Before we get there, I thought it will be fun to have a challenge. Anyone who can guess the exact lighting recipe will win a 135-minute World Tour wedding photography instructional DVD which retails for U$100 each. Deadline is next Thursday, 15 December. Good luck!

updated 15 December 2011
This is how we did it…

At a wedding, I always have to improvise and work with mobile tools. For a reasonable good ring shot, it has to be focus and sharp to bring out the design, cut and colours. I have the SB800 & 900s, Lastolite softbox, 60mm macro, and a mirror of make-up kit from the make-up artist Always be nice to the make-up artists. They can be your ALLY!

I need to achieve a few things: background must be almost pitch dark, enough depth of field to show the details of the rings. And for these reasons, I couldn’t have used ambient light whether indoor or outdoor. It would have created a lot of spill. A softbox on the other hand, helps me to contain, shape and direct the light as I see fit.

Shot it at f11, 1/250, ISO200. The low ISO and shutter speed allow me to kill off most of the ambient light so I can get a near pitch back background. At f11, I get reasonable sharpness. It is still some distance from say a De Beers or Tiffany ad, which would require more powerful lights and lenses and camera with higher resolution for a pin sharp shot of the ring. Yet given the little time and limited equipment, I have to compromise between being as perfect as a commercial shooter and getting a good enough shot.

Many correctly predicted the use of a softbox from the left and wrongly assumed that I had a reflector on the right. From the early days of photographing small objects, I’ve learned that mirrors gives a more specular bounce than white or silver surface. This is helpful to bring out the details and colours of the sapphire.

I wish I have a smaller softbox. Lost too much power with the Lastolite 24″. A smaller softbox may help me gain 1-1.5 stop of light, and thus allow me to shoot at f16-18. Oh well, this is guerrilla lighting, not always perfect, but always mobile and effective.

Thank you for taking part in this. Since nobody made a perfect guess, I’ll bring the prize forward to the next recipe challenge. Cheers!

Putri kept leaping for three hours. When I was ready for a wrap, she chimed in on an idea. Glad she did. We pressed through and came away with four pictures I was pretty please about. What an honor to work with such a talented and professional dancer who carries a wide range of skills and expressions. We called Putri when our first choice model bailed on us 24 hours before the shoot. What a happy accident!

Technically, we used the Elinchrom BXRi500 lights, Deep Throat Octa, standard reflectors and grids for rim rights. Pretty amazing when you have all sorts of light shaping tools. I’ll be sharing a bit more about using these lights and the various light shaping tools.

Just wanna leave you with four pictures from yesterday…can’t wait to get back to the studio and work on another set of pictures.

Deep Throat Octa from the top and a mid size rectangular softbox from the bottom. BXRi 500 on both softboxes.

Deep Throat Octa as the main light from top right. Two 500w on standard reflectors, one of them with a 20 degree grid for the separation light from left.

That’s how we did it

Switched to white backdrop and put red gels through two 500Ws. Deep Throat Octa from the top, without the silk in front for a more contrasty feel. Putri must have jumped at least 50 times for this. Gotta respect her abilities and tenacity.

When I nailed the previous shot, I was happy to wrap up the shoot. Putri convinced me to work on this dance move. This was a tough one. Used a stripbox (130cmx50cm) as mail light and then two 500W on standard reflectors on both sides for separation light. We kept tweaking until we get it right. Again, couldn’t have done this if not for Putri’s determination. It is wonderful when you can get great talents in front of the camera.

Of late, I have turned to Elinchrom for my lighting needs. These powerful Swiss-made strobes allow me to shoot at f/16…something I couldn’t achieve with small speedlights. I am falling in love with the Elinchrom, using the small Quadra for all my wedding shoots. It is not the case of Nikon vs Elinchrom, it is different tools for different kind of work.

Back to Putri…here are some of my favourite pictures from this morning. Four hours just flew by when you are having fun with four different sizes of softboxes, beauty dishes, grids, reflectors. It’s like taking in pure oxygen when I get to play!

Is it a bad thing that some of our dreams died? Must we hang on to all of them at all cost? I had many dreams dashed too.

