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08.07.08 : Winter ... : 08.07.08 : Winter ...

Winter for the wedding photographer is usually a time to relax and take a break from the mad rush of weddings before and after. It's also usually a time to go on an overseas trip to somewhere warmer, take those shoes and socks off and dip your feet in cold water.

Unfortunately, it didn't pan out that way for me. For all my overt plans on a wonderful NZ trip on the back of a camper-van to take some landscape photography (I know it's cold there), I had weddings booked in June and July. A wedding in Winter!? If any couple is insane enough to have a wedding in Winter, then I'd be happy to shoot it and brave the cold and rain with them.

June was a great time for me. I managed to get my hands on an old Nikon F4 (pictured below) as I really wanted to get back into the groove of photography. Real photography where one uses film and each shot is thought out, composed and meticulously planned before taken. It's a far cry from digital photos, where you see your images straight away on the LCD screen. Digital takes away that romantic feel to it and that's the beauty of film, it feels romantic and old and it brings me back to why I love photography. Nothing is rushed, and everything is photographed on thought and feeling. Of course, I would hate to shoot a wedding in film... that would make it close to impossible to shoot for the sheer amount of photos I take throughout the day, not to mention the nervous wait to see how it'll turn out when developed! If you know me, I like to collect old film cameras and this is my third one that sits proudly on my camera bookshelf along with an assortment of old lenses that won't ever see any professional use.

Having only one wedding a month through Winter, although a most welcomed break, I tend to get bored pretty easily so I've been taking on some other photography jobs to keep me interested until my next wedding. Speaking of the next wedding, it happens to be of Mick and Allison this coming Saturday, so I'm really look forward to it. I've never photographed a Croatian/Australian wedding before and the reason why they're having a Winter wedding in Melbourne seems logical enough. That is, they want to have a Summer European honeymoon. Sounds good to me. I still think they're mad though :)

Anyway, as I was saying before I got side tracked, I've been taking on a number of 'different' jobs recently and thought I'd like to share them on this blog. All the images are watermarked and I do apologise for that, but they're for sale to media outlets elsewhere, so I don't want to be releasing these in any way that can be copied whilst selling them elsewhere.

My first shoot was to cover the Jeff Fenech versus Azumah Nelson fight. Wow, is all I can say. Shooting sports is so very different from wedding photography. It's pretty much take a zillion photos at 11FPS and then hope that you get the one good one when the punch lands, where the sweat flies off the face showing all the raw emotions of a fight. To watch and photograph a boxing match ringside is a great privilege. You get to hear the blows land, you hear the feet shuffling, you hear the team shout commands and advice from their respective corners, and you hear the muffled voices of the crowd cheering their man on. I say muffled, as the fight is so close to you that all these immediate aural pleasures take precedence over the crowd.. it's amazing. Well below are some of my favourite photos from the night.

Hey may have aged over the years, but he still looks pretty tough.

Although the boxing was my highlight of June, I also got to do some media work. Shane Warne was in Melbourne to do a promotion at the Crown Casino for his "888 Poker Competition". There were a number of celebs that night (see if you can spot who they are) ranging from the cast from the TV show "Underbelly" to footy players and models.

The following set of pics are from the ARIA Hall of Fame held last week at the Melbourne Town Hall. All the great groups and singers of Australian music were there and it was a good learning experience in Aussie rock music (most of these guys were way before my time). Rolf Harris, along with a number of others were inducted into the Hall of Fame. It was a strictly media photography shoot (so no arty photos) but exciting nonetheless. I also got to watch Tim Freedman, lead singer of The Whitlams perform live, which was great!

So where from here? The onset of August starts wedding photography at a fast pace again. I've got at least a half dozen weddings in Perth around September/October so there will be plenty flying back and forth there (I refuse to stay there, and always want to return home) and whilst there, I've got a number of engagement shoots lined up. It will be busy. Mid October will see a destination wedding in Bali which I'm looking forward to and I'm staying a few extra days to laze around whilst there. I'll be meeting this couple who are from Perth in September too, as introducing myself for the first time on the wedding day itself jut feels too weird, especially in a foreign country. I've unfortunately had to turn down a number of weddings for December (and counting!!) as I've got my overseas trip planned. Vietnam it is for the entire month! Apologies for those that requested their wedding during that month, but I didn't get my holiday June/July so December it is. I'm really looking forward to this trip, and I've been thinking about what cameras and lens combos to bring along :)

Well, I'll leave this blog at that for now. I've got a number of wedding shoots I've done that I've yet to put up as a blog and hope to do so soon. It's not so much a burden but more of finding the time to write these blogs and put them together - I'm not the best at html programming either so it takes me a long time! And hey, check out my latest camera below.. YAY!

