The first Jerry Ghionis Workshop in Malaysia - 25 Sept 2009

I had the privilege to attend Jerry Ghionis' first workshop in Malaysia and it was very educational. Many professional photographers and hobby-ist were there to soak in his every word. He's so friendly and down-to-earth you can't believe he's an internatinal Australian photographer specializing in wedding photography.

I don't fancy taking photos indoors without flash and window lighting but for this workshop, I had to like how everyone else were doing that day.

p/s: The buffet lunch was fantastic! It had almost everything Chinese, Japanese, Malay, Italian - yums! It was at Park Royal KL.

Spot anyone you know from here?

Thank goodness for good company like Weng from www.wengyapphoto.com and ....

Olivia from oliviaoonphotography.blogspot.com.

Meatballs! Meatballs! Meatballs but not Cloudy.

Last month, I helped a friend take pictures of her new food product: fried pork meatballs. It reminds me of my mom's meatballs when I was growing up. According to Beatrice, this type of meatballs is a rarity in KL and I believe so even though I grew up with it in Melaka.

This special recipe is available on her website at http://easymom.wordpress.com. It's the easiest thing to make, freeze, unfreeze and cook for any busy mothers or working ladies out there.

You can even buy them from her if you still can't find the time to make them yourselves. It's absolutely yummy-licious!

Taken using window light and one off camera flash:

This was taken using two flashlights as the light source:

Marcus & Esther 20.09.2009

It was indeed an auspicious day with the date the couple chose and though some trials did leave a mark on that day, it went well and the couple looked happy even after so little sleep and so many hours of smiles.

The heavy downpour during the portrait shoot didn't dampen their spirits. The incident with the auto gate which scratched the BMW wedding car didn't caused extended anger. The super busy and rushed Chinese traditions didn't hinder them from stealing glances at each other throughout the day. Such high spirits and the cameras loved them!

Here's a slideshow of some moments from my camera:

Congrats to the happy couple!

TGIF Fun turns Sour

I bet everyone of you know that TGIF is well-known for its rowdy, loud yet fun birthday wishes and tricks. Well, it ended badly tonite at my friend's bash in the Curve outlet as this was what happened.

As usual, a whole group of more than 10 staffs would gather around the birthday boy / girl's table, in my case, my friend's a 'he' - they did the usual tricks tonite like every other birthday celebrant in that restaurant - made him stand on a chair, make him say a speech, make him stick out his tongue and pretend they were gonna pour chili sauce on him, sang him 3 TGIF songs which no one can make out what's being sung (thank God coz I think I heard some bad humour in the lyrics) and finally, make him blow out his candle.

Tonite's fun and games ended differently however for my poor friend. After he blew his candle from a distance of 2 feet, the guys all crowded round him and asked to be taken a picture. However, these same guys also made him hold the ceramic cake plate and then they did the unexpected.... all of them shouted Happy Birthday at the top of their lungs into his ears! I was shocked and my friend was struggling to close his ears but he wasn't able to coz he didn't want to break the plate he was holding.

His ears rang for more than 20 minutes after that and am not sure how long after as we all went our separate ways after that.

When I brought this up to the manager before we left, he only apologized twice. Is this how an injured customer should be treated?

Worse still, my friend is in the hospital now for an ear infection due to this today.

SO, DON'T EVER GO TO TGIF for your birthday as it may end sour and you may just loose a limb or an ear!

UPDATE: 6 Oct 2009 - After writing in to TGIF nternational and TGIF Malaysia and speaking to the secretary of TGIF owner, my friend managed to get his complaint across and a simple compensation from them plus a warning letter to the employees involved.

So, you can still celebrate your birthday in TGIF but get a good friend to be on his toes at all time in case any such thing happens so he / she can rescue you instantly. :)

Pei Pei - a week before Rachel

A week before Pei Pei was due for delivery, she gave me the opportunity to take my very first set of pregnancy photos. She looked lovely as always and ever so pretty even with that baby waiting to come into the world. Baby Rachel Lee arrived on 2 July - healthy and tiny.

These are some shots of the beautiful Pei Pei. Eric is so blessed. :)

Sports Unlimited

Efficient E-Solutions had a Sports day a day after Labour Day, 2 May 09. Must be a company policy to never rest I suppose as it was a 3-day weekend break. The employees were, however, very enthusiastic about the event and they came all gung-ho-ed. There were 4 types of sports running at the same time - Badminton, Futsal (ladies & men), Netball and Bowling while Tracks was right before the Closing recemony. It was held in a conspicuous stadium in Shah Alam, Panasonic Stadium from 7am till 8pm on a Sunday.

I'd say that there were enough volunteers to run the whole show as many were in the committee t-shirts but as a photographer, there wasn't enough photographers as they only hired me alone. Kinda impossible to capture all the events running simultaneously. Can't really split myself into 4 right?

Anyway, these are my favourite shots for the event. Praise God for Yew Leong who came to fill in my void for the tracks and closing ceremony sessions in the evening.

25 July 09 update: Unfortunately, this company is a lousy pay master and the bosses kinda lack integrity as I've not been paid in full yet after 3 months. Additionally, they have requested a discount as they were not happy that I didn't manage to cover all their sports activities. Any photographer would know it's impossible to be at every event when it is running simultaneously at different locations, right? Anyway, just a word of caution if you happen to have to deal with them.

3 Oct 09 update: I finally got paid the balance with a 20% on 18 September 09. That's how bad a pay master and definitely a cheater employer Efficient E-Solutions is. Beware if you're gonna take a job with them.

This was the pre-sports day bowling session:







The registration morning - it was 730am and there was already a huge crowd of employees:

The company even have their own flag:

The futsal players had their own team supporters all around the stadium:

The netball all-girls teams were really good at the match and the referee was super strict! She kept blowing her whistle to stop the match even for the slightest movement mistake.

Ready, set, GO!

The closing ceremony had a marching band and loads of happy participants & supporters & hopefully bosses: