For the second day, we were brought to Naili's in Sentul, a nice makan area with a treehouse! :) We were given 2 tasks each. First one, to pose a model in front of Louis, and direct them the way you would in a shoot. I like this little kampung looking house. The only thing is that they look too modern for the house! 

Veralyne, a superb gown designer from Pretty In White. She did a marvelous job posing for the camera.

Our second assignment was to pose another couple within 3 minutes. By the time you got the angle and the pose right, time was almost up! Gee, thank God normal shoots are not like that.  

Edmund using a bag to give a bit of shade to Veralyne. (and also to create shadows) 

Finally, one of the residents around Naili's, who probably had lots of fun looking at strange photographers hiding behind bushes. :)

We had to get Anna to do this... look at those biceps!!  

Some spot of blatant advertising for Louis.  

Kee Sitt taking a video of the entire workshop.  

At about 4pm, the whole lot of us were taken to the Sg Buloh Leprosy Centre (near the hospital) for a photo shoot. Louis did all the shooting, directing the models, while the rest of us took the opportunity to shoot from behind his shoulder! 

This is an amazing location. Look at the building where we were at.  

More cool buildings and colourful doors.  

When we entered this empty looking warehouse / room, I immediately thought... this would look great as a wide shot! While the rest were outside shooting another model, I got Johan to help me hold the video light while I took a quick shot. 

The building across from where this abandoned looking space is. 

Louis directing a model how to pose, and sharing with us about seeing the light.  

I like this casual shot of the 2 of them. Gee, I have lots of shots of Anna here! 

1. Four Jobs/Career aspirations I have had:

• Be a doctor (I discovered after a while that blood and I don't go well together)
• A National Geographic photographer
• Be a successful businesswoman
• A social worker helping to make this world a better place

2. Four things I wish I had done earlier:

• Discovered the joys of photography at an earlier age
• Organize my finances better
• Spent more time with my brother when he was living in Asia for 4 years
• Backpack around Australia while I was studying there for 3 years. And dive in the Great Barrier Reef!
  

3. Four places I have been:

• Nepal
• Myanmar
• Mauritius
• Prague

4. Four countries I would like to visit:

• Egypt
• South Africa 
• South America (ok this is more like a continent... but I suppose anywhere around South America would be great!)
• South island of New Zealand

5. Four of my favourite dishes/snacks:

• My mom's sayur asin or kiam chai soup
• Tom Yum
• Nasi Lemak
• Japanese Food

6. Four of favourite desserts:

• Leng Chee Kang
• Thai Red Ruby
• Chocolate Ice Cream
• Hot melted bananas topped with chocolates and roasted over a BBQ pit  

7. Four sites I visit daily:

• Blogs of other friends
• Google calendar
• Facebook (now it's not really daily)
• Can't think of any other sites

8. Four software applications I cannot live without:

• Final Cut Pro
• Adobe Lightroom
• Adobe Photoshop
• Firefox 
  

9. Four favourite drinks:

• Ribena
• Teh tarik
• Orange Juice
• Iced pearl tea 

10. Four things you may not know about me: 

• I am a closet control freak. I like to have things in control and going my way. Hahaha... and though I tell myself that I am not a perfectionist, I can get a bit nitpicky when it comes to certain things. Like work. :) 
  
• When I left my hometown Malacca in 1997, I knew I would never go back there to live again. Well I should never say, 'never' right? But I guess I am quite sure now that my time there has come to a close.
  
• But when I was living in Malacca, I used to cycle to school and throw stones at mudskippers after tuition. It was one of my favourite past-times. :)
• Initially when I ventured into photography, I was really nervous about it. I didn't feel as if I had the skills and the confidence to do it. I kept a low profile for many years until I slowly began to realize that I needed to get out of this shell (my thoughts!). Over time, I built my confidence, but I still do get nervous before a shoot, because I really want to do the best for all my clients. 

I am a firm believer in making your website stand out from the rest. The web is your best form of advertising, and a lot of photographers or videographers don't really harness the power of the internet. First impressions count, and so the initial few minutes of a potential client browsing through your site is really important. We discovered through online stats that on average, people stay on our website for at least 6-7 mins. That's great! That means people are either really looking through the photos or watching a video online. 

I must say that though all this is exciting, I must learn to have a good work life balance. A lot of days, I find myself thinking about work the moment I wake up and up till the point I go to sleep. I hate to admit it, but I've become a workaholic! I try to keep weekends as rest days (when I am not out shooting) but it doesn't work all the time. I have to make a conscious effort to stay 'rested'! A good reminder to me is from this Psalm:

"He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
       will rest in the shadow of the Almighty."

