I always find that the less crew member there is, the more natural the people  look in front of my camera. Of course, being working alone doesn’t guarantee you good candid photos, you also need other techniques and experience to get it …. ….. still lots to learn.

gisa and chris, one of my fav wedding in last season. a small but very warm wedding. I didn’t start shooting before 4:00pm, and as a winter wedding, you can expect the light is on the low side after 4:00pm, so i had to work in a very low ambient light level for the whole evening. It was even more challenging that the wedding ceremony was held at the bar area inside the fine dining French restaurant Capise  inside four seasons at 7:00pm. what light level can you expect at a bar area after 7:00pm ??? It ’s so dark that I could only see shadow moving around  inside  the viewfinder of my camera … … very challenging !!!!

ceremony and dinner: caprice, four seasons hotel
make up artist: eva of faces make-up studio

my fav shot of the day
love the way they kiss each other, Oh …. ….  so much love inside !!!!
the bar area ’s very small, with all the guests, there ’s not much room I could move around. Before the ceremony, I already planned to take the most important moment at this location,  and hoped to include the  guests in the photo so that you can have a sense of the atmosphere of the ceremony. There is not much light, even I pushed the ISO to over 2,000. flash had to be used, the tricky part is how to balance the flash and ambient light while controlling the light quality of the flash, and didn’t let the flash to kill the atmosphere.  

some of the getting ready shots

what a happy, cheerful bride gisa is

we did a very fast 30min portrait just before the ceremony

other ceremony shots

what a nice and fine dinner location, isn’t it?

after 3 weeks’  holiday, I resumed shooting last week. (in fact, just no shooting, but still lots of post processing works).

It was a wonderful holiday – shulin started her two-years old  class two weeks ago, and I could stay in the classroom on the first few days and this was really  a wonderful and joyful experience.  Shulin now have to stay in class on her own, and she gets used to it very soon, just cried on the 1st two days. It is very amazing that children can learn things so fast and she really brings lots of happiness to us.

Apart from the several pre-wedding shoots these two weeks, it is so busy this week – we are going to leave our home in new territories and move to kowloon by end of this week. We have been living in Tai Po for over 10 years, this was such a good place to live,  with lots of good memories and  beautiful scenes (sun rise, the tolo harbour and all the trees and birds outside). Having said that, we decided to move so that it spends less time for shulin travelling to and from the school. So you can imagine my home is full of boxes already … … busy packing.

I wish I  can still manage to squeeze some time updating the blog next few days … …. Here is the pre-wedding session of tushiyyah and benny, one of fav session I did before the holiday. hope you enjoy all the photos below.

BTW, we  just exceeded the mark of seven hundred thousand (700,000 ) visitors here, thanks for all your support !!!!

location: St. Stephen College, Shek O, Pottinger Street (Stone Slab Street)

this is my fav shot of tushiyyah. it was taken at a corner at Pottinger Street. It was very very dark, and I challenged myself using several lights in this shot. 3 lights ‘re used with a mix of flashes and LED light, all with different color gel and light modifier (softbox, grid, barn door … …). like this shot a lot, looks so beautiful and all the lightings give a very 3 dimenional look to it.

our first stop: St. Stephen College

we took lots of great shots inside the library !!!!

second stop: Shek O. Got a lot of new ideas to shoot this time

Oh Canly, how could you do that????

another fav of the day, so beautiful and peaceful !!! This was a new angle for shooting I found in shek O

thanks for lying on the sand for this shot !!!!!

last stop: Pottinger Street

Nothing easier than having a gorgeous and pretty bride, cheerful personality, beautiful locations, all in one single engagement photo session.

locations: Hullett House Hotel @ 1881 Heritage, Shek O, Central
make up artist: elaw wong @ The Look studio

Our 1st stop: 1881 Heritage
it ’s easy taking photo of jasmine, isn’t it?
and the Qi Pao ’s very very pretty !!!

the beautiful location at 1881 Heritage

bathing together????

shots done inside the beautiful bathroom

our 2nd stop. Wow!!!! What a different look of jasmine and johnson !!!!

Oh … …. jasmine couldn’t stop laughing … … because of all the sweat and oil … … on johnson ’s  forehead

the beach was crowded that day, but we could try to include them to create interesting picture

a happy day!!!

last stop: central
wow!!!!!!!! so tall

beautiful picture. BTW, I think Johnson forgot to take out his mobile from his pocket, hahaha, need to work on it in the post-processing

last photo of the day. I was trying (and experimenting) something new. Still trying … …  More on that later … …

everything was in a rush this time, when jojo and afred confirmed their booking, it was only three months left before their wedding day in early July next month. And we just did the engagment shoot last month. As we didn’t have much time left, we couldn’t postpone the shooting even though the weather forecast was very very bad (with thunderstorm ).

It was good that it didn’t rain at all when we started soho central in the morning. Our original 2nd location was Shek O. When we arrived, the weather was still looking good. However, the very second we finished our lunch, jojo had her costum change and I pressed the camera shutter, it started pouring !!!!! And we had to wait and wait in car, yet it didn’t look like the weather ‘d get better.

Finally, we only got three photos in Shek O (YES, only three photos), and decided to continue the shooting in afred ’s home then. So lots of time was wasted on the travelling and waiting in the afternoon. When we arrived at alfred ’s home, it was already 5:00pm, time is running out, we didn’t have much available light left, location was new to me.

It was blessing that, I had an awesome couple and still got lots of great photos, even with so much limitation and constraint. I had to give big thank you to jojo and alfred for their trust.

With such a short time, we couldn’t get all photos edited to produce the album. But a few photos will be selected for canvas and montage production.

JoJo and alfred, see you again in July.

locations: soho central, alfred ’s home, club house of Leighton Hill
makeup artist: Zi Wan

nice photo at alfred ’s home

the rain didn’t stop, yet we finally decided got to the roof and stay under the rain for two minutes to get this shot. Thanks jojo and alfred for making this shot!!!

1st location: SoHo, central

2nd location: alfred ’s home

last location: club house of Leighton Hill

As you know, in Hong Kong, we have two big fireworks show over the Victoria harbour every year (one is on the 2nd day of Chinese new year, the other is on the 1st of Oct National Day).

In 2009, we had three fireworks show because of the 2009 Asian games opening on Dec 6th.

nothing ‘s luckier than the year of 2009, I had outdoor weddings in two of the fireworks shows and was able to watch the show very close at a very comfortable location. Jennifer and Fan ‘s wedding ‘s one of the two. The couple came from Shanghai to have their wedding in Hong Kong, with only their best friends and close families ‘re invited.

ceremony: Bethanie Chapel
reception: sevva, Central
makeup artist: Man Chan of Miracle

To be honest, I am not very good at shooting fireworks as I didn’t shoot any fireworks before in Hong Kong and tried to avoid the crowded places. Luckily, the photos turned out good, IMHO.

sevva, a very nice location!!!

beautiful shoes with lots of details

very nice QiPao – and Jennifer brought out the best of it !!!!

a moment during the tea ceremony. Love this shot.

changed into wedding gown. Always love to work with Man Chan – she ’s very professional and nice.

we went to HKU for a 30 min location shooting before the ceremony. Here are two of my fav

beautiful chapel as always

congratulations !!!

who is the lucky child?

beautiful wedding gown

jennifer ‘s helping setting up the venue

cake cutting in front of the HSBC, COOL !!!!

love the smiles from mother behind

Fan ‘s speech