february 2013 | project 52

For January 2013 pictures (#1 to #4), click here.

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[#5] Red Filter.

[#6] Smile

[#7] Hurt

[#7] Dream

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I’ve been able to shoot weekly and have them posted up on Facebook every week, so I’m really proud of this achievement. It’s my first creative project spanning throughout the year, after all. I do hope, I’ll get more inspirations as the weeks come by. February flew by, and before I know it, March will to. I hope life has been good to you, and if it hasn’t have faith, it’ll come around soon. Love, Carmen.

Mhmm, good morning.

“This is the start of something beautiful
This is the start of something new - This, Ed Sheeran”

A few weeks back, I went on another early Sunday morning shoot (after shooting Kah Wai, read more here) with Alex, to catch the sunrise and then to shoot his friends. It was Crys, we were supposed to shoot but turns out we couldn’t fit our busy schedules together.

Shooting nature; the flowers and leaves is bit different with a micro four thirds but I still love how these pictures turn out to be.

So, this is Lynx.

And Suzie, with Lynx.

Our models, for the morning.

So, here is the thing. Alex and I, we, actually it was more of he, kept swapping the cameras with me throughout the shoot so, I can’t say I took all the pictures in this post but I did do the post-processing. :) Which was a joy to do, because the sun was so nice and there wasn’t much to edit.

These pictures are loves, not just because I took them but the camera that did is just gorgeously amazing. I’m smitten by the micro four thirds for portraitures, and I really cannot wait to get my hands on one. I’m pretty much thorn between the EPL-5 or the OMD-5; getting EPL would mean I get to buy a prime lens for portraits for the price of an OMD-5 with kit lens. But in exchange of that, I have to settle on a plain EPL-5 versus, the solid OMD. #iamsothornyouhavenofreakingidea

So, anyone up for shoot? Just let me know. Let’s do Sundays mornings.

So, good morning?

I think Sunday mornings should always be a lazy, stay-in one. It’s the day before Monday comes and if you have to work on Monday, Sundays are precious. Especially, the mornings and the extra few hours of sleep you can get. But then again, if you have friends like mine, in this case, my friend, Patrick who insists we shoot in the wee hours to the catch sunrise. If that is the case, you have to be up early to catch that. If you’re a girl, here is a reality check, you have to wake up even earlier to look good. [read: 5am for makeup]

Meet Patrick [the photographer] and Kah Wai [the model]. So, Kah Wai is my sister and Patrick, well actually his first name is Alex or in my blog, A. But I found out recently that his middle name is Patrick. So I thought if he is Patrick, I’m Spongebob. :) If you don’t get my logic, it’s okay. A lot of people don’t anyway. From the picture, you can see that we obviously missed sunrise, cause I had a bad start to the day – missed the first alarm, BB cream got on my beige shirt, had to change. My bad.

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So here are the pictures; this is my first attempt of portraiture with a four thirds camera. So, feedback would be awesome. :)

Alex getting the sister to relax and angle her face.

Kah Wai loved this shot. :) Alex used this picture to make a meme/9gag; “Nobody cares”. You can head over to his blog to see it.

Throughout the shoot, Alex and I shot by alternating the cameras (Panasonic GF1 and GX1). He had attached a long prime and a short prime to each of the cameras, and by varying the cameras it gave me a chance to have a feel of the lenses. Frankly. I am in love with the four thirds, and the lens. I cannot wait to get my own baby!

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And that’s about the pictures I took, by 9am the sun was up in all its glory and it got a little too hot to shoot. Besides, the lighting was too harsh then too.

Alex shot this picture and this was about 9ish am then already. It was one of our last better shots.

As shot by Alex.

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As much and as awesome as this cameras feel like, I am still thorn to get a DSLR or a four thirds. :( I know it’s essentially still a camera, but getting this new camera is like the next milestone for me. Haha. It’s like a commitment I make towards my pass for photography, which is why I do hope I get a good camera.

Photo: Just because I can.

Nearing the end of March, I mentioned here that I collaborated with Joe and Pearl for a photo shoot. I posted up the first picture of the shoot titled; What I am, Who am I about two weeks ago and only now, I’m posting up the second picture from the shoot. (Been busy with exams!) Actually, this picture is already on Joe’s and Pearl’s FB pages and in fact, I already shared it on Facebook as well. So, you might have already seen it there. Heh.