Dream #1
I aced my Form Three government exams. Entering into form four and five, the school would stream students to arts or science stream. “Smart kids go to science stream” was the general perception then. A panel of teachers would decide whether you ascend to the coolest and smartest class a.k.a the only science class in school or be cast to the one of the four lowly arts classes.

I wanted to be seen as smart so off to science class I went though I had no idea what it was all about.

For the next two years, I struggled to pass Additional Maths (or advanced maths) and Physics. I went from a top student to a mediocre one in weeks. Worked extra hard to keep up with my classmates. Despite hiring a tutor and spending 3-4 hours on these two subjects everyday, I barely passed them. Grades for other subjects dropped as well as just didn’t have the energy and time for them after grinding on Maths and Physics. I had never done worse or been more depressed in school. I passed form five, but just barely.

I wasn’t wired to be a science student but that didn’t mean I was dumb, just that I was smart in other areas like languages and history. Yet the obsession to be seen as a smart science class student just blinded me. Yes, BLIND. How often we cannot see what is real because we see only what we want to see. Desperately believing the lie we tell ourselves. I wished someone had the courage to yank me aside, straighten me out and save me from two years of misery.

Dream #2
Smarting from my secondary school disaster, I’ve learned to steer clear of the sciences. When I entered the University of Toronto, I wanted to do a double major in English and History. My idea of English is writing some essays & read some books. U of T’s English is about Chaucer, Shakespeare, literature and sonnets which sound like alien talk to a boy from Borneo.

To say I did badly in year one was an understatement. An English professor told me that he couldn’t see how I could do well in English literature given my lack of training and exposure to it when I was younger. I was bitter and angry. “How dare this old white man say that to me? He is racist and judgmental.” That meeting was a turning point.

The following year, I dropped out of English literature and enrolled in a Minor in Professional Writing. Met Dr. Guy Allen, a passionate teacher and brilliant writer who had a background in teaching English as a second language. From getting Ds, I was getting As in Professional Writing. My short stories were aired in a literary radio station. Even read a short piece at a writers’ festival. My overall grades went up. Guy Allen was my John Keating (Robin William’s character in Dead Poet Society). Just as instrumental was the old professor who told me to quit wasting time in English Lit.

The death of one dream makes way for a the birth of a new one. “Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.” Steve Jobs couldn’t have said it better.

My previous post wasn’t meant to put down anyone who couldn’t make it in photography. It is to put a point that excelling in photography is a big price to pay. Not everyone could pay that price; not everyone should pay that price.

For those of us who couldn’t and shouldn’t, I hope you will find happiness in doing something else more fulfilling yet continue to enjoy photography however, wherever, whenever you can. For those of us who are full time in photography, the challenge to sustain this passion. As Steve Jobs put it, “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.”

“Louis, I want to work for you. This is the best studio Sabah and I want to be part of it. I don’t want to be anywhere else. I love photography and I want to put my life into it.”

“Good! Let me see your work.”

“This is not bad. I’ve seen a lot of work of the similar quality. Please tell me why I should hire you over another person.”

“My friends say I am really good in photography. I will work hard for you.”

“Your friends…who are they? Are they full time photographers?”

“No, just people I know.”

“This pictures you showed me here, how many of them were shot during a commissioned shoot? I mean people actually paid you to shoot them.”

“None.”

“Hey, I think it is cool you want to learn to be a full time photographer. Let me tell you my life as a photographer. I shoot from 6am to 12 midnight. I shoot anyone who walks in: tall, short, small, big, light and dark skin tone and everything else in between. I shoot whether I feel like it or otherwise. I have to deliver everyday to every client. Do you think you can do that?”

Silence.

“Do you know how to use flash or strobes?”

Shook his head in silence.

“Do you know how to pose people or direct them so they look good in photos?”

He shook his head in silence.

“Have you got your work accredited by professional body like WPPI or AIPP?”

Again, he shook his head in silence.

“So what makes you think you are very good in photography?”

Long pause followed.

“It will take a lot of training and sacrifices to get to a top level. I can teach you however are you willing to work hard for 3 years with low pay so that you can learn the craft?”