Hien

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08.07.08 : Winter ...

16.06.08 : Autumn colours and an engagement shoot : 16.06.08 : Autumn colours and an engagement shoot

This engagement shoot was photographed at the Melbourne Botanical Gardens. Lovely bright and contrasty Autumn colours. The day was timed just right so that there was enough light to shoot, but the sun low enough to produce really saturated colours that were warm and soft.

Photographer: Hien

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16.06.08 : Autumn colours and an engagement shoot

09.06.08 : Circus Shoot : 09.06.08 : A Circus Shoot

I was commissioned to do a shoot last week for advertising material for "Westside Circus" in Fitzroy and jumped at the opportunity. This is the sort of thing that makes photography really enjoyable and to think that I actually get paid for it!

Basically this set of photos were to capture the group of four circus entertainers in a dynamic way, showing their skills and ability. The acrobatic nature of their performance meant this was not an easy task, trying to 'freeze' their stunts mid-air to capture a moment that both looked entertaining and with an artful flair.

It was a very fun shoot and I got to use my camera to its full capabilities, often shooting the full, high speed, 11 frames per second to capture the perfect symmetrical photo. A remote flash set in manual was used to control lighting to give the entertainers tonal depth with just the right amount of shadows and highlights to provide a contrasty yet natural atmosphere to the feel of the photos.

This is my third shoot with these guys and I hope to do more in the future.

Photographer: Hien

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09.06.08 : Circus Shoot

12.05.08 : Renee & Patrick : 12.05.08 : Renee & Patrick

This is a recent wedding I photographed in Melbourne. Renee & Patrick have got to be the most compatible couple and you could really tell that they were so in love. It makes photographing their wedding so much easier!

My favorite photo is the one where they're both walking down the tram tracks with no umbrella and in the rain. It was a great moment that's very different from wedding photos you normally see.

Photographer: Hien & Allen

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12.05.08 : Renee & Patrick

07.05.08 : Trash the Dress : 07.05.08 : Trash the Dress

I've been flat out in the last few month with wedding work that I've had little chance to add anything else. Well it's pretty much Winter now, so I'll have less wedding work to do, and more of a break to catch up on other things. A welcome break indeed.

Last week, in the freezing cold of a Melbourne city night, I got a chance to do my first Trash The Dress shoot. For those who have never heard of it, it's a new trend in wedding photography where the bride literally trashes her dress to signify a wonderful start to a married life. Usually it's at the beach or lake, or thrashing around in the mud getting the dress dirty. It's a lovely and cringe-worthy contrast to the beauty of a clean wedding dress. And that makes for awesome photography!

We decided to take it a step further though, and literally cut up the dress with a splash of paint for colour, all in an urban laneway! Nadia and Anthony, a couple I had photographed their wedding a number of months ago were the eager models (OK, maybe only Nadia)

The night started off with formal photography at parliament house and soon enough things turned around quickly with paint and scissors. It was fun and was great to let loose our creative energy to produce a set of photos that Nadia and Anthony will keep forever - I'd like to see their faces when they go through these photos in 20 years time! And Nadia, congrats on the pregnancy!

Photographer: Hien
Assistant (art, fun, direction and laughs): Jo O'Brien

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07.05.08 : Trash the Dress

22.04.08 : Sarah & Peter

05.04.08 : Mauthausen - A Journey Through A Nazi Concentration Camp : 05.04.08 : Mauthausen - A Journey Through A Nazi Concentration Camp

I thought I'd add this set of photos here to the blog as it's something different and let's us step back for a moment and think about other things for a change.

The following pictures is a sombre reminder of what our father and forefathers fought for and why we live in relative peace in the democracy that we know today. It was taken at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria where estimated figures of 120,000 to 300,000 Jews were executed. One of the first concentration camps by the Nazis and one of the last to be freed by the Allies.

Photographer: Hien

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05.04.08 : Mauthausen - A Journey Through A Nazi Concentration Camp

01.04.08 : A wedding in the Yarra Valley : 01.04.08 : A wedding in the Yarra Valley

Date: 24th February 2008
Location: Yarra Valley, Victoria
Reception Venue: Immerse in the Yarra Valley
Photographer: Hien

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01.04.08 : A wedding in the Yarra Valley

11.03.08 : Something different from wedding photography.

