the entire photos at my Flickr account here or view it as a slideshow here.

Lionel & Gek Sim's Wedding

Posted on November 21, 2007 by Mark

Well that is the end of the photos which I am posting here for the moment. You can view the entire photos at my Flickr account here or view it as a slideshow here.

Terry Fox Run – I got sunburned

Posted on November 5, 2007 by Mark

I don’t really think I got sunburned as I was standing under the shaded area shooting the runners at the intersection between the family route and the extended route. There was a booth there set up by Talisman Energy providing water for the runners and being the photographer at the scene, I noticed that people actually ran a couple of laps. One being this old man who could easily be my grandad who did 3 laps barefoot.

For more photos do check out the official thread at the LensaMalaysia forums. I have yet to post process mine yet as I had to cover the LOUD concert last night. More photos from that as well!

Sometime back…..

Posted on October 23, 2007 by Mark

Sometime back I attended a workshop teaching us the basics of studio lighting which includes setting up lights, positioning them, talking about the various filters as well as getting the right camera settings. I definitely learned a lot there and I did manage to write a small post about the event here.

Well, here are more photos which I shot at the event as well as the link to my Flickr set.

Learning to take shots with the light positioned at the side. The light was filtered with a softbox creating a larger light source so that it doesn’t become too harsh and create harsh shadows.

Dealing with the light position directly facing the model. Not easy as a direct lighting can create a very flat image, hence the need to have a little side or back lighting.

While the model takes a break, we have one of the workshops participant become the model. I think everyone was rather “kiasu” as they wanted to continue shooting even when there was a break given. I had my fair share of being the model as well.

And here is the result, not too flattering eh? But oh well, at least I helped them in a way practice on their shooting. I changed the image to black and white and asked them to position the light at the side to create a “fierce” or “strong” look. Doesn’t work too well with the ladies though.

Finally, after a long hard morning/afternoon session, it was time for a break.

Check out my whole Flickr set here.

Check out Ted Adnan’s blog here and Photography Portfolio here.

Mark Leo Dot Net

Loving all things photography, tech, gadgets, Apple and cars

Tag Archives: Photos