Another long pause.

“Listen. You come to see me and I give you my honest assessment. You have potential but there is a lot that you need to learn. I will you give you an answer next week, is that ok with you?”

“Ok.” He replied and left my office.

Eight hours later he texted me and said he wasn’t keen on the job anymore. It is probably a good decision. There are many prospects besides photography.

You may not agree with my shock and awe interview approach, but I have seen photographers with much greater talent who struggle to put food on the table. The chap needs a reality check. If you want to build a house, you must count the cost. It is not impossible to rise from obscurity but there is a big price to pay. You don’t get to the top by singing “kumbaya” around a camp fire. You work your socks off. You bleed, sweat and cry. You get knocked down and got up again.

With Facebook, Flickr and blogs, every other picture is “COOL”, “You rock!”, “AWESOME!”, “Masterpiece!” Everyone is entitled an opinion. Does every opinion carry the same weight? If you need a heart surgery, should you listen to my opinion or that of a cardiologist who has been practicing for 20 years?

It takes more than just little surges of passion to stay in photography. It is a marathon. Guess that is true if we want to accomplish anything significant in life.

Just fired up myself this morning by re-reading Nick Nichols’ article on how “To be a National Geographic Photographer”. Do you think you have what it takes? Read on…

Got the good news on Tuesday via an email. This picture just won first place in WPPI’s first half competition, the 10th time we’ve won 1st, 2nd or 3rd place. In case you wonder what the hoopla is all about. WPPI is the world’s largest organization representing wedding and portrait photographers. Over 14,000 photographers attend WPPI’s annual convention in Las Vegas. I am part of this as a participant, speaker and judge. It holds 3 competitions every year all of which I take part to sharpen myself as a photographer. Always believe that competition can only improve us.

This is the 10th WPPI award. Honestly, it was a surprise because it is getting harder and harder with higher level of entries from around the world. I am also surprised this entry won because it was not my favourite entry.

This one here, was and still is my favourite entry. I love its beauty and simplicity. Corsages on a silver platter, a bunch of bold ties…and the clincher, a tiny camera at a corner. I moved the table to be flushed against a glass door, the only light source in the room, so I could get as much light as possible. Climbed on top of a smaller table so I could shoot it over the top. Here you go, an “aerial shot”. Different perspective when the camera is moved to a different place. I have a strong bias for this photo because I worked extra hard to nail this picture, all the moving, climbing. Shot at f/6.3, 1/100.

My next favourite is this one. I enjoy the exquisiteness of the jewelry, dress and a woman’s body–all in one frame lit with yummy window light. Just a hint of ambient light to separate Julia from the background. Shot at f/5, 1/60.

The winning shot was done on the 125th floor of Ritz Charlton Hong Kong. I saw the interplay of the rings, necklace, veil, lips and wedding gown. Tried to put the lips, and both rings in the same focusing plane. That’s where I want to call attention to. Chose to exclude the rest the face to bring a sense of mystery. Again, like the previous photo, I want to show exquisiteness, luxury, taste and a hint of sexiness.

All three pictures share a connection: a visit to the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam in May.

The Rijksmuseum is one of the TOP museums in the world. It showcases some of the best works of Dutch portrait paint masters from the Golden Age like Vermeer, Rembrandt. That’s what I wanted to see right away. However the museum is curated to wet my viewing appetite. First I walked through rooms after rooms of still life paintings. Never a big fan of still objects. Painters like Willem Claesz however proved me wrong. How Willem and his peers could make a table full of bread, food, wine, silverware look so lively, vivid, and engaging was beyond me. I was drawn to how detailed the paintings were. I felt like I was in the scene, that I could almost reach out and touch the objects in the painting.

There were a lot of depth in them, very unlike the shallow depth of field shots common amongst wedding photographers. We are so used to shooting at shallow depth of field that we instinctively reach out for f/1.4 when there is a ring, shoe, wedding favors to be shot. Tight shots with yummy bokeh became rule of thumb or cliche. Remember, all cliches were once an original idea.

