In four of the last five years, Jasmine and I have been attending the annual Wedding & Portrait Photographers International (WPPI) convention in Las Vegas. It is MASSIVE: 16,000 photographers, over 100 speakers, several hundreds of photography displays and booths. It is an event that has improved my photography, redefined what’s possible in the realm of wedding photography, cultivated meaningful friendships and increased my confidence in teaching. We were back in Vegas this year…and a month after the convention, I wanna share my thoughts and inspiration from WPPI 2011.

A quick self-portrait before I started teaching a class on Guerrilla Lighting.

Start Small
It is alright to feel lost with 16,000 people around you. The first WPPI we attended, we felt like grasshoppers in the midst of giants. Everyone seemed to know so much more because nobody wanted to look foolish. The truth is, nobody knows everything and everyone has something to learn. How to make meaningful connections in this massive convention?

I signed for a WPPI Plus class. Limited to 25 participants, it is the smallest class at WPPI. It is hands-on and intimate. Met some of great people at Plus Classes. We had lunch, dinners and beers together. We hang out, exchange ideas, party together. Sometimes, I learn more over a dinner table than sitting in a class. WPPI 2011 was the most enjoyable for me. Reconnected with my old friends whom I meet only once a year & met a lot of new friends. Had a tweetup with Stephan Maloman. He is one amazing photographer. I love his work.

Threading dangerous ground when you passed a Nikon flash to a CPS member during a live lighting demo!

My Inspiration
Jennifer Hudson is my number one inspiration this year. We cannot be more different as photographers. She is not your typical wedding and portrait photographer. Well, Jennifer Hudson is anything but typical. Still I love her presentation because she creates art that’s totally her. If you missed her class, you should be there next year.

Jennifer did a project based on a friend who died of cancer titled “Medic”. That series of fine art pictures was powerful. I could feel the pain and agony from the imagery. Just as powerful was the planning, determination, focus and time required to bring the project from concept to reality. Jennifer is a top notch visual communicator. She inspires me to home in on a message, an emotion and communicate that via photography.

A big chunk of my lighting class is done via live demo. Every shot is tethered to my laptop and screened immediately to the screen. It’s a scary teaching method inspired by Joe McNally

My Favorites
What do I love most about WPPI? The print judging and teaching. I started as a quiet observer of the two-day print judging. It is the best photography education I’ve ever received. And it is FREE…it’s part of your registration.

In the last two years, I have the privilege of being asked to judge and teach as well. It was scary when you were sandwiched between Yervant and Rocco Ancora on the judging panel. It was scarier when you have to teach in a foreign country, 200-300 people whom you have never met! I remembered losing sleep and freaking out. Thanks to WPPI, I push myself harder than ever before.

Guess what? It was all worth it!

Katie stopped me outside the exhibition hall and thanked me. Apparently she took my platform class last year and decided to implement some of the business ideas and lighting techniques that I shared. Fast forward 2011. Katie hugged and thanked me. Business had taken off for Katie…in the midst of a recession no less! She even came out with her own Guerrilla Lighting Guide when mine is still at prototype stage. Man, I am so inspired and encouraged by her tenacity.

Where did all these people come from? It was 8am, Vegas. These were the hardest of hardcore photographers. Love their energy!

Who knew that by talking about our failures and triumphs for two hours that I could make a difference for others? I knew Marcus Bell, Joe Buissink, Yervant, Jerry Ghionis could do that…but me?

Teaching however can be dangerous. Do we practice what we teach? How about stretching a truth/fact so we look even better? These are temptations and possible pitfalls every teacher face with. Have I mentioned “fame”? To have a crowd cheering you, giving you a standing ovation…wow that can be a powerful drug.

It is real and unreal.

The love & cheers from the adoring crowd is nice. But I would be delusional to think that I will get the same adoration everyday. It is a surreal mountaintop experience. We don’t live on the peak of of Mount Everest no matter how breathtaking the vista is. We live on level ground where we toil to improve our photography, struggle with the mundane, crack our heads to improve our business, and strive to create fresh work…just like everyone else. This is also called HARD WORK.

At WPPI we are taught to work smart, establish efficient workflow, outsource and collaborate. All these are great, but still there is no substitute for HARD WORK. Bob Taylor, the successful founder of Taylor guitars has another name for hard work: sweat equity. How do we acquire skills, wisdom, experience? By sweating.

