You know, its beeen a while since I went out shooting just for the fun of it! …and when I come to think about it, thats what its REALLY about!
Its when I’m free from obligations that I actually push myself. Why I don’t know. I guess its because when I’m shootin’ for myself, I’m shooting against myself…and myself is very competitive…geddit? Also, I don’t feel confined to do what I know works and works well…instead I do things that others don’t think about…what others don’t see…and most importantly, what others couldn’t be bothered turn a second glance at.
Its when I can look at something simple. Something everyday. Something “normal”. For example, a calculator:
Ok, nothing really special about that…just wanted an excuse to show off the tiny DOF of an f/1.2! Thats right! 50mm f/1.2 right there…at 50cm the DOF is a mere 6mm!!! SHWEEEEET!!! Here are a couple of shots taken at f/1.2…
Notice how sharp the web in focus is? I don’t know why everyone keeps complaining about the f/1.2s?! They’re tack sharp wide open!
Someone founds this little bead on the floor at church so I took a picture of it…(after the service of course…)
Toowoomba’s own shopping mall – Grand Central.
This, my friends, is where the f/1.2 REALLY shines! The picture is taken handheld at 1/60 with nothing more than a dim street lamp!
After that,…well…actually it was before that coz I just recently got the f/1.2…We were testing the shoot through umbrella for strobing…
No comment.
Needless to say this post will contain excessive Steph.
Poor guinea pig Steph has to become my model for all my weird shooting needs…
After some fun indoor portraits we went outside to shoot some more portraits…real strobist stuff! This next picture is definitely my fave of this set! Check them out!
By the way, thie series of outdoor portraits were taken at the University of Southern Queensland’s Japanese Garden…
I also really like this above picture…
Thanks Steph!
Thats about it for today…I also took some pictures of the Brisbane Floating Boardwalk which I’ve already uploaded on Flickr…will post about it tomorrow…I still have a lot of these sort of shots lying aroung the HDD but I needed to get some of it out to make space for next week. If you didn’t know I’m going to the Hillsong Conference in Sydney next week. We’re leaving this Sunday morning so I’ll try to keep the blog updated as the conference is held…Its gonna be LEGENDARY!
Tags: cactus V4, japanese garden, Jiaren Lau, lua saw lay, nikkor 50mm f/1.2, Nikon D80, off camera flash, saw lay, Stephanie Lua, strobing, strobist, university of southern queensland, USQ, wireless flash
My church, Toowoomba City Church (TCC) held a Cultural Night at the end of May to celebrate the different cultures, nationalities, and sample some food from all corners of the world.
It was a fun day, there were many performances such as dances from very exotic parts of the world…
…to a solo by a Chinese Michael Jackson…
…all the way to a marching drummer from the USA!
Besides that, there an authentic chinese opera singer (our very own Robert) as well as some other group song presentations.
Performances aside, a big part of the night was the awesome demonstrations that were done on stage! There was a tea ceremony demo…
Our Chinese brother, Kevin, together with his wife, went up on stage to show the Aussies how chinese dumplings are made…
Their English isn’t that good so auntie sister Elena went up to translate…
Of course I can’t forget our very own pastor and host of the evening, Ps. Yew Meng:
He patiently announced the various country reps present…can you guess where they’re from? Nationalities under the pics…
Will from China.
Korea.
India.
Finland.
Phillipines.
Thailand.
Willy from Indonesia.
Denmark.
…and finally,last but not certainly not least…
Australia!
…and the team that made it all possible…none other than…
ANS! (All Nations Service)!
From left: Ps. Yew Meng, Jun, Will, Wilson, Yvonne, Min, Neo, Ben, Steph, Seng Yee, Jason, Andrix, Roger, and me(behind the lens).
Tags: 10 Neil Street, All Nations Service, ANS, australia, chinese dumplings, Cultural Night, Cultural Night 09, Cultural Night 2009, Denmark, Finland, India, Indonesia, Jiaren Lau, jiaren nikon, Korea, national costume, Phillipines, tcc, tea ceremony, Thailand, toowoomba, toowoomba city church
Yes, I was there! It was great! They had a video conference with their Sydney branch and everything! Hillsong Brisbane (hillsongbrisbane.com) was originally Garden City Christian Church which has been officially taken over by the Hillsong Mega-church.