As I moved along to in the Rijksmuseum, I see similar techniques applied to portraits. Often people were painted in great details, along with their garments, uniforms, jewelry (for women), settings (an office, working desk, stationeries). These details give us insight into who the person is. Had they been painted with a f/1.4 kinda depth, all these details would have been lost. Vermeer’s Kitchen Maid is a perfect example.

It was an epiphany for me. I have been guilty of stripping away personality, and details by reaching for f/1.4 all the time!

That’s the most important lesson I learned spending an afternoon at the Rijksmuseum. Since I have been steadily cranking up my aperture where it deems fit.

You can visit the Rijksmusem and other top museums around the world virtually via Google’s Art Project.

The job of a photographer seems very simple. We shoot and then the pictures shows up in an album and our blog. Can’t be that complicated right? So what do you do when you are not shooting?

I always tell people, I have two main tasks: shoot & keep the studio busy. Shooting for me is the easiest part. I love it! You get excited to be at a shoot, interacting, posing, setting up the lights, clicking away. That is the FUN part. Keeping the studio busy is the hard part. Maintaining production timeline, making sure we deliver the right picture, design, discs to our clients, replying emails, returning phone calls, backing up the files, blogging, motivating the team, man, in my case, woman management as I am surrounded by three super capable ladies in my office. The bread and butter, the nitty gritty, are never as “fun” but absolutely necessary. Then there is business and strategy development. What is our game plan? How do we grow the business? How do we improve our service? How can we wow our clients? How do we keep our cutting edge? How do we attract people to come through the door and engage our service? Are we meeting our targets? It may sound corporate and office-like, but kid me not, that is part of running things professionally.

We don’t expect to walk into a clinic with dirty furniture, outdated equipment, incorrect billing, or an indifferent receptionist. We expect professionalism. To be professional means are deliberate in achieving excellence. Make sure we meet our deadlines, fulfill our promises, cut down mistakes, prompt in our communication. All these do not happen accidentally. They are deliberate actions we take to meet the standards set before us. We do them in a good or bad day. Our studio is not perfect. That’s why we set markers or KPIs so that we can measure our progress.

It can get overwhelming, but I LOVE leading the team and go for our dreams. There are days when it feels it is too much to handle. Take a deep breathe, dive into the pool for 30 minutes and I come up with a different perspective. Been heading to the pool for the last two days. I aim to make this into a daily morning habit. Now let’s see me in 40 days and see if I meet my swimming KPIs

Some regarded the annual Australian Professional Photography Awards the toughest print competition in the world. You don’t have it easy with the Aussies, and I respect them for that. For a country of 25 million people, Australia probably has the highest talented photographer per capita. Think about Rocco Accoro, Marcus Bell, Christian Fletcher, Peter Eastway, Jerry Ghionis, Yervant, Pippin Walton, Peter Coulson, Martin Schembri…the list goes on.

Again, this year, we processed our photographs, printed and re-printed, mounted and finally ship four entries via DHL to Australia. You can only submit four, no more; and you can’t have more than one submission from a single shoot, event or scene.

It took a lot of time, effort and money but that’s what it means to push ourselves. Print competitions have done me a world of good. It is so easy to say, “As long as my clients love my work, I am ok.” It IS important that our clients love our work and working with us, but our clients are not editors or fellow professionals who can be our harshest critics.

So each year, I pushed myself to submit prints to WPPI and AIPP. Sometimes my work was flogged and praised. Either way, I walk away a better photographer because I submitted myself to honest and anonymous critique.

I’m applying the same discipline to my business as well. Seeking honest feedback from mentors, clients and colleagues. Amazing how much I can learn when I just listen.

With the print competitions at the back of my mind, I have this extra motivation to work hard and be creative in every shoot. “Perhaps today, I can top myself,” I thought. It is not a race to impress others, but a benchmark to see where I stand with my international colleague.

FYI, we scored 1 silver and 2 silver with distinction. Was told that 28% of submissions were awarded silver and 7.4 % silver with distinction. I am chasing my first gold award, and the four points that I need to be awarded Master of Photography by AIPP.

What about fame and fortune that comes with winning a competition? Well, that’s a nice bonus. The main prize is becoming a better photographer.