25.02.08 : Wedding of Amy and Dean

14.02.08 : Ultra low light, handheld photography : 14.02.08 : Ultra low light, handheld photography

I went to the “Night Safari” in Singapore not long ago, and when they said “no flash photography allowed”, my face lit up and a big grin developed on my face.

These photos are all taken at the limit of the camera and lens. To make things more difficult, they were taken from a moving carriage (I did get out for a while but was too lazy to walk around in the dark).

What is amazing about this camera is that most of these images are brighter than what you can see with your naked eye and wouldn’t even be possible if it weren’t for the HI-2 mode for ISO (25,600 ISO). ISO 25,600 is not possible on any camera except the Nikon D3. All these photos have not been edited in any way at all. Just resized (not cropped) to 1200pixels. Manual metering, VR, continuous focus with lock priority.

So what does this mean to you? For a wedding shoot, it means that the camera gear that I own is able to shoot in extremely low light without flash. Many churches exclude flash photography so any inferior camera gear will result in blurring of the photos and underexposure. The photos below represent a revolution in camera advancement and the actual photos themselves are brighter than what you can see. Although a church has considerably more light than this, I hope it's good to know that I have all the professional camera gear that can handle any low light situation with ease.

Photographer: Hien

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14.02.08 : Ultra low light, handheld photography

08.02.08 : A St Kilda beach wedding : 08.02.08 : A St Kilda beach wedding

Nadia & Anthony

Date: 2nd February 2008
Location: St Kilda, Australia.
Shoot: St Kilda beach
Reception Venue: Amello restaurant
Photographers: Hien and Mark

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08.02.08 : A St Kilda beach wedding

04.02.08 : A festive Greek wedding : 04.02.08 : A festive Greek wedding

Date: 30th December 2007
Location: Melbourne, Australia.
Shoot: Williamstown, Victoria.
Reception Venue: Taylors Lake Reception Centre
Photographers: Hien and Wen

Greek weddings to me are always about festivity, tradition and a huge family affair. The reception is filled with dance, joy and laughter all the way into the night.

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04.02.08 : A festive Greek wedding

05.01.08 : Why do you get full resolution images with your wedding package? : 05.01.08 : Why do you get full resolution images with your wedding package?

I've had both photographers and brides ask me why I provide a DVD of the full resolution images to all my shoots, including wedding shoots. Well, I thought I'd explain it in this blog.

Once upon a time when photographers all used film, their only means to an income was to charge a small fee for their work and then to sell the prints from the negatives they had. So in effect their role was both as a photographer and a salesman. Once the photos were taken, their job was to sell as many prints as they could with a very large mark up, and then retain the negatives for future print purchases. I guess that was fair back then, but now times have changed with digital as so many photos can be taken with no associated costs of film.

My way of thinking is different, and it is based on personal experience as well as for ease of photo-sharing on the internet. When I got married I looked everywhere for a professional photographer that supplied images that were fully edited and supplied on DVD. It was hard and I didn't find one that was even half decent! I decided this wasn’t fair and I’d do things different, as I'm here to service brides and NOT other photographers. Photographers will hate me for this, and brides, well they love me as they get ALL the images rather than budget what they can only afford in prints. Doing it this way, I’m more relaxed on the day and can concentrate on doing my job, which is to take the best pictures possible. The other plus is that all the images can be shared with friends and family all around the world, as all my images are hosted on the internet for no extra charge. They can even download the FULL size image and print it themselves! There is no marketing afterwards and no pressure to buy prints. If the bride is happy with my service (I call it a service) then she can refer me to anyone she knows who is getting married – that is my reward for a job well done.

I charge a fair fee for my time, expertise, art, photography and post-wedding editing and that's the ONLY charge the bride has to worry about. I easily spend over 50 hours after the wedding editing EVERY photo one at a time. Unlike other photographers, I do not do batch editing on the photos, as each is different and must be edited to its own accord. If requested on photos for the album, I’m also able to go a step further and do air brushing and advanced editing. Things like removing acne and making slight changes to the bride’s figure is all included within my service fee.

The world of photography has changed dramatically with digital now. The top of the line cameras all offer quality (dynamic range, high ISO, colour and resolution) that matches, if not exceeds film and the added bonus is that 2000 photos can easily be taken during the course of the day. What does that mean? It means that there’s less chance of photos with people blinking and more chance that more extra special candid photos are taken. It would be close to impossible to shoot great candids with film as the photographer is restricted by the number of shots taken, unless of course money was no object.

