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Adventures in Holland

The past one week has been a whirlwind of an experience. From the moment I touched down in Amsterdam on the 4th of August till the wedding day, I’ve been running on adrenaline. After spending 2 days in Amsterdam, I came down with a full blown fever and flu on the third day. It was a really challenging time for me since I was by myself and having to lug heavy equipment and bags all over Holland while blowing my nose at the same time is not something I was looking forward to do.

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Some sights around Amsterdam.

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But I had to muster whatever strength I had and travel about an hour away by train to meet Christina and Chee Su at Zwijndrecht. That evening itself we were supposed to have our pre-wedding shoot but since I was not feeling too well we decided to postpone the main part of it till the next day. Instead we went to a nearby river for some quick shots.

The next day, we went to Kinderdijk, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. The place is covered with mindmills and the landscape is absolutely stunning! We spent about 2 hours there and I even had time to climb up one windmill (as a 10 minute touristy thing). That afternoon, I crashed for 4 hours since I was still weak from the flu. Later in the evening we came back for more photos! Christina and Chee Su braved their fears and went out onto the water in a really unstable row boat. Thank God it didn’t overturn! Here are some teaser shots from the shoot.

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Musings: God Made Me Female!

I’ve always considered the world of photography as a predominantly male industry (which it is!) and initially when I considered joining the ranks of wedding photographers, I thought, “Oh my goodness, I’ll have to grow a goatee, wear an ugly vest and talk tech all the time.” Well, that was like 2 years ago, and now, after having met lots and lots of cool female photographers like Jenny Sun, Fiona Lim, Anna-Rina, Asther Lau, and myself included *ahem*… I am jumping for joy. There’s hope for us yet!

I can look stylish and hot as a female photographer! It sounds incredibly vain, I know, but hey, at least I’m being honest!

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I’ve thought through some of my strengths and weaknesses of being a female photographer, and thought I’d share some here:

Strengths:
– I can connect with the brides out there who are usually my first point of contact during any form of client consultation. I am genuinely excited to hear about their wedding plans, how they met their fiance and what kind of decorations they’ll be having on their big day. You know, girly talk.

– On the shoot day, I can get access where most male photographers cannot. For example, brides would usually allow me to be in the room while they change. They have no qualms cupping their breasts in front of me while my shutter goes clicking away.

– I have more wardrobe options than male photographers. Yay!

– When I started photography, I didn’t really focus a lot on the technical aspects of it, but rather the composition and story of each shot. I think that is still one of my greatest strengths. I look for emotions and storyline above everything else.

– I smile a lot to people. I think that warms them up and breaks the ice. Ok, ok, this is not really a gender difference.

Weaknesses:

– I’m female and small. Being small can be another blog post in itself, but the fact that I’m female, most people would tend to look at the male photographers first before looking at me. They probably think that I’m a guest taking photos. They are quite surprised when I command the situation especially during group shots etc!

– The other male photographers I shoot with can shoot off anything technical in one breath, talk about the latest gadgets in the market, explain ALL the features in the various camera bodies available in the market AND refer you to the websites that has great reviews about them. I am a little slow in these things. :)

– I cannot push large heng tais away, especially those that block my view during the chip san leong session.

– I like to be pampered way too much, so sometimes I spend my hard earned cash on things like massage sessions and pigging out sessions with my girlfriends.

So, what are your thoughts out there? What are the advantages or disadvantages of being a female/male photographer?

Moving on to HD!

It’s a momentous event for Wedding Story. This year, we are making the move to offer HD video to our clients for all wedding film packages. The past few years we have been honing our skills and building our brand. In 2009, we started to expand our wings internationally and we believe that there is more to come in the future! Today, the 4 of us – Kee Sitt, Sharon Koo, Ian and myself will be flying over to Bangladesh to shoot Ali and Farhat’s wedding. Do keep in touch with our travels as we plan to blog frequently while we are there. It will be a week long celebration in the town of Chittagong. Apparently this is where the longest beach in the world is found! Wow!

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The trip to get our new Panasonic AG-HMC 152 cameras is in itself an adventure. Alex and I booked our flight to Singapore on Monday, and on Tuesday evening, we flew over on Tiger Airways to Changi airport. What a coincidence as we bumped into people we knew on the flight! Chris Cheong from Berjaya Hotels and Michael Tang from Concorde were on their way to Singapore for a conference and coincidentally, they sat in front of us on the flight.

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We arrived at 5.30pm on Tuesday, and took the MRT to City Hall where I met Sherine in Starbucks. She wrote to us to enquire about our services, and so we had a short consultation in Singapore that evening. The world is getting smaller!

Then Wang from Sensys came to meet us at the same Starbucks. It looked rather odd to do a transaction in the middle of a busy coffee place!

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Our photo with Wang.

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By 8pm we met a few friends for dinner.

And then by 10.30pm, Ian Chong came to pick us up to go over to his place to stay the night. I forgot to take a nice photo of him and his wife! :(But here are a few pictures of our new camera, fresh out of the box!

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The next morning at 6am, we were already at the airport, to fly back to KL. And what a coincidence, we bumped into another friend Jerrica who was on the same flight! I was also supposed to meet her for a consultation this week in KL. What an exciting 14 hours.

A new addition to the family: The 5D Mark2

About 2 weeks ago, I celebrated my 30th birthday. Wow, I feel really old now! My cousin told me that 30 is the new 20, but I know that it’s not entirely true! The occasional backaches I get proves it wrong! Haha.. Well, I had a little party at my sister’s home to celebrate the dawn of a new era. It was nice and personal, with close friends attending the party. Towards the end of the night, I opened all the lovely presents that were given to me, and what a surprise I got when Alex presented me with a 5D Mark 2 in a Nikon coolpix box! :)

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Alex says I have been hounding him for the new 5D for the past few weeks. Eat sleep, talk 5DM2. Do I really do that? *bats eyelashes*. Well I must say that I have an awesome husband, not just for getting the camera, but in everything he does. He is so supportive of me in everything, especially in my business, providing emotional and mental support all the time. I would not be where I am if it weren’t for him.

In Wedding Story, we have a few camps… the Nikon vs Canon camp. :) Not everyone uses the same system, and though it would probably save us a lot of money when we share equipment, it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. What matters are the shots that come out and the final look of it. Looking forward to all the shoots coming up soon!

Childhood Montage with a Twist!

Was digging through my old cupboard today and found my pre-wedding video that was done 2 years ago! It was shot and edited by my ex-colleagues and coordinated by my beloved sister. Alex and I conceptualized the idea with my sister. It felt like such a long time ago! It even has snippets from when Alex proposed to me in 2005. *At that time I didn’t know Kee Sitt well, so excuse the home video grainy look! :P*

If any of you are interested in having a video like this done for your wedding day, do call us to have a chat. We’re open to discussing new and interesting ideas that you may have.

Please make sure that you press play then immediately pause for the loading to complete before playing so that it will play smoothly.

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