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upcoming photography workshops: Two-Day Guerrilla Lighting Workshop in KK (August 12-13) & KL (September 16-17)

Scored 83, Silver Award.

Scored 85, Silver with Distinction

Socred 79.

Jonathan Tse is a budding musician who had taken his work around the region. I showed up at his recording studio hoping to shoot a few frames of the artist himself at work. It’s a great little studio but it is tough place to make an interesting picture if we only have available light and f/1.4 lens to fall back on.

Out come the speedlights, softboxes, and gels. Here are some examples of what we created that day. They ain’t masterpieces but I sure walked away with much better pictures because I am willing to direct, craft and color the light. Can you imagine if I insisted on working only with available light here?

Just available light.

Flash with CTO gel via softbox from camera right.

Same as above but I added two flash in red gels and fired it from the floor near the wall.

Just one single light box from camera right. Used the studio’s black sound proofing boarding as the solid background. Voila.

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upcoming photography workshops: Two-Day Guerrilla Lighting Workshop in KK (August 12-13) & KL (September 16-17)

“What do you want us to do now?” Elaine and Owen asked as soon as we got the formals done. It is a question that would have sent shivers down my spine if I didn’t come prepared. It’s a question that stares you right in the eye. Can you deliver or not? Are you going to make something happen? The answer for a photographer is always “Yes” regardless of how I feel. We had 40 minutes before reception start and we lose all daylight. With a client, I cannot afford to run out of ideas or not knowing what to do next. Never mind it was my first shoot in this resort. The buck stops with me. That’s why I am here. On the roof top of a resort that’s built on top of a hill in the southern tip of Phuket Island, Thailand. Wind howled mercilessly. Lightning flashed at the end of the horizon. Storm clouds gathered. The clock ticked real fast. “What do you want us to do now?” Took a deep breathe and committed to a series of pictures 500 feet above sea level, right on the roof top.

I’ve learned not to run or be scared when storm clouds gather rapidly. They can offer great photography opportunities by giving texture, contrast and mood to the sky. At the end, the wind died, lightning faded, the imminent storm that threatened to wreck this wedding just went away. We got with quite a few frames of great pictures. Here are two I wanna share with you. Just glad Radiopoppers came through for me again…shooting 30 feet away without line of sight is just impossible without these amazing tiny radio triggers.

Jumping on a flight for home now…

The main objective being in London is to teach the four-day Fusion Workshop with Adam. We are different yet similar in so many ways. Adam is a very finesse shooter. He makes people look drop dead gorgeous. Love his passion, business ethics and personal conviction in photography. Learning lots teaching with him. Just grateful for this opportunity to teach together with him.

Today we just wrapped up day Day One. Loving the energy I’m seeing in the class. Here are some shots from my teaching session on Guerrilla Lighting today. More to blog post to come when I can steal thoughts to compose my thoughts & experiences in this historical city. Cheers!

A class of 18. Great bunch of shooters.

Just direct sunlight…Anna is outstanding in this pink dress. I can’t resist taking a shot here.

Ezybox Hotshoe 24″ fill flash from the left. Flash does not have to be IN YOUR FACE. It can be gentle and subtle.

Three units of SB800 on a Tri-Flash from camera right. ISO 100, 1/1600, f/3.5. High speed sync. Amar look a wee bit like Rio Ferdinand doesn’t he?

Direct sunlight from behind and a gold reflector from front/below…just a simple way of managing harsh light and making it work very quickly.

As I was about to reach cashier, a lady cut the queue. She didn’t mean it. I stood so far from the counter that she had no idea I was in line until she turned around.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s ok, please go ahead,” I replied with a smile.

My turn came. The lady and cashier were puzzled why a grown man wrapped both arms around a stack of books like a kid hoarding his toys.

“This is an AMAZING book. I am giving them away.”

She was puzzled. It is something I learned from my mentor. He has bought boxes of his favourite books and given them away as gifts to his friends. It has inspired me to do the same.

“Great! Do you have our membership card? You can get a 30% discount.”

Well mine expired.

“Why don’t you use mine?” Remember the lady that I let into the queue? She held out her membership card.