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Anyways, before the shoot, I actually met up with both Joe and Pearl to discuss about the themes, ideas and the feel of the shoot. Also, since this was my first time so it’ll be better to have pre-production meeting, just so I know what I’m getting myself into. Haha. Since it was a collaboration, we were trying to merge the three elements into the shoot. We talked about make-up, nails, clothes …. basically the usual stuff.

And then, I asked about my hair. I brought that up because as you know, I naturally have frizzy hair but I rebonded it. At that time of the meeting, I was deciding whether to rebond my hair or not. So, I asked and I told them just how fluffy-ly huge my hair could go. I thought rebonding my hair would look neater, but Pearl thought it’ll be harder to style and work with rebonded hair, since it’s flat iron straight.

In the end, we decided on keeping my hair as it is and……. and……. to puff my hair even more, for the dramatic effect! Hehe. I must say that this was the first time anyone saw just how huge my hair could go to. Of course, for the shoot, it was hair sprayed so it looks bigger. I remember Joe telling Pearl, “I want it like a sunflower!”

I have some of my friends telling me I don’t look nice with all that puffy huge hair, or as Tarrant have aptly named it; lion’s mane. But really, I love this shot. For the first time, I’m embracing my puffy hair, just because I can. Jelly?

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Photographed by: Joe Low

Make up + Hair by: Pearl Tan extraODDinary

Nails: Nature's Republic RD501

 

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Photo : What I am, who am I.

Remember my last post about the shoot with Joe Low and Pearl Tan? If you haven’t read it yet, read it here! Anyway, Joe decided to post-process a few photos in advance for me, so that I could publish it on my blog. (Heh, thanks Joe!) So, this is one of the pictures from the set. I’ll be posting the images one by one on my blog, so will Joe and Pearl in their FB pages. Do hit them a like to be the first to see the pictures. :)

Look at me now. Do you remember who am I, what I am (once to you) or what we used to be?

Photographed by: Joe Low

Make up + Hair by: Pearl Tan extraODDinary

Nails: Cosmic Inspired by Carmen Hong (Me!)

By the way, the design of the nails is similar to the Cosmic Inspired nail art I did late last month. ;) If you want to see more pictures of the nail design or read my blog entry, you can just click on the link.

Photo Shooting with Joe and Pearl.

Just yesterday, I managed to do something from my Bucket List (It is a list of things that I want to do before I die.) It’s no surprise about what I did since my title says it all. I did a shoot, but it is not the usual grab-a-camera-smile-and-shoot type. It was a creative shoot with make-up, lighting, posing and it is almost similar to a real real shoot. Except we had more time to change outfits and make up, also to set up the places.

 

It is amazing to be able to work with Joe Low; Photographer and Pearl Tan extraODDinary; Make-up Artist because they are both very talented, awesome and totally fun to work with! This photoshoot was actually a collaboration with between the three of us; I did my nails for this shoot.

“ To be honest, I was so afraid I’ll screw this shoot because I’ve got to admit that I’m awkward in front of the cameras. Trust me, the pictures from my first shoot was kind of embarrassing because at that time, I really didn’t know how to smile or even which was my better angle. Then, I went on for another shoot, and I must have screwed my face so horribly that the photographer cropped my face out completely from the set of pictures. :( Or maybe, it was the idea. Nevertheless, my confidence completely dropped after that and I scrapped any dreams of future shoots.”

But I really loved the portraiture shots that Joe took (you can check them out in his Facebook page) and hence, when I had the opportunity to shoot with Joe and Pearl, I decided to give it another shot. And as it turns out, it was definitely a great experience for a newbie like me. It was a different ball game all together because we’re doing stuff that I haven’t tried before; knowing my angles, holding my pose, maintaining the expression and getting into the mood. It feels very professional but at the same time, we had tonnes of fun along the way.

 

I’m pretty excited to see the outcome of the shoot and how the pictures turn out to be. We did three different themes (I don’t know if they are called themes, but yea.) and I love the energy/expression/mood that I had for the first two. But I felt for the third one (full body shots type), I kinda lost my focus and concentration. (Or it could be the dress, because, I cannot pose in that dress. It makes me too self conscious, according to my friend, Alex.) So yea, we’ll see how that turns out to be. 

 

Anyway, Joe will be post-processing them first and the pictures would be uploaded to his FB as well as Pearl’s and my blog too. Well, we did go through some of the pictures in Joe’s camera and they look fantabulous…. so, do look out for it!