Don’t learn the trick of the trade. Learn the trade.

Someone said that at WPPI and it’s my favorite quote this year. It is a fallacy that if we bought the latest action set, paid for the most expensive workshop or listen to the most famous speaker, our photography will just supernaturally improve. We would love to believe that because the alternative is HARD WORK. Think sweat, bruises, struggles, failures, hitting the dirt. Not attractive at all. That’s exactly what we should be doing especially after WPPI. Practice what we’ve learned, and for the instructors, practice what we’ve taught.

I’ve done 6 shoots in the last two and a half weeks. It’s punishing but I’ve learned so much about Guerrilla Lighting from some of my experiments. Stay tune for my upcoming posts

A quick self-portrait before I started teaching a class on Guerrilla Lighting.

My final night at WPPI was amazing. Always a thrill to attend the awards night. Wasn’t expecting anything, in fact I never did in any awards night. So if by an freakish luck that I won, it would be a HUGE bonus. It’s inspiring to see the award-winning work. Just breathtaking. A few of togs from Asia did amazing. Lito Sy & Kenneth Tan won first place in Wedding Details & Engagement respectively. CM Leung swooped 2nd place. Michael Greenberg won 1st place in Photojournalism…and then “third place to Louis Pang, Malaysia” the MC announced. I was replying tweets on who-won-what when that came through. Joe Cogliandro & Stephan Maloman was just a couple of seats away. Unsurprisingly, they also collected some crystal trophies.

We said our goodbyes. Had a couple of drinks at Rouge, our favorite bar at MGM. Even a great party has to come to an end. See you next year at MGM, Vegas February 16-23, 2012. Block your calendar!

Special thanks to my sponsors Asukabook & Radiopopper who supported my teaching efforts at WPPI.

pictures courtesy of Darrell Lee & Michelle Ng

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Upcoming workshops in London, Boston & San Francisco, May 2011

Two weeks ago, we won our ninth WPPI awards, 3rd place in Portrait, Individual. We’ve won major honors at WPPI for four years straight. I am proud of the consistency and innovation we’ve demonstrated. Hats off to the our amazing team of Jasmine, Kah Yee, William & Laila. It is never possible to achieve high standards solo. Please raise the glass to the team.

“What is the secret to winning awards?” Honestly, I never entered any competition expecting to win. It’s a matter of benchmarking against my colleagues from around the world. Put my best prints forward and see what happens.

So what is the formula? Is it dark moody prints? Black and white or sepia? Last year, Stephan Maloman won with a colour print. This year an amazing black and white print from Spain. There is really no formula. If there was any formula it would be dedication and innovation. The top images are ones that caused us to skip a heartbeat and slap ourselves wishing that we could shoot that in a million years.

I would like to share with you how the winning print was photographed and processed. Hopefully by sharing the thought process, it opens some doors for everyone.

It was shot at Havana, Cuba. We found this place together with Michael and Vivian, the couple from Hong Kong whom we were shooting. It’s a junk yard for defunct trains.

At 2pm, the sun was slightly behind Michael. I faced several challenges.

Problem 1: To retain details in the sky on a bright day.
Problem 2: If I retain details in the sky, then I may lose details in the shadow areas of the train.
Problem 3: Michael is completely silhouetted.

Solution 1: ISO100, f/11 & 1/250 preserved the image from overblown highlights. F/11 gives me a lot of depth and also keeps the shutter speed at 1/250, away from the realm of high speed sync which weakens the flash output and drains the battery.

Solution 3: Probably the easiest of three problems. Three SB800s with three Radiopopper PX receivers on a Lastolite Triflash work as the fill flash, elevated with a monopod. Thank you to Jasmine for working as my lighting assistant.

All the speedlights are set to Group A. Instead of one, I have three flashes working to give me an exposure. That cuts the recycling time tremendously. It’s our only fighting chance when we have to balance for a sunny sky. They sit on a paint pole. Very light and easy…even for my lovely wife Jasmine. (These pix were snapped from another shoot…just an example how to use the light on a pole)

Why three speedlights? Because a single flash would not be enough to balance against a 2pm sun. Three flashes gives me potentially three times power and also a bigger volume of light. Why three units of Radiopoppers? The Nikon CLS relies on line of sight from the Master flash. There is no way all the sensors on the three remote SB800s could be oriented to face the Master flash with existing design of the Triflash. Without line of sight, I turn to Radiopoppers. Triflash because it holds three speedlights. This is my goto setup when I need a strong fill light outdoors. It came through for me again.

