In a sikh wedding, was a chinese boy wondering around with his camera anticipating what to photograph the next moment. The chinese boy seems unfitting in the whole crowd of bright red, green, blue saris dancing and moving around celebrating Amrit’s wedding. Unlike the Sikh’s, this chinese boy is petit in size, and had single eye-lid, mata sepet, and have the least hair amongst the men in the crowd. He seems unfitting, except he fit in quite okay.

He’s there for a job. Anticipating moments, almost knowing what’s going to happen next. It’s foreign to the chinese boy’s eyes. That’s probably how it works out so well for him. The uncommon sight was a blessing. He sees things differently from the rest.

He knows how the Sangeet. The dances, the celebrations and the laughter

He knows the Jago. The chinese boy find it quite fascinating and made many many portraits of people play acting, making fun and teasing the bridal party.

A sikh wedding never a day occasion. The celebration last through the week. The wedding day is the highlight. This is the day the couple are officiated and married, in the eyes of law, and the god.

The chinese boy knows the wedding details. The ivory bangles, the henna and the whole load of accessories the bride wears on a wedding day. It’s elaborate, tedious but it’s fun and pretty in photographs. This what makes a Sikh bride, a sikh bride. Their attention to details.

Amrit’s mother.

With the sibling dressed in their cultural custome, makes portraitures so fun to explore. The chinese boy overjoys.

The chinese boy were intriged with portraits of the bride and kids, and indulge in portraits on the wedding.

The chinese boy love photos of pleasant smiles and laughter, like any other wedding he shoots.

The ceremonies were over. When the families were emotional.

What an emotional moment after the wedding. The chinese boy stood back and observe the happening. This is the very best time to create some masterpieces like this.

The chinese boy were happy with the week’s work. It was a long week for wedding. Covering wedding that last through a week will never be an easy feat. The chinese boy completed the wedding feeling all tired, but satisfied.

Oh yes, the chinese boy did not feature the groom. There were many many photographs taken, and the chinese boy took most of the bride’s photographs, hence the feature.

And I love to be that chinese boy in the Sikh Wedding.

I like shooting wedding days. I like the challenge to see a frame where people whom are not holding the camera would see. I like those small little pleasant angles which so many photographers like myself are able to spot. It’s like almost like a secret society, where photographers are able to see small little details like a reflection in making their master pieces. Simple, yet quite amazing cos you wouldn’t see if you ain’t looking for it.

I like that in a wedding day, a simple gesture makes a great photograph. An act of reaching out to a hanged dress is probably something what anybody would do daily, but for a wedding gown, probably it is just once in a lifetime.

I like that in a wedding day, the bride can be a little bit bossy to reach out to her family and friends and to do things where usually the bride wouldn’t have her way. I like that wedding day one could feel so special about themselves – and that’s perfectly okay.

I like that in wedding day, that everybody dress up to look good as pretty as the bride or as good looking as the groom; whilst sharing a little moment with people that meant most.

I like that the little girls are smiling.

I like that in a wedding, the bride’s smile is the sweetest in my camera. I like that in a wedding, the bride’s eye sparkles. I like that in a wedding, a bride would look like this awaiting for the groom to arrive to reach out for her, except that I actually just pose her next to some beautiful light.

I like that in a wedding day we  look upon greater power to seek blessing, hopes and prayers or simply be a witness of joyous moment. I like that in a wedding day, despite all the chaotic wedding planning and execution, god has his way to reassure that everything would be okay.

I like that in a wedding day, people smiles.

I like that in a wedding day, that everything look pretty and cosy.

I like that in a wedding, everybody greets you while walking down the red carpet as super star. I like that you are in the limelight literally, blinded with the spotlight just like how Angelina Jolie or Brat Pitt would feel all the time.

I like that in a wedding, the little girls would one day be in your shoes and gowns, and be swept off their feet with their own prince charming.

I like that in a wedding like Sue Ann and Darren is a wedding to remember and a marriage that would be a lifetime. Congratulations.

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!

I took time off in London a couple of days after shooting Joanne & Matthew’s wedding portraits around London city. We had plenty of walking, and a good portfolio to showcase – but that’s for later post. Coming soon, I promise.

London is a beautiful city. I love the feel, like no other. So, here are some lifestyle shootout in London during my short trip walking around with Joanne and Matthew, and by myself.

These photographs were given the Dave Hill treatment. Well, not as great as his, but somewhat a little bit like that.

Heck, their taxi’s are stylish. They even have a cool name for it. Black Cat. Behind the cat is the Big Ben clock tower.

What an iconic London thingy. The underground tube station. Amazing branding which is recognised throughout the world.

This is the view of Regant Street while the sunsets at 10ish pm. It’s summer, we get more daylight then we need.

Regent street by day, with carnival. It was Sunday when I walked around, and the street was close down for carnival.

We just notice (I know it’s kinda like 2 weeks already) that we were not receiving new enquiries via the web since 8th of June. The forms that you guys filled up were saved in our database without notifying us like usual. Our beloved google decided that my own email on our web server as spam, and your enquiry did not show up on our workflow.

We apologize if you were waiting on us, and would like you to know that the problem has been resolved since. You should have been contacted, and if we miss you somehow, i would need to trouble you to fill up the form again.

We usually reply our emails within 48 hours.

Thank you for all the warm words in the emails, and dropping by to say hello and telling us that you love our work. These has been really great motivation for us to grow as a new studio!

Love you guys lots!

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.

Last March, we flew in to Langkawi and shot Emily and Gavin’s wedding over at Four Seasons, Langkawi. The couple flew in from Sydney with their family and spent the week chilling and preparing for the gorgeous beach wedding. There are plenty in the collection to showcase, and it’s hard to select a couple to showcase here on the blog. Here are probably some of my many many favourite shot happened at Emily & Gavin’s Wedding.

Detail. There were 3 gorgeous brides maid and the bride on the wedding day.

Love the flowers!

Dad was patiently waiting for Emily to get ready.

And I pull him aside for a nice portrait.

Love these group shots after the ceremonial proceeding.

We went crazy.

Really!

Valerie & Yu Lin from Jon Low on Vimeo.

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.

We are relaunching Engagement shoot! I’ve been doing engagement shoot which coupled with Wedding portraits when I travel mostly, and I thought it would be nice to be able to shoot casual portraits like this near where I stay. Plenty of good light from where I am.

Spend 2 hours with me in the morning or late evening to get these wonderful photographs, which you then can upload these proofs on your facebook album, flickrs or you may even print them 4R. If you so decide with purchasing albums with Jon Low Studios, we will bring out the finesse of the photograph so it look amazing in the albums that we carry.

Let us hear you out. Fill in the Contact Us page and we will get back to you soon!