If you plan on visiting, its located at:
16 Rover Street,
Mt Gravatt, QLD,
Australia.
Aaron, Steph, Reshaun and I went for the 2nd 10.30am service. We went early so we could get good seats! Unfortunately, this mean’t my “overview wide shot” didn’t show the real size of the auditorium.
This was from about the 4th or 5th row. Also, photography and videography was STRICTLY PROHIBITED in the auditorium so all my shots were spy shots!
First EVER praise and worship from Hillsong Brisbane (Actually second, it was the 2nd service)
Brian Houston, Hillsong Church Senior Pastor.
Reuben Morgan, lead singer/guitarist.
Joel A’Bell, Executive Pastor.
This was one of the backup singers during praise and worship. What’s interesting is his resemblance with a friend of mine, Will. This is Will:
Funny right? …maybe not to you…
Tags: aaron, bobbie houston, brian and bobbie, brian and bobbie houston, brian houston, garden city christian church, hillsong, hillsong brisbane, hillsong church, inaugural, Jiaren, Jiaren Lau, joel a'bell, nikon, opening, photography, reuben morgan
by the third day I couldnt remember who I was taking..I think I only managed to take a few performances…
First up here are some of the more “unique” Easterfest-goers…
The Power Rangers made an appearance with Spiderman…haha…
Here are some campers…recognize anyone?
Next we have the shots from the church service…there were two services but I’m just gonna combine them coz I can’t remember which is which (too lazy to check exif info eiher)
Evan Shelton, our church’s music director…wonderful singer as well!
Ps. Peter Pelicaan, he once prophecized over me…very gifted man of God. Also, he’s the chaplain of Christian Outreach College (COC), Toowoomba.
This is Isaac Moody, CEO of Easterfest. He’s been running it since it started. Nice guy! That’s his daughter during the service…
Next up were the games at the Red Frogs Colleseum. They had stuff from “So you think you can dance” and some games…the games were cool!
This is one I particularly liked. Basically, everyone holds hands in a huge circle…then, a chair is thrown in the middle. The objective is to get everyone else to touch the chair without touching it yourself. If you break the chain then the two people who let go their hands are out. If you touch the chair you’re out. As there’s less and less people more chairs are thrown in the middle. Last one wins!
one of the two hosts…
The Red Frogs Colleseum
There was also some more BMX stunts but I prefer the shots from the first day a lot more…anyway, here are 2 shots of the day that I like:
Ok next is simply a MUST-MENTION. I mean when I saw this guy I was amazed! If you look closely at his fingers you;d notice they’re sort of twisted and tangled…sort of like a disability…but his passion for Christ is unbelievable! respect!
Lead singer of Selaphonic
Next is the Paul Coleman Trio secret show that was at the Epicentre
…and last but not least, before the night was out, I shot Fatis Valor…they were an hour late and I was waiting for them to come on so I missed out on a lot of good shows…oh well…
…and that is the end of the Easterfestseries…at least for this year.
Tags: agmf, austoville, australia, australian gospel music festival, band, bmx, christian, concert, d80, easter, easterfest, easterfest 09, easterfest 2009, evan shelton, event, Into the Ocean, Jiaren, Jiaren Lau, lau, live, live concert, Lucy Hannah, mainstage, music, Naturally 7, New Empire, newworldson, nikon, Paul Coleman Trio, peter pelicaan, photography, qld, queens park, queensland, red frogs colleseum, selahphonic, toowoomba
Right now I think I’m the only photographer who hasn’t already submitted their photos…and I’ve only just finished going through day 2!
…so without further ado, lets get on with it shall we:
1) New Empire
2) Austoville
3) Lucy Hannah
4) Into the Ocean
5) Naturally 7 (although only 6 of them were present)
6) Paul Coleman Trio
7) NewWorldSon
enjoy!
1) New Empire
2) Austoville
3) Lucy Hannah
4) Into the Ocean
5) Naturally 7 (although only 6 of them were present)
- some crowd shots…
6) Paul Coleman Trio
- check out the crowd at the Paul Coleman Trio’s show!
7) NewWorldSon
- NewWorldSon’s crowd rocking out!
- Great finale showing how drummers play the guitar!
