Qiang Mai Portraits Part 2: The City Hall Page
Well, for the 2nd and last stop of our Qiang Mai Portrait shoot, we go to another place bustling with the urban presence, City Hall! For this shoot, I have to say that some people are best shot naturally in a fashion as candid as possible and well, here I have one such model. 
When you get models that gets very conscious over every command you give, then the best thing is to go with the flow and stop commanding and start waiting for the right moment. Since you can't generate the mood through commanding, it's up to the environment to do the job. For the cover photo, with dimmy yellow lights and lots of passerbys walking past and trying to see what's happening, the model naturally gets into a 看设么看？！state and you have to seize the moment. It's such a short-lived moment that even I wonder if i captured it when i clicked the shutter~
The shot is another shot of patience and waiting as well. Now not for the model, but for the background. Waiting for the stunt cyclists to be in the "clutches" of my model was not easy and often the model has to be always ready when I shouts "Get ready" as the backgound gets into position~ 
Funky places give funky portraits i guess?
Another shot that requires the background (in this case the foreground) to be in place~
Hope you guys like these portraits~ I definitely enjoyed shooting them~:)
23 Mar 2010
12 Mar 2010
Qiang Mai Portraits Part 1: The Raffles Place Chapter~
Hey all! As promised, here is the Qiang Mai Potriats! The theme for this year's shoot is "urban/city" so naturally, our first stop would be right in the heart of the CBD at Raffles Place!
For these environmental portriats, you have to take care a lot of things, out of which, I find location to be the most important. I particularly liked the location for the first shot in the lift. It took quite some time, mainly geting the background right~ The floor we are on changes the height above ground and affect the background and also it took some time to get the "moving" metal column at the position we wanted it! (we took the lift maybe 20 times up and down?)It was really lucky that no one else was using the lift~
Trying to find good locations depends on how familiar with the place as well. To me, I have been to Raffles Place quite often so it is still not that bad. I had wanted to shoot at these tunnels near VCH for quite some time but circumstance always do not allow me to do that until the shoot day! Combining the vanishing effect of the tunnel with a well-placed light, I liked this photo a lot~ And this photo took some time as we have to wait for the tunnel to be "cleared" of people before we can even take a shot~
As usual, I like to play around with lighting~ For the shot above, the flash was "screaming" at me throughout the shoot because I kept on firing it at full power~ The light bounced off a thin strip of "ceiling" to my right and gave this really soft shadow which I like a lot~ Good job, flash!
Lastly, I would say that for such shoots, it's good to have a lot of assistants around~ Be it as mobile human lightstands or even as part of the background=P
8 Mar 2010
Preview Post! Qiang Mai Portrait Shoot!
Hey folks! It has been 3 weeks since I last had a blog post! Sorry because I have mid terms and piling school work. But I have been still shooting! Here is a sneak preview! So who is Pei Xuan doing makeup on? :P
Who is Pei Xuan videoing? Hmmm.... Stay tuned to find out~ Answer will be revealed in a few days time!
Note: For people who are not in SPH, Qiang Mai is an internal singing competition within the SPH student correspondent club which I am active in~ As part of their publicity, they will be taking nice portraits~ SO stay tuned!
1 Jan 2009
Looking back, I feel that I got to love to shoot landscape more in the past year. One of my friend once said, every photog trip is like a mini holiday to him. I think this pretty much applies to me as well especially on trips to shoot landscapes because the secenery is so refreshing and you have it all to yourself. Singapore is a place with many nice places to shoot landscapes be it during twilight hours or at night and my wish for 2009 is to explore more of them!
Events
NUS Chinese Dance, Sep 08
At the first half of 2008, I shot a lot of events perhaps due to my more free schedule, being just freed from Army and waiting for uni. It was also the time I changed my camera to my current one and this frenzy period of shooting quite some events made me quite competent with my new camera, altho i have to say that I haven fully master it fully. Later came the later part of 2008 when uni started, shooting also declined as more focus was placed in studies. Yet, NUS also did provide some avenue for shooting like this concert I shot a few mths back.
After one whole year of event shooting, I realised that I really loved shooting stage performance. The beauty of the lights (which is also one less worry for me as flash is not allowed and you just focus more on composition) and the atmosphere is something that I really loved. The thrill of following with the rhythm of the music and following and predicting the performer's movement is smthg like playing a shooting game to me and the adrenaline rush during fast-paced scenes is simply amazing. Wish for 2009! More stage performance! I love the arts:P
Portraits
Qiang Mai Portrait, May 08
I have to say that I love shooting portraits a lot as well, primarily because of the interaction that you make with your subject. Also, it may be partly because I am a very "lifestyle" person so i prefer to shoot lifestyle related stuff like people, concerts and food(next up!). 2008 was a great year of experimentation with lighting when it comes to portriats. A lot of lighting breakthroughs were made. I bought triggers, new flash and made lots of DIY light modifiers. And it's good that you have a friend who knows a lot about lighting and you can learn from. However, as school started, portrait time got less and lesser due to studies... So my wish for 2009! Find more time to make more interesting modifiers and shoot better portriats!
Food
Turkish Delight Cheesecake, Dec 08
As most of my friends know, I love to eat! And I bake as well! So wouldn't it be nice if i can combine cooking and photography? Haha... That was what i set out to do this Dec holiday and here I present to you! Turkish Delight Cheesecake~ I particularly like this photo as it was kind of a breakthrough for me. The lighting used was newly thought out. In the past, I used mainly uniform lighting and decided to work more on arrangement of food but recently, I realised that lighting is equally important as well and thus decided to work on it:) Wish for 2009! Come up with more creative lighting for my food! And also work more on food styling, smthg that i am realli not good at:)
Random
Black Knight Flying Past IR, Aug 08
Lastly, I decided to post this photo to wish that all my friends will pass their exams in 2009 with flying colours! That aside, I hope that my passion for photography will be like the F16s soaring high despite in the midst of other commitments:)