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Red Cliff by John Woo is a movie dramatization of the famous Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel and to kick off the movie’s launch in Singapore, some of the cast made an appearance at, of all places, Plaza Singapura. Great news for me as my office is just next door!!!

So the event started at 7pm, and I got there at 6.15pm (couldn’t leave the office too early!), and to my dismay there was already a bunch of people who had set up their cameras right in the middle of the area in front of the stage. And they had big cameras and flashes. And ladders. I could’ve sworn that I’ve seen them before at another celebrity/fashion shoot in which they campled right in the middle with big cameras and flashes and stood on ladders. Rumour has it that they are known as the ladder gang. I ended up at the left side of the stage with a very poor angle, but I remained in good spirits!

The event kicked off with two emcees (Jiafa 93.3FM and Cai Li Lian from 97.2FM) doing their usual thing to get the crowd excited by playing some games and talking a lot. In Mandarin. I kept myself entertained by snapping photos (and stupidly draining my flash battery in the process!).

Cai Li Lian, Love 97.2FM radio deejay and livewire emcee.

This dude admitted that he was really perspiring beneath his armour!

And this dude looked a bit like Jay Chou.

This dude just enjoyed posing for the camera. He actually held that pose for me to take a photo. Twice!

Finally, after 30 long minutes of entertaining myself and wasting batteries, the cast appeared!

From left to right – Chang Chen, Lin Chiling, Zhang Fengyi.

However, the real star of the night, judging by the number of flashes going off, was none other than Lin Chiling (or Lín Zhì Líng). Apart from being one of Asia’s top models, Lin Chiling also holds a double major from the University of Toronto and the title for sexiest legs in Taiwan. Tall on beauty and high on IQ, some people just have em all! For those of you closer to me, you’d have known that I wanted Ashley’s chinese name to be Zhi Ling. Didn’t happen though due to wifey protesting that it sounded too much like hers (does Zhiyi and Zhiling really sound alike?).

At 1.74m, man, she is tall.

Behold – Taiwan’s sexiest legs!

Unlike her tall and leggy western model counterparts, Chiling has a very saccharine sweet look.

Genuinely making an effort to pose and smile for all her fans and the masses of photographers in front of her. Even the ladder gang didn’t faze her!

Whoa, I think she looked right at me!

My flash batteries were sputtering at this point thought I think it was really starting to feel the onset of diabetes.

Alway carry a super zoom lens like the 70-200mm with you to these type of events. It is heavy, but gets you these type of close-ups.

As a big thank you from the people of Singapore, the cast is presented with teddy bears from the Build-a-Bear Workshop.

Photography notes:

1. As mentioned in a previous celebrity shoot post, the key to getting good pictures at these kind of events is to arrive early.
2. When stage lighting is poor, flash is a must. All photos above were taken in Manual Mode, f/2.8 – f/4, 1/100s, ISO 400. SB800 was set to TTL mode with a compensation of -2/3EV (that’s two thirds of a stop down).
3. A useful tip I learnt is that it is ok to use a higher ISO even when using flash in order to ensure that there is a good balance of ambient light captured. Of course, I could’ve used a slower shutter speed instead like 1/60s but I didn’t want blurry photos due to hand shake.

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 11th, 2008 at 2:41 am and is filed under Photography, Special. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.