This just in! New dates are out for the Basic Photography Workshop beginning 18 October 2010. I’m doing this a little bit different this time with a mix of classes, assignments and a practical session, designed to make the course as interactive as possible in a conducive environment.

Check out the Basic Photography Workshop page for more details.

Once awhile I’ll come across other photographer’s work that will elicit this response – WOW! Today’s WOW photographer is Dave Hill. I’ve seen his work elsewhere without realizing who the photographer is. He’s quite a master at surrealism, the Indiana Jones’ type of images but the best part about his work is the imaging work. It looks almost cartoony and unreal.

I don’t really know how much of it is photography and how much of it is imaging work, but I’m guessing he’s an awesome photographer all the same. Any photographer who can shoot those awesome images in his backyard with an Audi in the background is indeed an awesome photographer! Check out the behind the scenes videos, especially the one of Girl on an Adventure, where he’s shooting underwater in a pool, with strobes firing above the water. That’s pretty cool! I can spend the whole day looking at all his videos.

And I gotta learn how to process my pictures like these!

His portfolio is up at www.davehillphoto.com.

Had a great 2 hours at Republic Poly this morning. I gave a talk on photojournalism to prepare the students who’ll be involved in a project soon. The project will take them to a remote village in another third world country.

The session was casual, very much the way I like it. More of sharing my experience and pointers to embrace and pitfalls to avoid. I love the enthusiasm and interest shown by the students, which made for a very interactive session.

I notice many photographers are not used to engaging their subjects and often get posed pictures in return. It’s either a posed shot with an uncomfortable smile or a subject trying to avoid the camera totally. I often tell people that the key is to be genuinely interested in what they’re doing and ask questions. More often than not, they wold love to talk to you. Even if there’s a language barrier. The fact that you’re a foreigner and you show interest is enough to get them to talk.

So I spent a lot of time coaching them to shoot unobtrusively and yet engage the subject in conversation. This to get good natural portraits. With remote live view shooting, the students were able to see how I framed my shots and shoot while conversing with people. Ah, the joys of technology.

Less is more. My mantra for the day. No point packing everything you have on your back and let it slow you down or get stuck in narrow places. Like the proverbial bull in the china shop, you wouldn’t want to rearrange furniture when you start turning around. The more you don’t attract attention the more people are more comfortable with you. I’ve seen people on the streets in Singapore with a HUGE backpack, tripod sticking out trying to shoot street photography. No wonder everyone’s trying to avoid him. Stick a huge camera and lens in front of people’s face, and that’s it, the shoot’s over.

The group was very interesting with a mix of photographers and writers. So I shared my experience working in a photographer-writer team. My best experience was during my days shooting for Silkwinds. I really enjoyed shooting with travel writers then. In the end, the students had a better understanding of how to do research for a story and work with each other to develop it, and later publish their work.

A very enjoyable morning it was for me.

I’m starting a new workshop for those interested to learn studio work. Learn how to use studio equipment and communicate with your subject. You’ll get to practice on location too, which is useful if you just have a simple setup. A flash, umbrella, light stand and a sync chord or remote trigger will be all you need. It’s not going to cost you as much studio lights and your photography will improve by leaps and bounds.

To learn more about the workshop, please visit the Studio Photography Workshop page.

…if that can happen, I might just hang up my camera. Following the concert on 17 August, James Hill gave a workshop for budding uke-ist (ok, I invented the word..what do you call someone who plays the ukulele anyway?) the next day. It was just as enjoyable as the concert itself. James proved to be a very versatile instructor as well as a performer. He had the class laughing the whole time. Ok the pictures I mentioned I might take didn’t quite happen that night. I couldn’t put my uke down.

Here we are, Ming, James and I. James is the one in the middle in case you’re wondering.

Got him to sign my pineapple uke and shot it with my 100mm f2.8L Macro. I like.

Came across this promo for students and educators. Makes me wish I fall into either category. Ok, I’m way past the student age and my photojournalism presentation at Republic Poly this Friday doesn’t qualify me to be an educator either. Bummer. But those who fall into these categories might wanna check out this promotion. You get a $308 rebate for an iPod touch with a qualifying Mac. How cool is that? Offer ends 7 Sept 2010.

The url for the campaign is: http://store.apple.com/sg/browse/campaigns/back_to_school.

