Great Experience from "MAS Let's Go Now" Photography Workshop

It's just happened that I browsed through The Star newspaper last week and MAS is organising a photography workshop for photography enthusiasts on 27 June 2009. Entry condition is simple, just submit a travel photo (your favourite of course!) and simply complete the slogan and send it to their facebook page....there you go...done.

Only 35 lucky winners will be selected to attend this workshop, and I was lucky enough to be picked as one of them! I was truly excited since this is the first time ever I won a contest, and my first ever photography workshop. Just so happened, two of my colleagues were also selected for this workshop, what a coincidence, there was about 90+ entries and 3 of us were in the list....

I excitedly packed my camera and notepad for the workshop, and this morning we gathered at Studio V, 1 Utama at 9.30am. The workshop was conducted by a very experience photographer (21 years of experience, wow!), Mr Lai Voon Loong. He is the senior photographer with The Star, who also has vast experience in underwater photography.

The workshop started off with a basic introduction to photography. Voon explained to us about the basic rules, how to get correct exposure with shutter speed and aperture, ISO, how to read histogram (great! I never really know how to read a histogram before). Then he went into photo composition and rule of thirds by showing some photo examples. It was easy to understand by seeing the photos and we can really see the difference using rule of thirds.

Other factors such as simplicity also matters, where we shall keep our photo background simple to avoid distraction to the main subject. Leading lines also can be used, where we could use 'line' leading to the main subject such as fences, branches, roads, streams, etc. He also taught us about portrait photography and then we were divided into group for practical photography. We were tasked to take photos and came back with the best shots and chose the best for discussion purpose. The whole workshop took about 3 hours and ended with Q&A.

It was truly a great experience for beginner like me, where not only learnt some tricks and knowledge from Voon himself, but also get to know other experience photographers from the workshop. It was also a platform for information and knowledge sharing among us. Besides that, we also made new friends who have the same hobby and passion!

Thanks to MAS for organising such a great workshop and also million thanks to Voon for sharing his expertise with us. Yeah, it is great, and it's entirely free of charge!

Sun, Sea, Sand @ Perhentian Island

3S ~ sun, sea, sand…and probably could add another S for sunburn.

We were staying at New Cocohut @ Perhentian Besar Island and also went to Perhentian Kecil, Lang Tengah & Redang Island.

These photos were taken at the beach somewhere near Tuna Bay Resort & Abdul’s Chalet. All photos were taken using Canon EOS 1000D with standard lense 18-55mm.

Wooden deck chair in front of the beach


Beach sandal

Water taxi point




Jetty

Turning to black and white has better effect than color for this photo

Long sandy beach

Sunset

The next day we went to Redang Island, photo taken in front of Laguna Redang.

The pink hut at the back is the famous “Mor Mor Cha” Inn in the Hong Kong movie

Bright parasols

Café facing the beach at Laguna Redang

Thereafter our boat took us to Lang Tengah and we had some time to stroll around Redang Lang Resort before back to chalet at Perhentian Besar Island

Back to our chalet and stroll along the beach. Had our cool fresh juice at Abdul’s Chalet

On the 3rd day, we took water taxi to Long Beach at Perhentian Kecil Island. The famous Bubu Long Beach Resort is situated here. Long Beach is famous & well known for its nice long beach but we were truly disappointed. The beach is full with rubbish and dirty water from the chalets flowing to the sea. After having our lunch (quite pricey though) we proceeded to the hiking trail to the windmill.

Windmill

What a breathtaking view we discovered from here! Worth our sweats after climbing for 40 minutes reaching the Lagoon.

Perhentian Island Resort

New Cocohut Chalet’s restaurant view

~ May 2009~

Photography World - A New Beginning

I always wonder why some people spend so much time and money in photography. Why not just use digital compact camera? Point and shoot, easy, handy, convenient. I had my faithful Nikon coolpix 4200 for almost 6 years, and satisfied with it....

Until I saw my friends' photos using dslr.....beautiful and amazing photos! Still.....it's a hassle to bringing a bulky camera around during travelling... nah!

In office, some colleagues also into photography. They brought magazines related to photography and started to browse it. The more I read the magazines, the more I fell in love with world of photography. Just then, I decided to explore in photography and doing some search in internet...

Composition? Rule of third? Aperture, shutter priority, depth of field? What the hell are these? These words are such alien to me....I realized in photography world, it is just not about taking beautiful picture, but it's a learning curve, we continue to learn and it never ends. So much to learn....

Then I decided to buy my first dslr....which model? Nikon, Canon, Sony, Olympus? nah......headache. After some research, I shortlisted Nikon D60, Canon EOS 1000D and EOS 450D. With some consultations and advices (also due to budget constraint), I was determined to buy Nikon D60.

8 May 2009 ~ I went to Sg Wang Plaza to look for my D60 after surveying some cheaper stores in town. "Nikon D60 please" I asked the shop assistant. Went with my friends (who is into photography as well, he is using a Canon 400D). He explained to me that we need to buy lenses in future and that cost a bomb and more important than the camera body. Well....looking at the Nikon lenses price, in the final 10 minutes, I decided to buy Canon EOS 1000D instead!

Well, here I am into a new beginning ~world of photography. I am still a beginner, so much things to learn, to explore.....with my new baby EOS 1000D..... :)