Pages of INK

There’s this cool restaurant that just opened at the basement of Centrepoint called New York Deli where we stopped for lunch one Sunday after church. What really impressed me was how well decorated the place was to mirror an American kitchen or diner in the 50s.

The place makes for great photos too.

Let’s order?

Getting bored…

So let’s do some fashion poses while waiting.

Or how about the cute look instead?

That’s my girl!

Don’t forget mummy!

Let’s eat!

Photography notes:

1. When shooting indoors, try to determine the right exposure in manual mode and once you’ve got it, stick to the same settings throughout. In this case, f/2.8 at 1/100s at ISO800.
2. Try not to rely too much on one of the program/priority modes because the very contrasty nature of some indoor lights can fool the camera’s meter resulting in very under/overexposed shots.
3. Even for shooting normal shots in restaurants, no harm asking for certain seats if you think they will get you better photos. I insisted on sitting in the corner near the wall display and the waiter happily obliged.
4. If I could do this again, I would’ve used my flash for fill light to make the subject “pop” more. I didn’t like how the foreground (i.e. subject) and background were equally exposed.

I’ve known Fernando & Grace for only a few months since they joined Hope Church Singapore so you can imagine my surprise when I was invited by this lovely couple to photograph their wedding alongside Merv on 19 Sep. Merv, as many of you know, is a veteran wedding photographer. Check out his cool wedding galleries here and I guarantee that you’ll wish you knew him when you tied the knot. In fact, he has gotten so good that he believes that he can somehow photograph his own wedding. We’ll see…

Anyway, the initial enthusiasm was soon met by a lot of self-doubt given that this was my first time shooting a wedding. Now, I’ve attended plenty of weddings, heck even went through one myself, but my preconceived notion till now of wedding photographers were those annoying people that interrupt you in the middle of your dinner to pose for photos. Or, who walk around with Tupperware on top of their cameras. Nonetheless, I never cease to be amazed when I look at wedding portfolios like this and this. Somehow, somewhere, in between interrupting people’s dinners, these fine local photographers manage to capture photos that are so magical they transcend merely being a record of history into a timeless piece of art.

I had big shoes to fill.

And thank God everything worked out in the end. “We have faith in you!” reassured Pris, F&G’s wedding coordinator, a few days before the wedding. Thanks for believing in me and I hope these photos go some way towards repaying that faith!

Click here for the full gallery

And, some selections here:

The beautiful bride

The rings

The happy bridesmaids

Fiesta at the entrace

YAM SENG!

Also, check out Merv’s excellent gallery here.

This event marks two historic firsts – the first F1 street race in Asia and the first F1 night race ever. Given the scale of organisation and marketing that went into place, I’m sure it must have been a big relief when the first practice sessions kicked off on Friday without incident.

Thanks to Ming, a few of us were able to attend Friday’s practice sessions for free! We had seats at the Padang Grandstand facing St Andrew’s Cathedral. It was quite sad though that Ming’s camera broke down on the day of the race, but on the bright side, it meant that he could enjoy watching the race without distraction.

Merv, Aloy, Zann and Ming

Upon sitting down, the first thing that struck me was how high the fences were – not good for taking photos at all! I tried a couple of panning shots during the afternoon’s practice sessions for other races but even that couldn’t eliminate the distracting presence of fences in the photos.

Porsche Carrera Cup Asia practice session

After dinner, I decided that I might have better luck walking around the track instead. However, I almost gave up when all I could see were the never ending sight of tall fences.

They are everywhere!

As a photographer, one of the most important traits to have is perseverance, and after walking around quite a fair bit and climbing onto all sorts of things like railings and power boxes to gain height (to no avail), I was lucky enough to find a small opening where safety cars drive onto the track to shoot from. Here are some shots taken from that spot.

Ferrari – Felipe Massa

Ferrari – Kimi Räikkönen

McLaren – Lewis Hamilton

Renault – Fernando Alonso

Red Bull – David Coulthard

As I post this, the first ever Singapore Grand Prix has just ended with Fernando Alonso (Renault) claiming first place followed by Nico Rosberg (Williams-Toyota) in second and finally Lewis Hamilton (McLaren-Mercedes) in third.

It was a pretty disastrous race for the Ferrari team who saw Massa involved in a pit stop mishap and Räikkönen crashing out. In a sport where fortunes can change so dramatically, Massa for example actually started the race in pole position, winners are decided not just on who drives the best but which teams makes the least mistakes.