- The End
Got church in 6hrs! See ya!
Tags: agmf, austoville, australia, australian gospel music festival, band, christian, concert, d80, easter, easterfest, easterfest 09, easterfest 2009, event, Into the Ocean, Jiaren, Jiaren Lau, lau, live, live concert, Lucy Hannah, mainstage, music, Naturally 7, New Empire, newworldson, nikon, Paul Coleman Trio, photography, qld, queens park, queensland, toowoomba
Friday – April 10, 2009.
There were many bands playing today. Many many bands. Many many many bands. I think you get the point. Anyway, I couldn’t do all of them but I did manage to catch the BMX & MOTO X event as well as some of the bands.
Here is a list of bands and events that I shot that day (in chronological order):
1)BMX & MOTO X
2) Opposite Lock
3) Compliments of Gus
4) Rubies and Rumours
5) Austoville
6) Simeon
7) Spacifix
NewWorldSon
9) Rebecca St. James
10) Audio Adrenaline
I didn’t upload any pictures of the first 2 bands, Opposite Lock and Compliments of Gus because they looked mediocre.
Anyway, here are some of the shots before I go to sleep.
Enjoy!
BMX & MOTO X @ Easterfest 09
Rubies and Rumours @ Easterfest 09
Az Hamilton
This is Az Hamilton, I can’t remember what hes famous for but all I know is that later on (Sunday April 12) if there are 500 donations to a certain charity he will be cutting off his dreadlocks – on stage! It’s a huge event that will go down tonight!
Austoville
Simeon @ Easterfest 09
Spacifix @ Easterfest 09
NewWorldSon @ Easterfest 09
I love New WorldSon, Aaron doesn’t. Their stage performance is even better than their recordings!
I met this guy on stage when I was taking pictures for the band before them. He shook my hand when I turned and said “hey, you’re from NewWorldSon, right?” …really nice guy, on Saturdays performance he waved at me from stage! AWESOME!
Rebecca St. James @ Easterfest 09
Audio Adrenaline @ Easterfest 09
There is something special about this band and the Paul Coleman Trio band which I took on Saturday and will be uploading a little later. This grammy award winning band split up in 2007. In Easterfest 2008, it was announced that they would be reuniting for one last gig at this years Easterfest.
Sure enough, a year later here they are!
This was not the last band of the night but Steph wanted to go home so I didn’t stay til the end…
Tags: '09, 2009, agmf, audio adrenaline, audioa, austoville, australia, autralian gospel music festival, az hamilton, bmx, easter, easterfest, easterfest 2009, Jiaren Lau, lau, moto x, motox moto, newworldson, nikon jiaren, photography, qld, queens park, queensland, rebecca st james, rubies and rumours, simeon, spacifix, toowoomba, x
Okay, for the next few days I will be updating rather frequently for the Easterfest 2009 event. The first thing I’ll start with is the Easterfest Superstore. Its sponsored by Koorong, and Australian retail chain dealing in Christian books, bibles, CDs, DVDs, etc.
I was given the honour of shooting the Superstore on Wednesday prior to the opening of Easterfest. The pictures will be displayed as a promo at the Easterfest Mainstage Venue. Here are some of the contents of the Superstore where you can get your Christian daily fix.
Overview of the Superstore
CDs for your audio needs
Newsboys Go
Fiction section
Books and Resources
Music
The Understatement
plenty of cool shirts
more clothes and shirts
Gift ideas
Leeland "Opposite Way"
Chris Tomlin "Live from Austin"
Everything will be just fine...
Veggie Tales
She Teen Magazine
Ps Joseph Prince "Destined to Reign
Joyce Meyer "The Confident Woman"
Tags: '09, 2009, agmf, australia, australian gospel music festival, easter, easterfest, easterfest 2009, qld, queens park, queensland, superstore, toowoomba
This one’s for you, Ian!
Right now getting busy for Easterfest. I’m guessing a lot of people will be searching Easterfest 2009 right now so I’m gonna skip ahead on the wedding, Marina Bay, and possibly Andrix’s captain’s induction posts and will return to tell the tale later on.
Didn’t even have time to edit these shots so apart from the obvious crop of the picture above the rest are straight out of the camera. I reckon they’re pretty good anyway and even PS “auto levels” function just made ‘em even worse!
