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

Scored 85, Silver with Distinction

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.

I am a big fan of musicians, guitarist in particular. I would never be as good with a guitar as I am with a camera. Guess life is fair in a way. You can’t have everything right? Just because I can’t have it doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it. I have an extensive library of music from CDs and iTunes…but we are not discussing music today. We are talking about light, which in many ways is like music. It’s about flavor and execution.

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)

I never have enough time on a wedding day. It’s not the planner or the couple’s fault, it’s just the nature of a wedding day. There are a million things to do: make-up, hair-do, wardrobe, getting the bridal parties, family & friends ready, ceremony, reception, music, videos, coordinating the timing of everything and photography, of course. Somewhere along the line, something got delayed and we ended up with less time that we planned for. If you think time pressure is scary, read on…

“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…