Feel the power and emotion behind JUMP! 2008 (Jesus U Must Praise!) held at Fort Canning Green on 22 August 2008 in this gallery which features the musicians and singers who made the event such a success. Witness the raw energy in their expressions and gestures as they gave it their all in this intense 2 hours of praise and worship.

Click on this link for the full gallery.

As promised, here are the days best photos. Enjoy!

Jump!

Cast: Pris
Photographer: INK

Say a prayer

Cast: Pris
Photographer: INK

Beijing, here I come!

Cast: Chris
Photographer: INK

Netball with a football

Cast: Priscilla An, Adeline Frances & Priscilla Tan
Photographer: Merv

What’s a small Nikon to do next to that Canon?

Cast: Junming & Vanez
Photographer: Merv

Here come the jazz dancers

Cast: Elaine & Tamar
Photographer: Merv

The juggler

Cast: Junming
Photographer: Merv

Kung Fu Hustle!

Cast: Johnnie & Davyd
Photographer: INK

Ong Bak

Cast: Davyd & Johnnie
Photographer: INK

Angels are falling from the sky!

Cast: Ruth & Vanez
Photographer: INK

I wanna be free………

Cast: Vanez
Photographer: INK

The END!!!

Cast: Ruth, Davyd, Junming, Chang Shiung, Johnnie & Vanez
Photographer: INK

Note: If I got any of the names or credits wrong, please let me know!

As mentioned in a prior blog post, today was the finals of the Hope Premiere League which featured a very pulsating and close match that ended with Evolution FC defeating FC 2024 on penalties. Highlights of the match were the underdogs Evolution taking a 2-0 lead by half time, then getting 2 men sent off in the 2nd half before FC 2024 clawed their way back to 2-2 only to see one of their own get sent off. The match ended at that and somehow or another, Evolution’s goalkeeper managed to pull off some saves to see their way to the cup!

I hardly got to watch the match though, as I was one of the participants in the Game On Carnival, a side event comprising food, drink, game stalls and a flea market. The idea behind my booth was quite simple – take action photographs of people and sell CDs of photos with proceeds going to Hope Centre, a volunteer welfare organisation under the NCSS umbrella.

Here’s a photo of Ming’s brother, Junhan (did I spell it correctly), and wifey setting off from home with all the gear destined for Aloy’s new Mazda waiting below.

Believe it or not, all these took 2 days to prepare and pack.

Here’s the crew setting up at the grandstand at Yio Chu Kang stadium. Due to budget constraints, we didn’t get a tentage in the end, so stall owners had to improvise and set up shop along the terraces. Due to circumstances unforeseen, we ended up with a booth at the far end of the grandstand which ultimately wasn’t that great for business but we still had more than enough customers to keep us reasonably busy. And I guess this being our first time doing such an outdoor event, it might not have been a bad thing!

We initially set up on a patch of grass near the track for better visibility but light rain moved us back.

Also, a big thanks to Pris for helping with the ad board which is where I want to share a short testimony. On the way there, I was semi-panicking because we didn’t have much time to set up, and everyone already had their hands full, leaving no one available to decorate the stall or create the ad board. I was praying for someone, anyone, artistic to turn up and lend a hand. Lo and behold when I was eventually on the track setting up the lighting equipment, I turned around at one point and saw Pris scribbling on the board and making it pretty. Prayers answered!

It may be nice and simple but speaks volumes in how it came together!

Ok now the meaty stuff – what kind of photos was I planning to take?

Here is a shot of Junhan on the track taken with nothing but available light. Yucks! Look at how bland the sky is and the unflattering shadows cast across the face. This is why people avoid shooting in mid-day sun.

Before…

Now add one softbox to camera left for the key light and another speedlight to camera right for the rim light, both gelled with a full CTO (with the camera balanced for flourescent, this gives the sky a bluer hue) and upped to overpower the sun by 1-2 stops (should’ve written down the exact light ratio!), and you get something like this. More dramatic isn’t it!

After!

More cool photos of the actual action shots to follow soon!