Its interesting because most of these shots were taken with flash White balance although the light actually came from the door. The setting is in Ian’s house who has a large front sliding glass door but the actual inside of the house doesn’t reflect much making it a perfect dark background. Surprisingly it was awesome for portraits with the clean white porcelain floor beautifully difusing the soft sunlight giving it that “strobist” effect.
Enjoy!
Meet Aoife, Ian's 1+ yr old daughter exhibiting cuteness bunny teeth!
By the way, did you know that I taught her to walk???
Baby doing what babies do best! -putting everything in their mouth!
Deep in Thought
How can that face NOT get away with anything?!
I MISS HER!!!
- Dato’ David Goh
The first day I arrived in Miri after travelling for over 24hrs was to shoot a formal Thanksgiving Banquet event for Mr. David Goh who was newly named Dato’ David Goh. For those of you how don’t know, the term “Dato’” is sort of like the British equivalent of “Sir”…correct me if I’m wrong.
So I was shooting with Ian and the Medianlabs team – Ian Salang, Nick Lim (who’s work I’m a huge fan!), and Djohan Rozario. Its funny because they’re all using the same Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 lens (the same one that I sold coz it sucks) but Ian’s on a FF Nikon, Nick’s on a Canon, and Djohan’s using a Sony. Whats with that right?! So anyway, they’ve all posted this like ages ago…wanna see their posts?
Here they are:
Ian Salang:http://iansalang.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/from-mr-to-dato-david-goh/
[no pic]
Nick Lim: http://nicklimjg.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/dato-david-goh/
- Nick Lim
Djohan Rozario: http://lynnroz.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/thanksgiving-dinner-by-dato-david-goh/
- Djohan Rozario
The event took place at…erm…crap I can’t remember…some golf course place in Miri…anyhoo…heres a picture of the beautiful ballroom:
- ballroom
When the event started, I pulled out the 50mm f/1.8D coz I didn’t have an f/2.8 zoom and my travel kit consists of rather slow lenses (not anymore though : ) ). I’m not particularly fond of flashes at formal events and I’d rather crank up the ISO…I was shooting at ISO800-1600 most of the time. Really pushing the D80 I’ve used it plenty and the results are fine.
- The audiovisual guys. Always good to be friends with them because they can help you out if needed.
Ok, this is a lil tip which just so happens to have a perfect example that follows it:
When taking portraits, look around the frame, check the composition and avoid blown out highlights because the human eye is attracted to bright colours and lighter colours…unless of course its a hi-key image or something.
So basically I took this first shot of some two young ladies who were helping out with the event. As you can see I just said “Hey, can I get your picture?”
“Okay, smile!”
Luckily after a quick review on screen a quick repositioning (180 degrees from the before picture) I was ready to reshoot. Simple posing tips like bending joints and creating angles are all that are necessary to make a normal happy snap like the before picture appear to have more quality to it.
Both straight out from camera + watermark + border. No touch ups.
- Before
Notice how you can see the shadow of their heads on the wall behind? thats BAD.
- After
My one complaint is the girl in red let her hand hang like its dead…try to avoid the flat back of the hands.
- hehe, although it doesnt look like it this picture actually took the longest to process in photoshop because I had to clone out an entire table with people because it cut the frame and looked like crap. Any guesses as to where the table was?
- Here’s a hint.
- I love this shot. I don’t know why but I do. I was playing around with the black and white adjustment in PS. pulled red all the way down and yellow all the way up! This resulted in silhouetting all the people and showing the tables and chairs!
Heres a fun fact:
All humans have red in their skin whether it be white, Asian, black or anything in between. Its the pigmentation of the skin. play with red tones and it will no doubt adjust the hue of a persons skin tone.
- Here a picture very much like the above shot of the opposite side of the ballroom. Just shows how many people attended.
- performance #1. Sing.
- #2: Fashion show
- …more fashion show
by the way, the fashion show exhibits apparel from Giordano, one of the companies managed by the group of companies that threw the banquet.
- Model line up. They’re not professional models (duh!). They’re employees of Giordano.
- #3: more singing.
Notice I didn’t have any pics of the guest of honor besides the first one? …too blur to notice. Jetlagged and I only found out it was him about half way through.