 

Smokey eyes + BW triangular nails for the last look. The eye make-up is too awesome, right? It looks way better on Joe’s camera, btw. :)

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UPDATE: I have posted the pictures from the shoot up and they can be found on these pages; What I am, Who I am and Just Because I Can.

That Film Photography Shoot, I had.

For the full album, click here. Credits goes to Alex Leong. :) Thanks Jen Yin for hooking us up.

That point in life.

“There are some things in life, if I could..if I could, I would change how it had to happened. Some were in my control, some not but in the end I would regret some the choices I made, and how I wished, how I wished it could turn the other way around. I find myself wishing, willing time to just miraculously turn back just so it could happened the way I wanted it to be. But it would not, so I’m left with either wistful thinking or learning to accept that past mistakes make me the person I am today. Most often than not, I find it hard to accept that past events is a past and there are the futures one that was worth the time pondering upon.”

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I think this post is a bit rather overdue as I had a short photoshoot quite some time ago with Alex. This wasn’t a fashion shoot or anything, we just decided for sort of a test shoot. Hence, the extremely plain and boring outfit which kind of makes me look like I’m anorexic. :S Note to self – Never wear spaghetti tops for shoots!

Also, if you must know, it was my first time so I must admit that my expression wasn’t one of the best out there. Hahaha. But I did have a lot of fun, despite the mosquitoes (11 bites!). Shots were taken near the Bukit Jalil LRT with Panasonic GF1 and a few lenses which I do not know the specifications. Heh.

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The credits for the pictures in this post goes to Alexander Rudra.

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I’ve got two more pictures which I thought was really nice and would be such a waste if I didn’t post it up here as well. These portraits were taken recently when we got to meet up over lunch. Honestly, I almost always never have the confidence when my pictures are being taken. Simply because I would smile too widely which would end up with me looking ugh-lee. Yes, please. Someone can just smack me and tell me I’m too bloody self conscious already. (Confession: To be honest, I never really liked the face of my shape, chubby cheeks! But I have learnt to accept it now. I’m 19 and it is already time to look in the mirror and shift from saying ‘Can I have a sharper face?’ to ‘This is my face.’) Heh.

:) Smiling without teeth. Eee.

Dreamy look? My skin looks so flawless! Heh. Post processed (I think?) and BB cream.

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So, just the other day my dad asked why do I want to go for shoots? I answered for fun, but actually, I do have another reason. But I really don’t know how to put it into words right here. Maybe I’ll tell you, if you asked me in person? :)

Shadow Shoots.

There is something about this picture that emits a rather sombre mood, don’t you feel so?

Personally, shooting in the shadows is awesome. Why? Simply because it can’t capture the facial expression. Quite ironic to say so, as facial expressions are quite crucial for portraits. But I do feel, body movements and posture are just important to make a picture great. I think the pictures in this set is a form of creative photography. What do you think? ;)

Rag Doll Attempt by Kimberly.

Rag Dolls Attempt by myself and Kim. (One of my favourite pics!)

Again, I’ll say that this impromptu shoot has been pure fun for myself and Kim. I’ll be honest and say that I find myself getting conscious whenever I’m in a photoshoot. Somehow, I always imagined the picture would turn out ugly. Hence, the lack of confidence would show in the pictures too. :( But for this shoot, screw my expression cause you can’t see my face. Hahaa.

 Left: Posing Attempt Right: Hourglass figure!

I managed to drag my sis, Clarrisha for a few pictures as well. So happens, she was wearing a bodysuit. Hence, you get a model with curves! LOL. Unlike, my shots with Kim, since we were both wearing dresses.

Posing Attempt Part 2.

Superhero To The Rescue?

Oh, yes. We even managed to drag my brother into doing this mini shadow photoshoot. We asked him to give a pose, and these were what he thought of doing. :) Superhero? Hahaa.

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I haven’t seen the hyperactive Kimberly Hong since like February this year and even then, she wasn’t hyper. Possibly because we were in the public area and she’ll be sure to get stares if she starts screaming away. Hahaa, So, pictures below were multiple silly shots taken at one go. Note: They look absolutely silly and I’m amazed I’m even posting this up. :)

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That’s all for now, loves. I've been a little busy lately with an upcoming test. Usually, these tests are no biggie but since I’m currently in the Professional Stage of ICAEW, I should be taking them seriously. Plus, they are in written form questions. And very different from the CFAB multiple choice questions! But I believe that, against all odds, I can do it. Because nothing is impossible. BUT I’M FREAKING OUT NOW. Simply, because I have no mood to study. :O