I was so close to James Hill, the ukulele genius yesterday! What a great privilege to be covering the concert at the DBS Auditorium. He doesn’t just ‘play’ the uke, he was more like a musical alchemist, creating percussive rhythms, bringing uke playing to a whole new level. I like his quote “the ukulele is a relatively new instrument, so there isn’t really any boundaries as to how it should be played.” Or something to that effect. At one stage he was using the uke to play techno with chopsticks and tape! It was very experimental in the beginning but when he put it all together, all the audience could say “oh wow!”. He really worked the crowd with his humor, and getting everyone to join him singing towards the end. The whole set felt very personal, and the props made it look like a bachelor’s pad. As if someone just dropped by and decided to wow you with the uke.

Ming and I covered the performance shooting video with 4 5D Mk2s, 2 for backup. I was shooting fixed on a tripod, framing medium shots while he was moving around to get the detailed shots. Here are some images before the performance, during sound check.

My favourite was the Billie Jean piece. Without witnessing his playing one might think he had accompaniment. You gotta see him play to believe it. He was pretty much a one man band! Here’s what i got from youtube. Be mesmerised, be amazed!

Tonight, I’ll exchange my camera for my ukulele and will join James for a jam session. Yah. Like real the way I said it. Will try get a few more pics if I can of the workshop…..that is if I can put my uke down.

It’s up! Finally, the YOG display at Suntec Convention Center is in its final stages of being dressed a few hours ago. This is much bigger than the one at the Youth Olympic Village.

The exhibition is at Level 3 of the Convention Center and will finally be opened to the public tomorrow. Just in time for the start of the Games.

I dropped by earlier to get a few shots of the final work in progress. And again, the images displayed were breathtakingly huge! Kinda fun looking at how big the pictures can go. Especially the 2-story high banners.

The display will only be up throughout the duration of the Games so quick, you only have 2 weeks to have a look!

Credits time! These were the great people who made all this possible:

Curator – Singapore Philatelic Museum
Exhibition Design – Claire and Barbara, Intuitive Studios
Graphic Design – Kelley and her team, The Press Room
Imaging – Yau Digital Imaging
AV Presentaton – Dany and his team, Intuitive Films
Builder – Desmond and his team, City Neon

and of course,

Photography – Eulee, assisted by Joel and Liz, Photography By Eulee

Join me for a photoworkshop on 14 August with the theme Hari Raya Light Up. Geylang Serai will be awashed with bright lights to celebrate Hari Raya Puasa in September. Learn to shoot with available light and with flash. This month’s workshop will be a bit different. We’ll start after lunch and end at night. Each participant can expect a lot of hands-on as I’ll be instructing on the go. Learn to frame a shot, and decide how to use light to make the images pop.

There are a few more slots available so sign up fast! You can get more information here. Thanks!

This is a continuation from the previous behind the scenes post.

The Haven

These images were taken at the shoot in The Haven, a Home for abandoned, abused and neglected kids.

Reviewing images during a shoot is very important so how do I get the images into the notebook as fast as possible and how can people select quickly? I use both tethered shooting and the old fashion downloading via card reader. Why? Because I use 2 cameras. Why do I use 2 cameras? I’m too lazy to change lenses. So for tethered shooting, I use EOS Utility, shooting straight into a designated folder and Expression Media to update from that folder. EM is an amazingly fast software to go through tons of images. The card reader also is connected to the same folder and EM updates the folder automatically. So EM is the core that pulls images from the tethered shooting and card reader.

Everyone looks so serious…

…but seriously?

Continue reading 'BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE SALVATION ARMY SHOOT 2'»

Today marks the end of a 3-day project with Yellow Octopus to produce the Annual Report for the Salvation Army. The shoot brought us around most part of Singapore and as I remarked, gave me a new appreciation for their work. Most of us associate Salvation Army with the Thrift Store but there are so many things that they have done for the community, ranging from nursing homes, rehab centers, prison support, etc. This is not unlike the shoots I’ve done for the Community Chest. What I find unique about the Salvation Army was the range of community services available within an organisation.

These were the behind the scenes images taken by Liz and of her as the lighting model as I make adjustments to my settings, together with some commentary and my thoughts on the shoot. Have fun reading!

