Blog of a HK Wedding Photographer

a very beautiful wedding in Oct. Not only we had beautiful bride, beautiful  (and nice) bridesmaids, but it was so nice to see everyone dressed beautifully as well.

I had made a small (or big ) mistake that I finally couldn’t take photo during the reception at night. When I was worrying about this, I was so happy that ann choi could offer to help me in this wedding (in fact, she had to postpone another family portrait session to help me)

I haven known ann for over a year, she is always on my recommendation list when people asks me for photographer referral. A real PJ (photojournalistic) style and crazy wedding photographer like me, and it is always a fun to work with her. You can see Ann ’s photo for harriet and jim here

date: 24 oct 2009 2008
get ready: island shangri la
ceremony: St. John’s cathedral
reception: repulse bay

everyone was beautifully dressed !!!

the newly wed – harriet and jim

simon.the.photo x annchoi, Hi Ann, thanks for your help !!!

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This is definitely one of my fav wedding in Sept !!!! Not only I had a wonderful couple, wonderful wedding party, but a chance to work with a US award winning wedding photographer as well.

arron is a WPJA award winning wedding photographer from California and came to Hong Kong to shoot the wedding of Catherine and Kevin here. I got to know him because he hired me to second shoot with him for this wedding. (Sorry, I can’t post any photos of this wedding here … …) As he stayed in Hong Kong for a few days, I invited him to help shooting in one of my wedding, and it ‘s so inspiring to see a foreigner shooting a local Chinese wedding.

date: sept 27, 2008
ROM: wedding registry at Hong Kong City Hall
BBQ reception: Royal View Hotel

one of my fav of the day.
It ‘s very difficult to take photo in the cross Harbour tunnel, not to mention a wedding photo inside.
ida and errol hired an open top double deck bus for their transportation, and that ‘s why I got a chance to take this photo inside

arron in action !!!

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I love Jeff ’s works a lot. As he is one of the top ten wedding photographer in the world, I am always amazed at his Black & White works. If you love Black & White wedding photos, you can’t miss looking at his works

He was recently featured in the Canon Professional Network (the first wedding photographer to be featured), a must read article.

click the below image for the full article

The heat is ON !!!

I finally can meet the great CM Leung yesterday. He just look exactly the way I imagined, but a little bit more handsome than I thought. I always fascinated when looking at his website, why are all his images so artistic?  They look like images in your heart. After I met him, I found him to be a real artistic person.

Thank you for his sharing as well, I like his way of making very light weight video light batteries. What a brilliant idea !!!!

We came out a special project and hope that it can happen in Sept. Excited to know what it is … … I ‘ll update my blog when it happens … ….

Thanks Florence of Say-so helped organizing our meeting !!!! For the artistic version of our self portrait, pls visit CM ’s blog

CM Leung in action. Before we met, I just got the new photo cards from Jerry of Xsight and can’t wait to share Jerry ’s great pictures with CM. He is taking pictures of the cards.

As you all know, August is a low season for wedding in Hong Kong, we have typhoons, rainy and hot weathers, not to mention, the Chinese ghost festival. With the additional free time, I decided to do and learn something different during this period. One of the thing I ‘d like to do is to meet other wedding photographers in Hong Kong and learn something new from them.

In the past, when I can’t work for a couple, and they asked if I could introduce any other good photographer for them. I always said no because I didn’t know any other wedding photographer in person, and I hadn’t seen their portfolio (a real wedding album). However, after my chat with Lawrence Tsang today, he is definitely on my recommendation list. It is so nice of him that not only he shared his full portfolio to me, but his assistant also showed me how they edit the photos as well. His work is real stunning, and every photos look so natural, but powerful !!!!!

Lawrence is a super super nice guy (& nice father), nice to his clients, hist staff and other photographers …. …. He always think from his clients’ standpoint.

The only area that he needs to improve  … … please also be nice to yourself.
(I was asked by my wife to modify the above.)

The only area that both Lawrence and I need to improve … …. please also be nice to ourselves and our wives

The workshop finished yesterday and I went to Athens & stayed here for 3 days, just to relax. In last few days, we had over 12 hrs of workshop everyday — going out shooting, learning photo skill, photoshop skill, critics session, discussing of business. Someone asked me what I learned … … I believe that the most important thing I learned is more understanding of my weakness, & what I am not good at.

During the critics session, every photographer submitted a few photos to Yervant to have his comment. He said my photos are good, & the brides are going to love them. However, as a professional photographer, he could point out all bad things about the photos — the light is not correct, the pose of the bride is not good. If I enter those photos into a competition, it is straight "OUT" for sure.

This is very useful, makes me step back and think how I can reach the next level of my career. The workshop is definitely the best investment as a wedding photographer.

one of my favorite shot — I like the movement of the veil

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Yesterday, we had the workshop started. I was so excited to meet Yervant in person. There are 25 other wedding photographers from all over the world to attend this workshop. It is great meeting & sharing with them - some of them have experience over 20 years. It is so interesting to learn that some of them had very different background before they became a wedding photographer, like, IT consultant from Gartner, marketing staff from a soccer team, fashion photographer, commercial photographer, and even a flight pilot.

Yervant is such great guy, not only because of his great photos, but also his contribution to the wedding photographer industry. He is so willing to share his knowledge, he just doesn’t hide anything. And he tries to raise the standard and makes wedding photographer not only equal, but even better than fashion or other commercial photographers.

We did shooting from 4:00pm till 7:30 pm. We followed Yervant to shoot, learned the technique, then we shot. I loved this image the most for the whole day. It was the last shot of the day

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I arrived at Santorini yesterday 1:00 pm after over 30 hrs of flight, transit & missing flight (yes, I missed a flight at Greece yesterday morning). After settle down, I went to the Fira area to have a 2-hour walk. I finally understood why a lot of my clients had their honeymoon here. The place is so quiet and romantic.

We had a welcome party last night. There are around 25 photographers from all over the world to participate. Very excited for the next few days.

I love cat and I miss my cat in Hong Kong

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Tomorrow I ‘ll leave for Santorini, Greece to attend the Dancing with Yervant  wedding photographer workshop. I am so excited to meet Yervant in person and see him shooting in action. 

3 years ago,  I watched the "Master of Wedding Photographer" DVD, I was so surprised that wedding photography could be so different. When I saw Yervant in the DVD, he had so much fun shooting wedding and his images were stunning !!!! After that, I made up my mind to change myself from a corporate businessman to a full time wedding photographer.

After being a full time wedding photographer for 2 years, I believe it ’s time to learn something new. If possible, I ‘ll try to update the details of this workshop on my blog during the trip.

I ‘ll be back to Hong Kong on May 9. Please email me or send me SMS during that time.

WPJA just released their march issue of WedPix Magazine — which, I believe, is one of the most prestige online magazine about wedding photojournalism.

This content of this issue is very rich & informative

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This is my 1st time to meet Eric Suen of One Shot Production. He was the videographer for Irene and Stanley ’s wedding in Phuket (March 31). If you don’t know Eric, One Shot is the top wedding videography company in Hong Kong, and Eric, personally, received several featured video awards when he was working for ATV & RTHK.

Eric is a very nice guy and full of fun. I really enjoyed working with him in the wedding and learned something new from him, especially on how he set up in some of the shots. We had a lot of time chatting during the 3 days in Phuket and we shared our view of the wedding industry in Hong Kong.

BTW, March 31st is Eric ’s birthday, Happy Birthday !!!! 

Simon & Eric shooting at Irene ’s wedding