So, here is my announcement…

I will be a guest speaking at WPPM coming Saturday 14th August at Berjaya Time Square Hotel, Kuala Lumpur. I will be speaking at Platform 2, Session B from 11am to 12.30 pm. It’s not too late! You may sign up to be a WPPM member NOW!

I’ll be running through and walk you through my wedding day workflow. Most of my weekend are spent shooting weddings with different couple, from all walks of life, be it a Chinese Ceremony or the vibrant Sikh Wedding. I’ll be sharing about how I am able to produce consistent results for my wedding clients.

So, do comeby and feel free to pick my brain. I don’t think I am able to fill up the entire 1 hour 1/2 session, so there would be bound to have Q&A sessions with you guys. Bring it on, but please be gentle. I am still very new to the game .

I am going to be spending most of my Saturday at WPPM so, please say hie! Don’t be strangers.

See you guys soon!

Hello everyone,

Just a quicknote to let you guys know that we will be at Pullman Resort, Putrajaya comes 26th and 27th June 2010 with some of our wedding partners showcasing our latest work.

Please come and find us. Those who missed the DCIM talks, please come and have a piece with me on both of the dates. My talk is 4.30 PM for half hour. Do come and check us out!

Thanks.

I started the talk and welcome everybody for taking their time off.

I’ve always love this slide – I like the phrase Love brought us all together. I use this phrase for thank you notes (which I have neglected to send them out quite a while) to my client. Cos, their wedding + my love of photography brought us together. I know, I am quite a literal person. I thought it is nice. In the case of us at DCIM that day, Love brought us all together, and I mean our love for photography.

I quickly introduce myself and my family. I’ve quickly stated how creative my family is and perhaps why I am doing what I am doing today.

Here I am as a kid. Great set of pictures I thought. Who remembers the red color tvset they own in the 80s? I remember this tvset was kinda popular back then. I am wearing the lady bird round neck tshirt, which I think many kids has them as well. in the 3rd picture, was me running around – probably at Genting Highlands. I remember as a kid, that going to Genting was such joy. Going Genting Highlands means KFC in the cold. Yummz…

I explained that my mom was the creative person. She drew up a drawing from a featured wall in our old house.

There were a few goals I wanted to archive giving this talk. I wanted to share some of my insight of my recent shoot to keep people excited about wedding photography, and perhaps inspired with the imagery that I have to show.

The first story was my recent shoot in Perth. I was introducing the team and the journey path we took for the shoot.

There is plenty going on for this shot. Angie, my make up artist for the Perth shoot was beautician – whom she took care of my bride’s look, and at the same time, she was my photography assistant assisting with the vail. She was also my potter, holding my biggest and my baddest lens all the same time trying to get out of a shot.

I know what you are thinking. You are saying that she’s wonderwoman and Jon, you should be paying her well, if not – stop exploiting her talent! Let’s just say we are in this together and we both want the shoot to be as successful as possible. Saying so, her role at the end of day is still an make up artist. I work terribly hard myself to be my own photographer assistant.

Unlike a commercial shoot, where the client probably has deeper pockets and higher return of investment, wedding shoot has no return of investment and usually the budgets are pretty dry. We work with what we have.

I’ve also featured Lead You On – Time Lapse editing during the talk. You may watch it as below:

Lead You On – Time Lapse Editing from Jon Low on Vimeo.

The segment was geared to explain how me, as a wedding photographer work in a small team and move around shooting weddings. I went on and explain what’s in my camera bag when I go shooting.

I was showcasing Dancing In the Rain portfolio next. I was selling the idea of having a concept – which beats the hell of couples asking if we provide 100s and 1000s of gowns to shoot. Dancing in the rain was shot in front of my house’ porch. In the case of dancing in the rain, I found inspiration from the final dance by George Sampson, the winner of the British Got Talent show in 2008. He was dancing in the rain, and I thought it would be nice to replicate for a wedding shoot.

I would love to be doing a themed wedding shoot! Hook me up if there is anything

Out of this world is a portfolio which explains my travel and hike to our very own Niah Cave in Miri. This is one of the shoot which sometimes when I look back, I wish we’ve have bigger budget for more crew and lights to accomplish extraordinary pictures. By itself already, I felt I have done fair.

With determination, and even more so for the bride and groom, we hike in to the cave prior the shoot, which took half our lives away. It was pretty adventurous and out of this world literally. My question to the floor was “How adventurous are you?”

Wedding Day is by far my week to week challenge shooting brides and grooms on their auspicious day.

I was showcasing pre ceremonial and portrait shoot during the wedding day. I thought that family portraits can be done tastefully and believable if it is done right. I love story telling photographs, and I love good looking pictures. Hence, I would direct my bride and groom doing certain things they are already doing, better. I would take time off to take their family portraits – all in a wedding day.

And to quote perhaps, the masters of wedding photography I’ve learnt from. Are you taking pictures? Or are you creating them? I buy into that quote and it really defines how I shoot wedding days to date.

All these showcases and stories – from Perth, to Dancing in the Rain, Out of this World and perhaps Wedding Day has one thing in common. The Bride and Groom spend ginormous amount of time, effort and investment to put themselves out all in the name of wedding photography, and I started to question the intention myself. What were their motivation?

