You know once in a while you do a photoshoot that you really really REALLY liked?

I mean like you go back to review the shots and even think to yourself, “Dang, I’m good!”

Something that made you proud to showcase not one, not two, but really almost every shot that you took…so much so that just weeding out which shots NOT to be included on the DVD was the hardest task?

This was one of those times.

Meet my subjects.

Lena, from Germany.

Nina, from  Germany.

Hao Chu, from Vietnam. AKA Heidi.

I was told that it was Lena and Nina’s birthday present for Heidi. I found out later that it was actually Nina AND Heidi’s birthday. I’m sure they enjoyed their present. These photos are all over their facebook profiles now. I’ve even got compliments from friends just walking around the uni. Anyway, if they’re happy – I’m happy.

The theme of the photoshoot was “Fairytale”. I did a bit of research of how cartoonists draw fairytale pictures like Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, etc. Okay, actually it was a single picture with all of the above in it with some other “princesses” of which I cannot remember the names. Here is my rendition:

Too posed? I like it.

I should find the cartoon that I was looking at and insert it here…in retrospect I should’ve moved this shot to someplace else. I took the shot here because I liked the backlight on the trees. See that golden, greenish colour….I liked that and was trying to get it blurred enough to become some really nice rounded bokeh. After going through the troubles of posing the shot it would’ve been too troublesome to shift everything to somewhere else. Also, we were loosing light so we had to move.

This next shot was probably one of my faves…not this one exactly, but all the ones taken here I really liked.

“Who wants to be that tree?!”

By the way, it was around this time and the individual shots (the ones where I introduced the subjects) that my Speedlight fell down again. Yup. AGAIN! “Friggin, stupid *#!@#$!!!” Everytime I do a shoot a Speedlight falls. It doesn’t matter how secure I make it it’ll still drop! I even put my SB-600 (the more expensive of the two) on the tripod which is heavier = sturdier. I was taking a shot of one of the girls and was backing up slowly. I backed into the tripod and it slammed into the ground – diffuser first. (I also dropped my SB-600 when I was taking Rick and Michelle’s Wedding) Last time I broke my umbrella, this time I broke the shot shoe feet on the plastic wireless flash receiver – Thanks goodness! I’ve yet to glue it back but I’ll do it before Wednesday (26th May 2010) because I have another photoshoot then.

This next series is AWESOME. Kudos to Steph for thinking of this shot. We literally stopped them as they were walking away to the next spot and got these shots. I got them to swing their heads as I was counting down the shot and got some great hair action!

These were all taken in the Japanese Gardens at the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba QLD, but theres not much to show for it, huh? So, I’m gonna throw in this shot just so I compliments the title:

By now everyone was getting tired as it was cold, and sunset had just passed. We set up our last shots for the day and went home. We wanted a shot of them dipping their feet in the water but there just wasn’t enough time.

Total duration of Photoshoot: 120 minutes.

**shameless referral to me: www.facebook.com/jiarenlau. Add me if you know me. I don’t add people I don’t know…and I don’t know enough people who don’t know me who want to know me to start a page for my photography. (O.o)

The reason being was that it was such a lovely ceremony. Beautiful venue, gorgeous couple, and weather to die for. I’d plan to write a long narrative for this story but alas things get pretty busy pretty quick.

…and now I’m being pestered to upload a bunch of other events that have taken place in the not so distant past (but not recent past either…)

Maybe if I have the time I’ll come back t this one but in the meantime you can watch the slideshow video which I’m very proud of. The song was their wedding song for the customary first dance so I didn’t need to go through the usual thousand songs to figure out which one I wanted.

I’ll be uploading another post tomorrow so watch out for that.

Also, Ian kindly made a blog post about this for me as well from a “behind-the-scenes” perspective. You can see it by visiting his website at http://www.iansalang.com/?p=1202

So anyway, this story began a long time ago…but that not important. Whats important is that it ended just a little while ago. Last Monday to be exact. Thats the day Jun left to go back to Malaysia. The day before that, Jun asked if I would be able to photograph our group at our university’s own Japanese Garden.

Of course I could!

We arranged to meet at the gardens at 4.30pm so obviously I made it a point to be  there by 5.30pm…

which I did…

…barely.

Good news is we all got there eventually and almost everyone obeyed the “all black” dress code.