The Crest

And here’s the picture taken by Liz on her iPhone of me trying to get a vertical as possible shot of the crest. We tried to get images unique to each center and I was so taken back by this crest as we entered Peacehaven Nursing Home. I had this thought of blasting a light outside and have a nurse with an elderly walking and casting shadows across this crest. Unfortunately we could not find the time and this image may not fit our portrait series. Well, I’ll shelve the idea for another time.

Continue reading 'BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE SALVATION ARMY SHOOT'»

Finally, we get to see the inside of the display at the Olympic Village. Here are the few images taken early today. The pictures I have taken are at the main entrance..the fencing and taekwondo action shots and those on top of the columns.

You’ll be able to see more when the exhibit at Suntec is opened to the public in a few weeks’ time.

And the people behind the scenes:

For more information on the images at the entrance of the exhibit, see this post.

It’s finally up! The first batch of images I shot for the YOG exhibition is up at the YOG Olympic Village at NTU. This is a smaller compared to the one in Suntec in August. Not sure when it’ll be opened to the public but that’ll definitely be before the start of the Games. Meanwhile, I had a good look at the use of my images at the Village’s display and well……I’m happy.

Visitors to the display will be greeted by fencers and taekwondo exponents at the entrance. The raw images from the fencing and taekwondo shoots are below.

For both sports, there was absolutely no way to pose them as we needed the action sequence. So we let them do the thing, and let the camera and lights rip! Now here’s the catch, we needed the highest resolution we can get from a DSLR as the images will be life-size, hence the 5D Mk2. But we also needed the speed of the 1D Mk2. Also, we couldn’t use too much strobe power as we needed the fast recycling time. So all the while I was timing my shots, using all the experience I can muster to anticipate action and pray! Why did we need strobes? Well for obvious reasons, light levels were way too low to freeze motion indoors. But the important things was, we wanted it to feel like a studio shot, with good lighting. It’s not enough to have grainy, blurry and flat pics. Of course continuous lights would be great and I used modeling lights on some of the sports but fences and taekwondo need a lot of space to move hence a lot of lighting power. And I don’t have 600W hotlights at my disposal at that time.

So in the end, what would visitors to the exhibition see?

And to show it’s a full size image…

Unfortunately the public will not be able to see the display at the Olympic Village but do watch out for the one in Suntec and let me know what you think of the images! For more images of the exhibit at the Village, click here.

The world first showroom for the BMW M! And Liz and I had the privilege to start shooting in it before the launch a few days back. When we arrived for the shoot, the cleaners were still washing the floor and the cars were still outside. So I had the rare chance to decide how to layout the cars for the shoot. So the plan was to shoot portraits with the car and the features of the showroom, the features that makes the M stands out.

We decided on bringing in the M3, M6 and X6M. The cars will eventually be laid out parallel to each other but I didn’t think that would photograph well. The star to me was definitely the M6. With a hefty price tag of above half a million bucks, the car was both a beauty and a monster. The roar of the twin turbo V8 of the M6 is a head turner indeed! Especially in the enclosed showroom. We couldn’t resist molesting the matt grey paintwork, frozen grey it’s called. The M3 was in matt black. Great news for me! Matt means less worries about reflections. So I only had to worry about the X6M but the portrait with that car was tight and with proper positioning of the lights and car, reflection was minimised.

The showroom will open to the public in August. Here’s more information and images of the launch event on 25 July 2010 – photography not by me though. I had my fun way before that!

So here’s the latest gadget to hit town (officially, of course) and suddenly everyone’s twittering and facebooking about their new toy. I was reading the news from Koh Samui where Lydia and I spent time with family, post-wedding. Not our honeymoon technically since that’ll be in September. I’m not rushing to get the iPad but here’s what I’d like to do with it – shoot tethered. There’s someone who has tried it already, a photographer names Jesse Rosten and blogs about his experience here.

We all believe it’s a matter of time before an app appears to do it seamlessly. I don’t need wifi shooting for now but maybe a USB to the iPad can do. They have the Photokit available but it’s for downloading and not tethered shooting. What I’d like to see? Shoot tethered with jpgs sent to the iPad and RAW saved onto card. Perfect! I don’t need to have the RAW files in iPad neither do I want to do any editing on it. Just want to use it to view the shots and discuss with art directors while shooting.

Can someone please write an app for this?