Solution 2: I was tossing between clipping the highlight or losing the shadows. I chose the later because I knew I could bring back details during RAW processing. Using a Hoodman Loupe in the field, I could see from the D700 LCD screen that I had enough details in the shadows which allows further pixel pushing in post production. It’s a judgement call.

From a capture, we move on to processing. This is how we did it step-by-step.

The original capture…

Bring out the shadow area, and contain the highlights. So much of processing and lighting is about working within the confines a five-stop exposure range of DSLRs, and making it as close to the 15-stop range that our eyes can see.

Tonal contrast. It’s a nice feature in Lightroom. Increasing it gives higher contrast and sharpness, which seemingly produces high details.

Then we desaturated the blue sky and added a layer of texture. Closer to the finished but the grass was too green and contrasty which disconnected it from the color palette of the rest of the image. The shadow area on the left was too bright. Here, the image looked too HDR for my taste. The sky behind Michael was too bright and it screamed for attention.

We fixed all the issues we listed above and added some finer touches to the final version. Extended the cigar and introduced some smoke on it. Got rid of a tiny slice of cloud right behind Michael. This is the first time I won an award with an image of a man.

Ok guys…time for you to go out, create images of your own and share your process with me please!

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Upcoming workshops in London, Boston & San Francisco, May 2011

I’m heading West, visiting London, Boston and San Francisco. Along with me will be fresh materials on Guerrilla Lighting, experience of building a studio & brand from a tiny town on the Borneo Island, 10 years of shooting, and the priceless experience of teaching and judging at WPPI. What an honor to be able to share my photographic passion and ideas with people from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Along the way, I will be shooting a few bridal sessions & catch a Manchester United game. I am excited about this trip.

First stop, London, 2-5 May.

I will be co-teaching with Adam Alex, UK’s rising star who recently swooped first place in MPA & WPPI print competitions. That was a gigantic accomplishment. The only thing bigger than that is his heart and humility. He is a dynamic teacher, shooter and real person. I am truly HONORED that he invited me to teach together. It’ll be four full days of lecture, demonstration, location shoot, critique. Everything is on the table: lighting, posing, business, marketing, post processing, workflow, pricing. This is TOTAL immersion and the COMPLETE education for someone wanting to learn the A to Z of wedding photography. This 20-person four-day workshop has 4-5 seats left. Fee: £1000. Sign up here.

Second stop, Boston, 9-10 May.

Well, it’s actually Chicopee, near the border of Massachusetts & Connecticut, two hours from Boston. It will be held at Seth Kaye’s studio which is located in a rustic industrial area. This is a photographer’s DREAM location as it provides limitless photographic possibilities. Hats off to Seth and his buddy Seshu coming up with this idea. Without their persistent nudging, I wouldn’t have followed through.

It’s all about TTL speedlights and how to get BIG results from these tiny lights. I’ll talk about using off-camera flash, constructing a shot from one flash to multi flashes. Balancing flash with ambient light, using gels, high-speed sync, using an array of light modifiers. Most of all, it is Guerrilla style where we get impressive results with small and mobile tools.

Sign up before 15 April and you will get a complimentary copy of “World Tour” DVD (retails for U$100), a 135-minute production where you see me shooting LIVE in five culturally diverse weddings in four continents. Workshop fee: approx. U$700 or RM2140 exact. Sign up here.

Final stop, San Francisco, 16-17 May.

Ah, the gorgeous Bay Area. Scott Robert and I team up for a two-day “Discovery of Light” workshop. Scott is a firm believer of manual flash, while I advocate the TTL way of life. You’ll learn two different approaches of lighting from two gurus. Scott and I will also spend half a day to cover the business side of wedding photography from branding, closing a sales to packaging and pricing. I won’t be surprised if we overshot the teaching time…there is so much ground to cover here. Workshop fee: U$695. Sign up here.

If you are near one of these three cities, I’d be honored to meet you and have you in the class. It’ll a great adventure of meeting new friends, seeing new places, learning, sharing and shooting.

This trip turns out to be a round-the-world trip for me. Keep going West until I get home. Have always wanted to do something like this.