We started off at the far side of the garden where there was a couple nice sheltered benches which would be suitable for a large group portrait. We tried a couple of shots but the sun was way too glaring so we swapped around and shot into the Sun. I set up two lights on both sides of the camera to makes sure everyone was evenly lit while I pull down the background exposure. Here are the results:

I took over a hundred shots but I’ve weeded them to these few to keep from boring you, my dearest readers. After 20 minutes of positioning the lights, posing everybody, and getting the shot right without people blinking, we got some really good shots before moving onto the big red door. I like this door.By the way, have you guessed which one is Jun yet?

See the smartie pants that didn’t conform to the dress code? *Ahem* *ahem* Will and Jun (Not the Jun thats leaving, we have two Juns in our group). Let me introduce you to the group.

From Left to Right: Will, Ted, Sabrina, Wilson, Stephanie, Neo, Jun, Ben, Edna, Shin Yong, Jun.

Next up is our group of lovely ladies in black.

I like the above shot except for the cross shadows which make the girls look flashed straight on and defeats the purpose of strobing. (Phototip: The lights are meant to “look” natural and inconspicuous).

Now with two flashguns shooting camera left at full zoom we can bring the background down to exposure without loosing the foreground. Remember shadows are our friends and almost this entire series was shot with the flash on full power or close to it.

Next we did some creative shots and laughed the whole way through.

This next shot is the “Eww, Yuck, its Jun” shot:

This next one is the “PHeeewWWWIIiTTtTTT, Hubba hubba, it’s gorgeous Jun!!!”:

This next one is just…well…I like the composition.So have you guessed which one is Jun yet? Now we come to our hero, “Neo, the ladies man”:

…or would you prefer, “Neo, you disgust me!” look?:

Okay, enough of that…lets move on to more group shots ya?! Moving not more than 30 meters away is the Zen garden. The little pebbles on the ground were beautifully carved when we got there. It looked like crap when we were done, haha!

In retrospect these pics remind me of the Friends series opening sequence…

Don’t you love how it looks in black and white…when everybody conforms to the dress code? Will and Jun had already left by this time because they had other stuff to do.

Every good Japanese garden has a red bridge so it wouldn’t feel complete if we didn’t take a shot there:

Theres actually four bridges at our Japanese garden. This is one of the smaller ones. In the middle of the garden is a small island which I’ve found to be a great spot for photographs! By now we were quickly loosing light and were about to wrap up so we quickly had to get it over with. Once the lights were set up I was ready to go. Check out the reflections!

Sort of has a “The Bold and the Beautiful” theme going on, hey? Heres another:

You can see the flash in the picture which I felt would pass as a lamp post or something. I tried to clone it out but preferred it like this. At this point we were exhausted and ready to pack up. Jun had other plans. She wanted one last shot with Ben, Edna, and Neo so with plenty of people around I used them as assistants to finally get some use out of the umbrellas which I’d been lugging around all day without using for fear of them being blown by the wind. Its happened once and broke the flash that way. I had just got it too!

Thanks for reading all the way to the bottom! If you enjoyed what you saw please leave me a comment! Send me feedback, what I should or should not be doing! critic! We all learn from our mistakes. Let me leave by saying I appreciate criticism a lot more than flattery so don’t hesitate if there was something bothering you that you thought would look better only if…(I’ll leave the rest to you)

Take care and God bless,

Jiaren

]]> http://www.blog.jiarenlau.com/2009/12/03/jun-loos-farewell-photoshoot/feed/ 7 http://www.blog.jiarenlau.com/2009/11/27/shybrow-the-cutest-guinea-pig-on-earth/ http://www.blog.jiarenlau.com/2009/11/27/shybrow-the-cutest-guinea-pig-on-earth/#comments Thu, 26 Nov 2009 20:53:27 +0000 Jiaren http://www.blog.jiarenlau.com/?p=729 Hey all,

I’ve *finally* got my website up and running properly the way I want it! I didn’t want to pay for a blog theme so I spent literally hours coding a free version of a paid blog template and customized it to suit my needs. Today that task is finished. I still need to make a front page but at least I have this to keep updating Doesn’t it look so much better and more professional than the previous one? Its got a simple single column so no space is wasted and I can upload huge pics! …sorry streamyx customers back in M’sia, its gonna be a slow ride to the bottom!

I’ve got a lot of blogging to catch up to and I’m not sure how the large pics will look yet. I’ve had a request from my sister to upload pictures of Shybrow for her housemate, Judy, to see…

I figure, “Why not?, what a great way to debut the new theme!” Its something fresh, fun, and is not chronologically attached so I can blog about stuff that happened sooner without screwing up the posts!

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So, with no further ado’s…
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I now present to you:
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SHYBROW!!!

Testing Caption Style

My 22 week old Guinea Pig, Shybrow!

