Another Fashion Shoot with June Low

Doing photo stories is still my primary passion, but fashion photography is something that I've always desired to endeavour. A good fashion photograph has all the fashion elements: the outfit, the hair, the make-up, the location, the sets. Photography only comes after all these, and post-processing delivers the final packaging to the image.

I chose to shoot at the Marina Barrage. I was not expecting a large public crowd on a Wednesday late afternoon, but I forgot it was a school holiday week. When looking for locations for the photos, I had to be mindful of the crowd and so there were many potential backdrops that we could not set up on that day.

I'll be going back there very soon to explore more. Meanwhile, here are some photos taken of June. She has never done commercial print assignments, and we hope this will help her to get some attention in the industry.

More photos available at the links below:

Facebook Album

Flickr Album

Grace P

A fashion shoot was planned with a model weeks in advance. And we were counting down to the actual shoot day. But days before the shoot, there were signs that indicate that the shoot might not proceed as planned. First, she was busy with both school and modeling assignments. Then she requested to 'downgrade' the shoot from an actual shoot to a test shoot (difference is that we're not going all out in terms of hiring MUA, bringing all the attires). Finally, on the eve of the shoot, she went down with a bad diarrhoea. Cancellation seemed imminent.

So I quickly looked through my waiting list of models and see which ones are suited for the theme and location. Challenge is: I only have their email address, and asking them via email might be too slow. I had to also consider the possibility that more than one might agree, then I would have to reject those unselected again. I needed a more immediate kind of communication, like IM or mobile phone, to discuss the last-minute arrangements quickly.

Grace was lucky. She happened to be online at the right time. Grace was lucky, she was available and was willing to start the shoot at 7.30am.

I was lucky. I got the shots.














Special thanks to Ervine for giving me new perspectives in processing my photos.

Newfound old friends, and then some

It's only the first week of March, and already many things have happened.

Firstly, I found a few long-lost friends via facebook. In normal circumstances, this wouldn't be such a big deal. But the process of finding them are short of a miracle.

Once a while, I will reminiscence some old friends that I had and will try to locate them via the social networking sites. But see, these friends were so old that during the time, there was no email except their name. Of course it doesn't help since many people do not use their full name as the profile name, and even if they do, there are too many people with the same name.

To cut the story short, I was looking for friend "C" on facebook, but there were too many same names and no profile pic. So I looked for friend "V", and I did find her because her photo was on the profile. As I browsed her album, I found my friend "C"! And since I also know the brother of "C", I found 3 friends, not forgetting the parents whom I was very close with too.

In addition, I am also upgraded to "uncle" status as 2 close relatives gave birth to baby girls. So Mayenne has 2 cousins and she's no longer the youngest within the extended family.

Last month, I attended my university hall mate's wedding, and caught with lots of fellow hall mates whom I had fun working with. Many of them are already in my facebook list, but I finally get to meet them face-to-face. After the wedding, Angie and I even went karaoke with a few of them till 2am in the morning. That is undoubtedly the first night out we had in this decade - YES, this decade. It's quite funny: the moment we sat in the karaoke room, we asked the waiter whether they still have some of the 1990s "oldies".

Angie and I had to leave at 2am because we had to wake up early next day to pick Mayenne from her Mum's. The rest stayed till 3.40am. According to sources, they were too tired to hold on till the end of the booking session which was 4am.

We had to walk down this dark aisle to reach our karaoke room. Felt kindda sleezy, no?

Finally, comfort zone.

Some shots during the wedding on 21 Feb. Taken with review set Canon Powershot G10, courtesy of T3 Magazine Singapore. Cyprian and Vanessa's wedding is covered in the excellent hands of Stephen Loh from Lyrical Moments Photography (http://www.lyricalmoments.net/)

"Funny-face" groom

"Hearty-laugh" groom

You Can Protect Your Mobile Phone Information for US$19.90

I was about to go to sleep when I noticed my friend's MSN status message: "my phone is stolen".

Can't help but I simply have to do up this blog post.

Do you know you can all protect the information in your mobile phone for only US$19.90? No subscription required.

While it's probably not possible to recover your phone, at the very least you should protect any data that is residing in your phone.

Bak2U is a Singapore-made software that achieves that. It allows you to remotely delete all data in your phone in the event that your phone is stolen. It also notifies you via SMS about the whereabouts of your phone.

While there are probably ways to break the software (for instance, hard reset), it also means destroying any data in your phone. To me, that's a better deterrent that allowing the phone to be freely accessed by the stranger. Bak2U also creates some interesting security software, one of which is PhoneScream. If the password is entered wrongly, the phone will let out an audible sound customisable by you. That would be fun if the thief happens to be within the vicinity.

If you are still contemplating about spending that small amount of money, there is another protection that all phones come with: phone lock. Just activate it and your phone will not be accessible until the correct PIN is entered. Again, that does not stop the thief from accessing your personal data in the removable memory card.

http://bak2u.com/

If you are thinking that this won't happen to you, then you are probably one of those who doesn't believe in insurance.