The Crew:

• Wifey and Ashley – always willing to lend both moral and physical support! Your presence throughout the whole 6 hours was touching, as you originally wanted to leave after 3.
• Merv – my main photographer, who had to juggle both this and coordinating the other bunch of event photographers.
• Gab – set up the laptops and wireless network, post processed images, showed them to customers, took orders, burnt CDs, etc. Phew! He was literally the other half of the show.
• Aloy – provided transport to and fro even though asked very last minute. Thanks a million for the spacious and very comfortable car.
• Junhan – strong dude who put his muscles to good use by helping to carry a lot of the kit, set up and stabilize the lights.
• Ming – up and coming photographer who assisted with directing, taking a few of the shots when Merv disappeared, and also with the lighting. In fact, I think he got us some customers too!

Just one day after the historic and auspicious opening of the Beijing Olympics (the number 8 is considered lucky in Chinese customs, so 8pm 08/08/08 is like winning the $10mil Big Sweep… without having even bought a ticket), Singapore celebrated its National Day. National Day celebrations in Singapore are always really spectacular, and spectacularly crowded. We thus chose to avoid hotspots like the City Hall area in order to preserve our sanity and headed down to Henderson Wave instead, the tallest pedestrian bridge in Singapore.

In the photo above, you can see how the bridge’s structure comprises curved steel “ribs” that alternate above and under the deck giving it a wave-like form. Under each “rib” are alcoves where people can sit on the nice yellow balau wood floor and enjoy the view. And for me, a great place to snap some shots!

You might probably be wondering by now what time at night I took these photos at. Well, the answer is actually closer to 6pm where there was still a lot of light. The trick to this was to ensure that the flash was strong enough to overpower the ambient light, thus making the whole scene darker that it actually was. Of course, this correspondingly meant that the camera had to be set to expose for the flash, or else bright scene + even brighter flash = blown out picture.

Now here’s my favourite modlet (I just coined a new word!) in action.

By now, another question might have cropped up in your mind: if it was still bright and the bridge was made of wood, how come the wood looks so blue? Again, there is a trick to this. If you own either the Nikon SB800 or SB900 flashes, they come with a set of CTO colour-correction gels. CTO stands for Colour Temperature Orange and they are meant to make light from the flash warmer.

So in theory, what happens is that when you set your camera’s white balance to incandescent/tungsten to compensate for the flash emitting warmer light, everything else in the scene takes on a darker shade of blue. Groovy isn’t it?

Yes!!!

You can read more about this technique here from the Strobist website.

Anyway, back to National Day, we were able to see other great action from the bridge like the Singapore flag fly-past and a distant view of the Black Knights’ aerial display.

Photography notes:

• Forgot to bring a lightmeter so everything was on the spot guesswork. If I recall correctly, my SB900 was set to full power, i.e. 1/1.
• In addition, I was using an 85cm shoot-through translucent umbrella to diffuse light from the flash. Umbrella was positioned about 1.5-2m away from Ashley and pointing downwards about 25 degrees.
• Flash sync speed was at 1/125s and aperture was purely guesswork, alternating between f/5.6 to f/7.1. Why people advice you to be proficient at reading the camera histogram is precisely for times like this.
• The Elinchrom Skyport Universal Transmitter and Receiver were used to provide-off camera flash wireless triggering.
• It rained while we were there and the shoot-through umbrella found another use.

Zhiyi had been having a lot of cravings for durians lately, so being the ever considerate husband, I went out of my way before a movie today to surprise her with a box of durian mochis from 4 Seasons Bakery, only to be told that the smell now made her nauseous.

Plus, mochis (Japanese ice cream-like paste) melt.

I ended up eating almost the whole box before the movie started and easily surpassed my yearly durian quota in one shot (which isn’t much to begin with considering that I don’t like durians!). Lesson learnt – food cravings are like mood swings – they come and go when you least expect.

Anyway, I also did a simple photoshoot with Zhiyi today and we went for the simple high-key look in the style of Japanese hair/makeup/jewelry ads. Of course, Japanese tend to be a lot fairer, and with the right amount of makeup, really look snow white in photos. Still, I like how the shot turned out with Zhiyi’s beautiful eyes, luscious hair and healthy glow. Isn’t motherhood great!

And here is the lighting setup (classical beauty lighting):

Photography notes:

1. Be creative with backgrounds, i.e. don’t always use paper or cloth. In fact, softboxes can double up as backgrounds too, albeit more suitable for high key photography.
2. For the most effective exposure, use an incident meter to measure the light hitting the front of the face and the back of the hair. The lighting ratio should be 1:1. I made a mistake in this shot and the background light was actually under by more than a stop which explains the slightly greyish tint.
3. As the subject was very close to the background softbox, wraparound light becomes a serious problem. If I had a bigger studio, I would’ve preferred that Zhiyi be at least 3m from the softbox so that even if it were powered up more, there wouldn’t be much wraparound light contaminating the main light’s exposure.
4. In classical beauty lighting, a single huge softbox is placed almost right in front of the subject and facing downwards to produce an almost flat lighting with no harsh shadows. This set up also produced very nice catchlights (the bright spots you see in the subject’s eyes that make the eyes come alive!).
5. Usage of a reflector to fill in shadows under the chin and nose is highly recommended.
6. I used a 3-stop neutral density filter to allow me to shoot at F/4 in order to get a shallower depth of field. Without an NDF, I would have had to shoot at F/11 (F/4 -> F/5.6 -> F/8 -> F/11, i.e. 3-stops higher) which would have made everything in focus.

I was back in Kuching recently to attend Dawn and Dave’s wedding held at Sarawak Club on 29 Jun 2008; and apart from spending quality time with family, it was also a great chance to take photos around the house. I used to take the ol’ house for granted but only recently did I discover that there are many nice walls around the house that make for nice backdrops. As always, Ashley was ever obliging!

This short but simple theme mirrors a lot of our Christian walks, from how we were called out of darkness to be born again into His wonderful light. May the verses and pictures inspire your day!

“Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.” Ephesians 2:12

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Luke 11:9

“To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.” Revelations 3:21

Notes:

1. Picture 1 was taken at the staircase that has green walls, white tiles and an icky fluorescent light from above. But, it really helps make for a moody and dramatic picture!
2. Picture 2 was taken at the backyard with Ashley peering into the tool shed. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen what’s inside either…
3. Picture 3 was also taken at the backyard in front of a wall separating our house from the neighbour’s. It just absolutely glows in the morning sun! And that really is my father’s throne, I mean, chair.

In what must probably be the most spectacular outdoor arts performance I’ve ever seen in Singapore, Studio Festi was in town for the National Museum of Singapore’s Night Festival on 18 & 19 July, and what a show it was!

“Studio Festi from Italy is internationally acclaimed for staging extraordinary large-scale outdoor theatrical performances, including the recent 100-day countdown to the Beijing Olympics in Macau.” – paraphrased from programme literature.

Here are some photos from the 9pm and 11pm performances held on 19 July. And true to an earlier piece of advice, I was down there armed with my tripod an hour before the actual performance. Though I managed to get a good spot directly across the road facing the museum, it also happened to rain; and if not for a kind gentleman who offered to share his umbrella with me, I would have been drenched. If you do visit my blog, I can’t say thank you enough for that kind gesture!

The museum all lighted up and ready for the performance.

Aerial Ballroom Dancing

The opening act featured two graceful ballroom dancers.

I love how she soars across the front of the museum, with her partner longing below.

In the Waters of the Sky

Next up was another aerial performance featuring a graceful dancer and a huge floating ship. What really made this performance magical was the soaring melody of Nessun Dorma that accompanied this act.

The Flying Piano

A grand piano and ballerina suspended in mid-air, dancing gracefully to a tune of the night.

The Progeny of Dreams

A long line of dancers 3 meters then paraded down Stamford Road, stopping in between to show off their magnificent dresses and artistic poses.

Like the Moon

Two dancers float and twirl around a huge moon, while the real moon probably watched from a distance in envy!

Harmony of the Spheres

The final act of the first half featured two giant spheres with dancers suspended from them floating above the onlooking crowd. The crowd was enthralled every time the dancers swooped down on them and reached towards their outstretched arms.

No less spectacular was the 2nd half of the performance that took place on the Campus Green of SMU. This time, the audience was right up there with the various performers stationed around the area, ensuring that nobody missed out on the action.

This performer was mimicking an early day explorer with his long telescope.

There were also two breathtaking dances featuring the contrasting elements of fire and water.

Water Dance

The water dance took place at the center of SMU Campus Green with a dancer performing acrobatics both on and in a huge glass bowl that was filled with water.

Fire Dance

The fire dance was performed by no less than 6 beautiful and exotic looking ladies stationed at different spots around the area who twirled flares, fire batons and fire umbrellas.

The whole performance ended around 1am and although I was exhausted from 4 hours of near continuous photo taking, I really enjoyed the shows nonetheless and hope that they come back to Singapore for an encore performance again next year!