Ok, first impressions:

- Caption style is crap. Why is it aligned at the left and not center?! *definitely not using that again*

-*ZZZzzzZZZ* *SnooOOooOORre* my pictures used to take 2 seconds to upload max…not it takes about 15-25 seconds?! “Houston, we have a problem” *bbzzztt*.

Now to try some portrait orientation…(sorry Linzhi, you have to be my guinea pig in this new-theme-blogging-style-to-see-how-it-responds-and-looks-like experiment. No pun intended.) Yes, I know that if no one else is reading, at least my sister, Linzhi will be because she wants to show pics of Shybrow to her housemate!

Test Caption Style again

-hmm…wayyyyy too big…you can even tell she was out of focus…

-caption didn’t come out the first time.

-had a http error when uploading the image (not a new problem)

-picture too big…have to scroll down to see whole picture.  Need restrictions…

Now, I’m gonna try limit the heaight to the max width…lets see how we go:

Observations:

-hmm…captions didn’t come out again…never EVER using captions from now on…

-it was aligned left…now corrected.

-is the watermark too big??? …let me know in the comments!

Conclusion:

-landscape pix can max out the screen.

-portraits need to be restricted.

-never use captions.

-20 secs to upload image

-always http error.

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Ok, I’m happy with my little experiment. I do believe the http error is caused by the large image size…lets see if I can pull it down a little without being too obvious.

Back to the article: Shybrow come from two words:

-Shy

-eyebrow.

Shybrow aka ShyShy aka Shaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiii is the only guinea pig that I have ever seen to have eyebrows. Not those weirdo whiskers things but full on eyebrows. We enjoy puching them way up front so they cover his her eyes completely. Its super adorable! Shes very well trained but shes a Grade A+ couch potato. Shes so so so so so lazy and no mater how many times we try to train her she never responds when we ask her to come…

It was originally Shybrowse but people kept calling her shybrow so the name stuck. I actually think its a better name! She knows we’re calling her but shes just too lazy to bother…except when she knows you’ve brought food for her.

Steph was lucky enough to catch her yawning yesterday:

As you can see she only has four teeth and a really cute tongue. That in front of her is an apple.

Meet Guwheenee Guinee Quinie Gweenie. I think thats how you spell it. Thats how you pronounce it anyways. Shes Shybrow’s only friend. Sometimes Gweenie bites her though and makes poor Shybrow scared.

Oh did you notice Shy’s eyebrows? You can clearly see em here:

So CUUUUUUUTTTEE RIGHT!??!?!?!?! I like to see her mouth too…will have to take more pics of her later.

In the meantime that about wraps it up for my debut post. Expect a flood of posts in the next few weeks! Last but not least, heres a special something for Judy Lee, Linzhi’s housemate.

Perhaps a brief intro for those who are unaware:

Not too long ago in a land far away (Scot-land that is) Linzhi and Judy were out early one cold morning. (Wait, is this the same time as when you got dragged out carrying your blanket with you? if not I may be telling a bogus story). This story is based on a true story of an event. blablabla yada yada yada …nothing interesting happens…blablabla again…yada yada and more yada… until Judy, spots some ducks!

In her infinite wisdom she figures the only logical way to call them over would be to bend over slightly, arch your back and knees and bring your hand in closer to your face with your palm facing up. Now, close your middle, ring, and pinky finger as well as thumb to form sort of a fist with the exception of the index finger which should still be extended. Using a waving action with your index finger motion the ducks to come closer by repeating the following words exactly.

“Heeeerrrrreeee duckie duckie duckie….Heeeerrrrreeee duckie duckie duckie….” Repeat as necessary. Its *almost* failproof. It works on every other animal as well as we’ll soon find out…

Before you view the video, I’d just like to say that I wanted to be funny so I pretended to use some weird accent. I now realise the error of my ways and looking back I look like a complete moron making a fool of myself. Sorry about that.

[See post to watch Flash video]

Tell me what you think of the new blog theme? How are the pictures? OK or no way??? Please leave a comment!

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…

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.

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)

6) Paul Coleman Trio

7) NewWorldSon

Got church in 6hrs! See ya!

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…

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"

]]> http://www.blog.jiarenlau.com/2009/04/10/easterfest-2009-superstore/feed/ 2 http://www.blog.jiarenlau.com/2009/04/09/aoife/ http://www.blog.jiarenlau.com/2009/04/09/aoife/#comments Thu, 09 Apr 2009 11:32:46 +0000 Jiaren http://www.blog.jiarenlau.com/?p=442

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!!!