Is it really the trend where everyone is taking wedding photographs, that you need to have photographs for yourself? Even if so, why the effort?

I got myself involve with wedding photography, and I started to be curious with what my old folks has gone through back in the days when they got married. I dug through their 3R photographs that they keep rather loosely in a shoe box in a cupboard for many many years. One reason why they were in a shoe box was due to a flood back when I was staying in my old house. The very famous Jerry Ghionis told us in the class – if there were fire, you would probably save your wedding albums first. And I thought how ridiculous it was then – but, hey those 3R photos last through to date , and I am glad.

I took a photo of some of the photograph, and started including my old folks wedding pictures into the talk I gave back in Prince Hotel. My mom was there to see her photographs being presented. I don’t know about my mom, but I felt good that she listened in.

This is probably one reason out of million of reasons why photography is so important in people’s life. I could relate. Arguably, I am bias because I am in the industry.

Wouldn’t it be nice if one day, your kid found a photograph of you and said that “Wow, mommy and daddy walking on the moon!” It’s so cool.

But really? Is that important? How about for generations to come? How great are we preserving moments to share it to our grandkids? Do we age like fine wine?

Do you know what is definate?

We all move on and grow up. Time passes on and age catch us up.

I wouldn’t have known that I had really great childhood. All because my mom and dad really cared for me. Memory can only serve us so much. It changed the way I feel about my old folks. My mom, as beautiful as she is, is a mother of 3 and she age. She kept reminding us kids that she was once upon a time a beautiful and attractive woman. Well, after looking at the photograph. I am sold. I then know my dad has good taste. .

I realised then, photographs has made a big impact in my life.

It’s an important realization. I thought. It changes the way I approach my job, my client. I realize how much impact I would make at the very beginning of the couple’s marriage life. I realize how much value I am able to produce for my clients. It changes the way I value my work, and approach the people I want to be shooting the way I would want to shoot. I started to attract people who get my way and understand what I do.

And as for me, the best part about the realization is that I am just at the beginning of my journey. I showcased my recent work I’ve done in a slideshow to end the presentation.

The Journey from Jon Low on Vimeo.

What’s brewing? RedNinja.tv ! I am participating in the camp, and will be running a short session during the camp. The camp is anchor by Wiki Lee, I love his leet video + photography slideshows that he has done, and I personally love his warm feel in the wedding portraits which I myself would love to learn from the master himself! Am looking forward.

There are 5 of us Ninjas who will be running the camp – Jenny Sun (Jenny Sun Photography), Grace Tan (Stories.my) , Alex (Integricity) , and Mark Leo ( Stories.my)

We are at our last pace of registration for the camp. It will be on the 24th and 25th April 2010 over at Corus Paradise PD. We have plenty that we prepare for the participants, and I bet you, it would be fun.

Remember to sign up now!!!

RSVP by 6th March 2010. – Patrick : Patrick [@]savvy-brides.com , or call the number in the brouchers attached below.

Date : 7 March 2010
Time : 3.00 pm – 4.00 pm

Venue :

Savvy Brides,
21-2 (First Floor), Jalan PJU 5/21,
The Strand, Kota Damansara,
47810 Petaling Jaya. {Map}

Who should attend : Brides and Grooms to be

Those who missed my talk, I’ve re-recorded it after I my presentation. It isn’t as interactive as it was live, but I think I’ve got my point across nevertheless. I think I sound funny tho on recording myself – and somewhat monotonous but anyhow, for the benefit of people who try to make it for the talk, and for people who missed the talk, I hope this will serve some purpose for you guys!Will be better on the next recording!

Jon Low Studios from Jon Low on Vimeo.

We participated in Princely Wedding Fair 2010. Thank you for coming up and seek us. You guys made the booth exciting and great to hang out. We’ve got family, friends, potential clients, clients, vendors, fans, and many more that I wish I could simply catch up with. Wedding Fair like this are busy affair for us, and my apology if we haven’t gotten to speak to you much.

Our crew were fantastic, we had my family and my staff supporting the fair, and their help made the whole fair much pleasant for Jon Low Studios.

We have new product launch, and this is one of them, brand new spanking canvas print, available for purchase!

I presented publicly as a wedding photographer for the 2nd time. Many came, thank you. I hope it was a pleasant.The fair was pleasant because Prince Hotel’s Shirley and her crew were fantastic, together with the rest of the vendor and I applaud you guys for a job well done. We felt at home, and great.

It was a blast, and it was a successful soft launch for Jon Low Studios. You guys are awesome!

We had a great time in Melbourne having our brides vacationing and shooting, and we have beautiful photographs to showcase at Princely Wedding Fair 2010. Come and check out our Autumn in Melbourne 2009 portfolio! Catch a glimps of what we did in Melbourne 2009.

I will be conducting a 30 minutes workshop for our client as per flyer above. I will be sharing some of recent photography assignment and some sneak peak to our new portfolio – San Francisco 2009!

Come to our booth regardless, and we will be open from 11am through 5pm on the 9th and 10th of January 2010.

RSVP by replying on this blog entry.

More information about Princely Wedding Fair 2010 here:

Check out our flyers here:

The contest entry form is available for download via awp’s website : http://www.awpmalaysia.org/pdf/ContestQUESTIONS.pdf or visit www.awpmalaysia.org and www.weddingsmalaysia.com for more information