jan shim and my casual portrait shoot

Following last Saturday's Miri Photo Borneo gathering, I was greatly encouraged by the sharings and tips given by fellow members. I subsequently followed up with newfound "photo kaki" buddies Alex Ling and Huasing - both were friendly and forthcoming with their tips and thoughts - I'm really appreciative to these two young men!

During mid-week I stumbled upon a fantastic blog from neighbouring Seria; Shimworld. What struck me initially was the heavy traffic the blog has; more than 400,000 hits since Nov 2006! Wow, this is not easy - if you are a blogger you know what I mean. For an IT professional who took up photography seriously just five years ago, Jan Shim deserves worthy praises! His postings are well-written (who says good photographers are bad writers?, haha!) and the photos so amazing! Through my network in Brunei, I managed to get hold of Jan's number and of course, I unshamelessly called to commend him, haha! I was equally delighted to find out that Jan is warm and humble, typical of the courteous Bruneian we know. You will be encouraged with Jan's story in his posting of "The Accidental Artist."

Yesterday morning I was consumed with good vibes and decided put in a conscientious effort to practising my shoot. Portraits are my favourites and yes, it's so hard to capture special moments!

Here are the fruits of my labour - I hope you like the photography and your comments are most welcome! xD

beauty in the eye of the beholder

No, no ... the title of this post has nothing to do with romance and Valentine's Day, haha!

It's the title of today's photo shoot for the Miri Photo Borneo Community (PB) members. Having joined PB only last week, I grabbed the opportunity to participate in its 5th gathering - thanks to our wonderful host and Adobe Photoshop "Guru" Eddie! We were scheduled to meet at 10:00 am and fortunately our host was "unavailable"! That gave us more time to know each other better and share about our mutual interests. Photography enthusiasts (in Miri) are a warm and friendly lot, xD.

I must thank Garry who prompted me to join PB last week - initially I had some reservations but after meeting fellow members Ng, Huasing, Cyn, Alex, Philip and Gerald, I knew I've made the right decision for sacrificing my once-a-week badminton game!

Before starting the photo shoot, we had a quick lunch at one of the coffee shops at Boulevard Commercial Centre. Here's the group photo with one of our volunteer models.



I took this photo while waiting my stewed duck rice to be served, xD.



Before the photo shoot started, I took another group photo with the two volunteer models joining us.



Our volunteer model - thanks to her!



It was a first for me to experience portraiture photography in a group and with props. To say the least, it was quite an eye-opener for a beginner like me, xD.



The second part of the session was on Adobe Photoshop. Thanks to our host Eddie and Alex ( he also gave me one-to-one awesome tips on my SLR), we managed to cover some important basics.



For the closing, I thanked our host and models on the behalf of the group - yes, it was a wonderful afternoon!

What a Valentine Day! xD