I hope this blog has provided you an insight into the way I run my business and reasons why I have chosen to supply images as I do. Thanks for reading!

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05.01.08 : Why do you get full resolution images with your wedding package?

03.02.08 : How secure are your photos? : 03.02.08 : How secure are your photos?

Up to quite recently, photographers had to rely on memory cards and hope it would not fail through the middle of a shoot or before it's uploaded onto a computer. Unfortunately, memory cards do fail for whatever reason and if one reads around photography forums, there are countless stories of cards failing (or formatted accidentally) and photographers losing photos of an entire day's shoot.

To avoid this, make sure your photographer shoots with a camera with a DUAL CARD slot and also make sure he/she puts it in DUAL WRITE mode rather than memory saving OVERFLOW mode. This means that the same photo is written to BOTH cards so in the event one fails, then the other can be used.

If the photographer does not have a camera with such a feature, ask them what they would do if the card should fail with all the photos on it. The real simple answer is that nothing can be done and it's just plain bad luck! It is rare that it will happen, but Murphy's law says it will sooner or later. Bringing a laptop along to backup photos is simply not an excuse as the chance of memory failure is still there, prior to copying it over to a laptop.

I shoot with two Nikon D3 bodies that have two memory card slots on each. There is only one other camera that has this feature and it's the Canon 1DS body.

After the shoot, I upload the photos onto the computer. I then make two copies of all the photos onto DVD and then leave a copy offsite (not where the images on the computer are held) and one onsite. This will avoid loss of images due to fire, theft or hard drive failure.

Once the initial backup of the original files are complete, I will start editing the photos. Once edited they're all uploaded onto my website for clients to view and share. Keep in mind these are all full size, high resolution images so that in an absolute worse case scenario that both DVD's are lost/stolen and images are lost from the computer, they're still available to be recovered from the net. My website hosting offers 4 levels of data backup and protection, so that can be considered full-proof!

Once all the images are edited, I make two copies on DVD, one for the client and one for myself and one copy is left on the computer HDD.

That is my backup procedure from start to end. You should be aware what procedure your wedding photographer uses and if he/she has a camera that has two memory slots.

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03.02.08 : How secure are your photos?

22.01.08 : Fred and Wendy's wedding.

25.12.07 : Cindy and Raj : 25.12.07 : Cindy and Raj

Cindy and Raj are good friends of my partner so it was a pleasure to photograph their wedding day. It's always easier to shoot weddings for those you know, as they're more relaxed and easier to communicate with. The flip-side of the coin is that you have to be absolutely confident enough to take the best shots possible without letting your friends down!

The location was at Caversham House in the Swan Valley (Perth), and was taken early last month.

Photographers: Hien and Damo

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25.12.07 : Cindy and Raj

24.12.07 : Ben and Tiff : 24.12.07 : Ben and Tiff

The photos below are of Ben and Tiffany's wedding taken a few weeks ago. I flew over to Perth and had to drive 2 hours south to Bunbury. Needless to say, it was an extremely long day, leaving Perth at 7AM and not returning until 1AM.

In the end it was worth the journey though , another beach wedding with great atmosphere. The heavy rain clouds and strong winds made for some awesome photography with the rain just holding off to cap a perfect day's shoot.

Photographer: Hien

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24.12.07 : Ben and Tiff

23.12.07 : A full moon wedding in Coffs Harbour : 23.12.07 : A wedding in Coffs Harbour

I shot this carefree wedding a few months ago and was delighted by the fact it wasn't another one in Melbourne or Perth!

Kate and Steve flew me over to Coffs Harbour and all the guests and I stayed at a really fabulous beachside resort for the weekend. The setting was unique as it was a location wedding on the beach AND on a night with the full moon out.

Photographer: Hien

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23.12.07 : A full moon wedding in Coffs Harbour

23.12.07 : New toys just in time for Xmas

23.12.07 : Let's blog! : 23.12.07 : Let's blog!

So I've decided to start blogging! Hopefully this section will give you insight into the work I do and give you an idea of the photography that results from a day's work.

I was going to upload all my weddings this year into the blog section but there's way too many so I'll choose a few weddings, and leave it at that. I'll use this blogging gallery to share wedding images from time to time along with anything else that's important to me.

The following photos are of Temika and Joel, a small and intimate wedding taken west of Melbourne a few months ago. It's an explicitly candid shoot with a relaxed feel to it.

I'll upload a few more weddings when I have time but for now, thanks for reading my first blog!

Photographer: Hien

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23.12.07 : Let's blog!