Also I’ll admit the shots are pretty mediocre. I have learn’t one lesson from this:
Can you ued a 50mm prime to shoot an entire event?
“YES”
Should you?
“NO”.
All in all I had fun with the Medianlabs team. Good experience and learnt some new things. In Malaysia? Want an event photographed? Contact Medianlabs!
- www.medianlabs.com
Tags: d80, dato, dato david goh, david goh, djohan rozario, fashion show, giordano, ian salang, Jiaren Lau, medianlabs, nick lim, nikon, thanksgiving banquet, thanksgiving dinner
For those of you who don’t know, Urqhart Castle is situated along Loch Ness, the famous lake which is home to the Loch Ness Monster.
Linzhi and I went to 1 tourist destination while I was in Scotland…as you can imagine, we went to see the Loch Ness. Unfortunately, it was pretty cold that day and Nessie didn’t make an appearance. However, we made the most of it and got some good shots throughout the day.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – Linzhi is better than me at portraits.
Its annoying…but its true…take a look at the shots below (by the way, these following shots are straight from camera only threw in the border):
I was trying to re-enact the Nicholas Cage pose in National Treasure. Credit to Linzhi for taking the photo.
Of course, it could simply be the striking self pose made by yours truly…or more likely the camera recognized that it was in the presence of pure awesomeness. In any case, its a lot better than mine which is below:
Then again, Linzhi didn’t go all the way to the top where the composition is at its most awesome perspective. Yeah, I guess I could argue until the cows come home but at the end of the day the result shows.
Dissapointed?
yes.
Sorry?
no.
Why?
…because there are other areas where I ooze awesomeness and Linzhi is hopeless…behold Linzhi’s attempt to take a picture of me jumping in mid-air (once again straight from camera):
Epic fail. If I took more photos at the spot above I’d have made at least one nice one as well!
I, on the other hand took a single shot:
Behold, awesomeness requires no post processing whatsoever!
Ok, enough about that, we’ll leave our sibling rivalry to another post (and by the way I’m on the path the pure awesome portraiture! What’s with me and awesomeness today?! …must be craving my unwatched How I Met Your Mother episodes…which by the way if you readers have yet to see please start. Its LEGENDARY!
Ok, moving onto the purpose of this post – Loch Ness.
Behold Urqhart Castle. Once a marvellous inpenetrable stronghold, now a ruin of torn down stones and rubble.
It does however overlook the Loch Ness. The lake by the way, is huge! Its like a small ocean because it just spans til forever…it goes all the way to North England…back in the day the Engligh and Scots were enemies…and so the English regularly came up the river to attack the Scots via the lake.
The Castle itself was beautiful. Actually the post although it says Loch Ness and Urqhart Castle is more about me and Linzhi taking pictures of whatever!
This is Linzhi’s proud as heck shot using the wide angle lens after my lecture on how difficult it is to compose a shot at 10mm (15mm Full Frame equiv.)
An old school slingshot that was used to defend the castle.
After much ado, Linzhi finally nailed a shot of me in mid air!
Linzhi shadow play.
Space Conscious Stairs.
Oh, this next pic is cool…as we were exploring the castle I saw a teeny tiny hole in the wall…it looked like this:
Pinhole photography? READ THE POST TO FIND OUT!
So, I slapped on my wide angle lens and poked it out of the hole at the side of the castle risking scratching the lens. I took another shot and what came out amazed me. I threw on the Cokin P 0.6 soft edge Grad ND filter and took a couple of shots to get the composition I wanted.
What resulted is a beautiful view of Loch Ness.
Behold, the Famous Loch Ness.
On our way out there was a rather interesting wall which had what I assume to be farewell in manu languages…my assumption is based on the “Selamat Jalan” that was written…
Selamat Jalan
We finished our little exploration day early and didn’t want to wait for the bus so we walked half an hour back to Drumnadochit Village…along the way we saw a sign with black and white arrow points. I told Linzhi to stick her head to the point so it looked as if it was pointing to her head! …as we were taking the picture a car drove by and the occupants must’ve been thinking what Asian weirdos we were…
It was so funny at the time we couldn’t stop laughing about it!
Tags: castle, d80, Drumnadochit, inverness, Jiaren, lau, loch ness, nikon, scotland, urqhart, Village
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