Good Morning Raisa

Finally, I got a chance to finish the first installment of my 3-set shoot a couple of weeks ago. Since I shoot lifestyle and fashion, I had this idea of telling a story of a model's normal working day through a series of photographs. So my idea was to shoot a model in her bedroom starting from waking up very early in the morning, going for a morning jog and then prepare and go for a fashion shoot. In this set, I wanted to share some images of my model Raisa, shot from a bedroom while she was browsing magazines and her laptop computer for some fashion inspiration.

This would not have been possible without my awesome team so I dedicate this post to my friends - Jake, Arnold, Norman, Bel and Jerry. Thanks a lot! You guys rock!!

Model: Raisa
Photographer: Me :)
Assisted By: Arnold and Norman
Styling/Make-up: Bel

* Special thanks to Jerry for shooting the behind the scenes video.

Riverwalk

Just want to share my recent photoshoot with Australian model named Cate by the Singapore river. Mother nature was so great that she gave me a very nice early morning sun. These images were shot using only available/natural light and reflectors.

Create, Share and Sustain

Chase Jarvis CURRENT: The Consequences of Creativity from Chase Jarvis on Vimeo.

I recently watched a video of Chase Jarvis when he was invited to speak in front of the Art Director's Club of Denver and the ASMP about creativity. My favorite part of his talk was at about the 27th minute mark when he said, "....once you're sustainable, you can continue to create whatever you want. And what happens when you decide what you create? You create cooler stuff!"

Because of this, I got inspired to create what I want. I will be posting the story of my very first concept shoot pretty soon.

Need not say more. Enjoy the video.

A Few Important Pointers

Just finished a lifestyle fashion shoot and it turned out quite well. As much as I enjoyed doing the whole thing, I also learned a few important pointers:

1. Practice is a must before the actual shoot. My team and I did a mock setup of the lighting the day before. We nailed the correct exposure, anticipated the worst case possible scenario and reproduced window light (ambient) as close as possible.
On the actual shoot itself, we were given 4 hours to do 3 different sets (1 outdoor and 2 indoors) and this even includes model hair styling and makeup. Because we practiced, we managed to stay way ahead of the schedule and made it look like we're pros.

2. Do not panic if something goes wrong. The ambient light was so strong and the lighting effect was a little diferent to what we've practiced. It was good I was able to improvise. I took advantage of the strong window light and asked to model to stand close to the window. By using the window light alone, I believe I was able to take images with a little bit more drama and impact.

A Prisoner of Beauty

I shot this Brazilian model about 6 months ago but didn't get a chance to do some post processing since I was too busy back then. Today, I was cleaning up the files in my Mac when I chanced upon the folder where I saved this model's images.

I tried a very simple post processing of just adjusting the levels and curves and did a little bit of sharpening. Since I always shoot RAW, I was able to adjust the white balance and made the skin tone a little bit warmer.

By the way, the same model posed for FHM Singapore sometime in 2008.

Tokyo Cherry Blossoms

It's that time of the year again when foreigners and local people alike flock to the famous spots of Cherry Blossoms in Japan. One of them is the Chidorigafuchi Moat in Tokyo. It is the North-Eastern moat of the Imperial Palace. This was my third day visiting the same place. It's really hard to find a good spot because of the big crowd. So today, I got up early and went to the place. The sky did not cooperate as it was very cloudy, so I turned away from shooting landscapes.

Shaking Off The Rust

Last time I went out with friends to take some photos using lighting, I got really frustrated. I can't get the lighting effect that I want. I know in my mind what I want to achieve, but I just can't make it to materialize.

This time, I went back to basics. I setup a mini-studio in my home. I used 1 600-watt strobe with softbox, 1 Canon 580 EXII and 1 Nikon SB 900 (both barebulb) and a white seamless paper. All lights triggered by my ever reliable Pocket Wizards.

The big strobe with 80cm x 120 cm softbox was placed on camera right and the two small strobes were placed behind the subject on both sides to light the background. Used a lightmeter to set all lights to f8.

This time, I was quite happy with the results.