Psalm 91:1

If I make a choice to dwell in the shelter of my God, then I will know the true meaning of rest. But I must first get myself to that shelter, where I can be close to God and seek Him, in my secret place. 

We have a new website coming up, both for Integricity Visuals (corporate work) and for Wedding Story (weddings, duh!). Do look out for it soon... it should be launched by end of this month, if all goes well! I am really excited about this new venture. Kee Sitt and Sharon are really exciting people to work with. They are motivated, always wanting to excel and to give the best to their clients. That is something that we agree on. Their enthusiasm and passion for weddings are really contagious! My friends know that I talk about weddings a lot, but this couple brings it to another level completely! Gee, I just realized how many exclamation marks I have in one paragraph. Makes me sound like I'm talking in a high pitched tone, but yeah, I am excited!

Do contact us for our new price list. We'll be excited to shoot your wedding!

Amazingly on that day, we had a bit of a crisis! Serina had lost weight and she needed to get the dress fixed (that was at 4pm on that dinner night itself). And we were supposed to take some couple shots at 5pm that evening! At 4.30pm I got a call saying that the zip broke. By the time they arrived it was more like 6.15pm... but thank God it was just enough time to squeeze a few shots like these that evening!

You must watch the video to get the full effect of the dance that night. It was so beautiful I couldn't stop smiling. Ah, the romantic in me.

Even Serina's dance teacher gave us a few performances of her own.

And of course... the whole floor came alive after that!

Finally, we ended the night with a good long kiss. :) Of course only the couple did the kissing.

This meet up was held at Chilli's, Midvalley about 2 weeks ago, organized by Anna-Rina. From left to right... Fiona of Fifoto, Olivia Oon, ME, Sharon Koo from Wedding Story and Anna-Rina. It was quite fun to just chat and share tips and struggles about working in this industry. I am so glad that we're female, usually conversations with male photographers revolve around what is the current lens that you own, or how sharp this other lens is, where to purchase the cheapest studio equipment etc. But with these girls, we shared about stories we encountered while shooting, meeting horror clients, finding weird locations to shoot, even debating on how much is too low a rate to charge clients! I am glad we could share sensitive things like these and not consider each other as enemies/competitors. We're here to improve ourselves and the best way to raise the standard is by sharing. The people who win, of course, are the consumers! We improve our skills, and they get better products!

One of the things that we discussed was how to run the business properly, and how to charge clients appropriately, especially when the shoot hours overrun. Interestingly enough, most of us left high paying careers to pursue this passion. (ok not all of us). Fiona was working in the IT industry, Anna was in Adidas, Sharon in a design company, and I, left my full time video editing role in a production company to pursue my own business.

We laughed and joked for 3-4 hours, and left feeling as if we were kindred spirits, bonded together by our similarities, and at the same time, recognizing our differences. There's a lot more women out there who could not make it to our meet. We hope to meet more regularly, you know, like a support group thingy? :) And of course, the natural reaction when other male photographers find out about this is... "When's the next meeting and where will you be???" *grin*

More to be revealed soon...

Sharon's mom had organized a family reunion, where her two brothers, one from the States and the other from Australia, came back to KL for this family reunion. Only thing is that Grandma did not know. Can you see her surprised expression in the photo above as she points to her daughter in law from the States?

Even some of the other older relatives did not know about this surprise. It was so wonderful to see so much joy radiating from these people!

The family from the States even prepared a video message from her grandchildren who could not make it for this celebration. The next day, Alex and I took Peter and Sharon out to the tea plantation for a pre-wedding photo shoot. It was really fun but challenging to make Peter smile! :) I've known Peter for a few years now, and he's such an intellectual, serious type of guy. I didn't think frolicking around the tea plantation was his sorta thing! But anyhow, he was such a sport and we made wonderful images that day.

After spending some time at the tea plantation, we moved on to this really rustic old convent school that we found nearby. It was so lovely, I truly enjoyed taking photos there.

There was even a jeep all parked in the compound and unlocked, just waiting to be used by us! Wow what a treat.

The fun thing was that Sharon's cousins had accompanied us on this shoot, and they too wanted their moments of glamour. But this wasn't really full of glamour...

In case you can't see too clearly, the words in the yellow box says "Kindergarten". I think you know that these kids have been up to no good... and finally our "Heroes" group shot.

Ok by now you can tell we had loads of fun that day. In the evening, we brought the entire family to the tea plantation for family portraits. I knew it was difficult to coordinate over 20 people outdoors, so we managed it by taking smaller group shots first, family by family, then finally the entire family. Thank God we were really fast, because within half an hour, the sky started pouring and we had to run for cover!

But of course, not before Alex and I got a cool portrait of our own...!