“Oh, thank you so much!”

As I paid for the books, it just struck me how random acts of kindness can be contagious. Touched by the generosity of my mentor, I started giving books away. From one book giver, there are at least two today. Ten other people are reading Delivering Happiness because someone touched me with generosity. Little did I knew that by being gracious to the lady that accidentally cut the line, I ended up saving myself a small fortune.

We all went home happier that day because two strangers decided to be kind to each other. Happiness can be multiplied.

Don’t laugh, but I just install iBooks app on my iPhone. Also ordered an iPad2, my first tablet and e-reader. It should arrive in May. Back to iBooks on iPhone. Back to iBooks on my iPhone…I started browsing the New York Times top 20 booklist. Downloaded a bunch of them on my phone. You get to read the first chapter for free to decide whether you wanna buy the book. Very fair, I thought.

I started with one of the top business book on NYT’s bestseller list, Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh. Forked out U$10 via iTunes and the book landed in my hand seconds later. I zipped through the book in a week. The CEO of Zappos.com, the largest shoes and apparel online retailer, with a turnover of over U$1 billion just sold the company for U$1.2 billion to Amazon. You would expect him to talk about how to make your first million before you reach 24. After all he co-founded LinkExchange and then sold it to Microsoft for U$265 million, 2 years after he graduated from Harvard.

Instead it was his mantra about creating a culture that leads to profit, passion & purpose that got me hooked. Here are the major lessons I learned from the book:

1. Passion over Security


As a fresh grad working at Oracle, Tony was getting U$40,000 per year. Pretty handsome starting pay in the 1990s especially when you can finish your work in five hours. He wasn’t passionate about the job. Parents opposed the idea of quitting a stable job to start an internet company. 

A sense of security can lull us into complacency. Sometimes the lack of security net are all we need to make our dreams work. There is no plan B, exit strategy. It’s sink or swim. I bet we would swim as hard as we could. Two years after quitting Oracle, Tony and his partners sold LinkExchange to Microsoft for U$265 million. A millionaire at 24. 


2. Know your Worth


BigFoot offered to buy LinkExchange for U$2 million just five months Tony and his mate Sanjay started the project. A few months later, Yahoo came knocking with U$20 million. Ain’t a bad idea to make a few million for a few months of work. Eventually, they sold it to Microsoft for U$265 million. It is hard to quantity our worth. Sometimes it is a gut feeling. Just because we cannot justify an intuition scientifically or rationally, it doesn’t mean we should ignore it all.


3. Fail your way to Success


This is tough sell for Asians! We equate failure as embarrassment & punishment. Remember getting smacked for scoring 89 in primary school? “What happened to the other 11 points?” my inquisitor teacher interrogated. Guess why we copy others? To avoid failure!

Breakthroughs always reside outside the status quo. We cannot innovate if we insist on 100% success. Failure is part of innovation & growth. Reading Tony’s catalogue of failures freed me to embrace mistakes as part my journey to growth.


4. Create Engagement, not Buzz


Facebook & Twitter is about creating buzz for our business, according to a lot of marketers. “You’ve gotta tweet lots and post lotsa stuff on FB!” Buzz = Hype = Hot Air?

“My mother has no buzz but when she talks, I listen.” 

That’s one of my favorite quote from the book. Creating buzz is like standing in a busy market, screaming “Buy here! Buy here!” The problem is a thousand other people are doing the same thing!

Why do we tell our friends about the best laksa place in Penang, coziest bed & breakfast place in Paso Robles, the most amazing book we read recently? Perhaps all these had engaged a deeper part of our beings. We can’t help but talk & tell others about it. Engagements are created by amazing experiences, not by dominating a conversation or talk the loudest. 


5. Building Friendships not Network


I share Tony’s dislike for networking events where people swap business cards with hope the other person can help you out in business and vice versa. Instead, Tony prefers to focus on building relationships and getting to know people just as people…regardless of their position in the business world.

Stop looking at everyone as a $ sign, and start treating them with respect. “Would I be just as nice if there was no business interests in this relationship?” That’s my personal litmus test. 


6. Culture over Mission Statement


Every company, school, church, and political parties have a mission statement. I wonder how many of these bold sounding statements actually change the organization or improve lives. Don’t favor code of conduct either because they sound too much like a inhibiting list of do’s and don’ts. 

Meanwhile, Zappos build a culture based core values. For example, its number one core value, “Delivering WOW through Service”. With staff in the call center empowered to upgrade the standard shipping to overnight shipping, they wowed their clients who in turn rave about them.



To prove a point, Tony’s pals called up Zappos renown customer service line at 11pm because they were hungry and couldn’t find anyone delivering pizza at those hours. I would have hung up but the Zappos rep came back with a list of pizza deliveries in the area of the callers. In a lot of small businesses, the DNA of the organization is only evident in the key personnel. Building a service culture that permeates the entire organization is a lot harder.

7. Customer Experience over Marketing
Zappos would rather spend money to improve customer experience than on marketing. They believe that a positive customer experience is the most powerful marketing. It is not cheap to run the warehouse 24/7 or to provide a 365-day return policy but it makes people happy. It is a crazy to run a business like that…maybe that’s why their customers are crazy about them? Can Zappos radical approaches translate into healthy profits and growth? Zappos board didn’t think so and wanted to oust Tony. Food for thought…

Please don’t think Zappos is this corporate utopia where everyone walks on cloud nine. In 2008 at the peak of the financial crisis, they laid off 8% of their workforce. Tony’s commitment to building a happy culture in the company was labelled as a “social experiment” by his board. That’s what I love this book, real stories of how Tony wrestle with economic reality, a resistant board, and his ideals.

This is not a how-to book on customer service but the stories of failures and successes of Zappos narrated in first person by its CEO. With a broad stroke of honesty, candidness & audacity, it inspires me to improve my customer experience and cultivate the LPS culture. I expected Tony to be slightly abrasive and cocky since he was this internet whiz kid who made millions at 24. However he came across as foolishly passionate and rather thoughtful person.

Effective today, Delivering Happiness has become a compulsory reading at Louis Pang Studio. Get your copy!

Just the available light
Just to see what it looks like without any flash. “Is it ok without flash? Do I need light?” I would ask. From here, I would device a lighting solution. Should it be from the left, right, bottom or top? Soft or hard? This is the baseline that allows me to compare the before-and-after of flash. I need to know how flash will change the scene. The baseline gives me that info.

Just with available light. ISO640, f/2.8, 1/80.

As a wedding photographer, my solutions depend on what my clients want. Priya & Mahendran wanted some pictures on this stage at the Hindu temple at which they just got married minutes ago. It was the end of the shoot…we had about 10 minutes. That tells me plenty about what I need to do. Retain some ambient light because I must show the environment. Make them look good. And get it done under 10 minutes.

Bring in the main light
Ezybox Hotshoe 30” on a paint pole was the main light, held at 45 degrees towards Priya & Mahendran. This usually solve a lot of lighting problems. Not for Priya & Mahendran. They have deep eye sockets. Any light coming from the top will introduce shadows around the eyes. They look heavy and tired.

A subtle improvement. The eyes still look heavy because they are under shadow.

Supplement the main light
How do we get rid the heaviness and shadows? If the light from the top created shadows, a light from opposite angle should counter and solve the problem. Another light from the lower angle point up towards the couple. A flash on 24” Ezybox. Why have a smaller softbox here? Well, I don’t have another 30”

Some people call this clamshell lighting or glamour lighting. I didn’t invent this. You can see how the additional light just lifted the picture. It feels lighter & happier. Both lights are on TTL.

The second softbox coming from a lower angle brings clear improvement to the picture.

It’s time to play
Now we’ve got the flash figured out, it’s time to have some fun with Priya and Mahendran. It’s easier to focus on interacting with the couple when I don’t have to worry about the technical stuff. Ten minutes later, it’s a wrap.

Yummy light & lots of fun = a nice photo

Guerrilla can go glamor. You just need two flashes, softboxes and two pairs of spare hands

note: entire series shot at ISO640, f/2.8, 1/80. D3S + 70-200mm