Made the cover for Human Resources Magazine, AUG-2012

Made the cover (and also the inside spread) of Human Resources Magazine (Malaysia) for August 2012 issue. This was shot at our studio. Image features Legion Richardson, Director of Human Resources, McDonald's Malaysia. Art Directed by Khairul Hasbullah from Lighthouse Independent Media KL. I couldn't have done this without the help of two of my assistants, Azwan Fakaruddin and Zulhelmi Misran. Thanks guys!

Behind The Scenes tour-Product Photography

Hello All, here's another quick tour of my product photography shoot for a designer shoe brand, GlamRockChic. Video shot with Sony Xperia Pro. English subtitles available. Please press the CC (closed captions) button on the YouTube player bar for English subs. Enjoy!

Behind The Scenes of a Simple Food Photography Workshop

Hi All,

As I mentioned in my previous post, here's the Behind The Scenes video I put together of our recent Simple Food Photography Workshop on 23-JUN-2012. For those who couldn't make it, I hope this video will give you some idea of what's involved in the workshop and hopefully I'll see you all in the next workshop, ya? Enjoy!

Been Super Busy

Hi All,

I've been super busy that I haven't been updating my blog for ages! I'm sorry for that. Lately my weekends have been filled by watching the CreativeLIVE workshop all the way from Seattle. I'm not done watching them because there's still a lot more workshops to come.

Recently the workshops that touched my soul were Sue Bryce's Glamour Photography Workshop, Sandy Puc's Baby Photography Workshop and Zach & Jody Wedding Photography Workshop. What touched me the most is how they shared their worst experiences in the business of photography and how they recovered. 8-hours each day for 3-days workshop really put me into an overdrive mode. There's a lot of things to be done, and I feel like 24-hrs in a day is just not enough.

Generally, on Sunday, I plan out my schedule for the rest of the week, and since the new year, I've not come across a day in a week that is not filled up with things to do! What frustrates me is that there were fantastic work that I've done during the past year and I haven't even shared them with my readers.

Amongst things that are due are:

1. Hosting a food photography workshop for 2012
2. Re-painting the studio
3. Pitch for new clients in the industrial sector
4. Upgrade my website
5. Update my portfolio

Anyhow, the image above is a screen capture of the environment in the CreativeLIVE venue, which most likely is in Chase Jarvis' studio in Seattle, Washington. I love the space, and the reason I put this image up is that I would like to have a space like this some day. Currently our studio ceiling space is not as high as in the photo. Even more, we do not have natural light coming in the studio. However, I do intend to make our studio at FOTOMOMO as multipurpose as possible.

With that note, Thank You!

How I did the Campbell's shoot

Recently I've been pretty tied up with several work, which involved our studio and some personal work. It's been a long while since my last upload and I've been procrastinating the updates, until today it hit me that the update will never get done unless i just yank it. So, here goes.

My latest work involves the FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) category. In this assignment, I was hired by an advertising agency to photograph Campbell's soup products, which is under the Kimball Malaysia's distribution. What I'd like to share with you are some after and before photos of this commercial assignment, just to give you an idea of how simple my workflow is for a big job like this.

Art Direction credit goes to Steven Kee.

Here's a line-up of Campbell's Instant Soup in boxes.

Another line-up of some muscular Campbell's Condensed soup in cans.

Prego is also under the same group under the Malaysia distribution.

Here's another variation of the Prego's shot I did for the art director's selection.

So, here's how I did it.


Lighting

Lighting setup was pretty straight forward.
I had two side lights, one light to wash out the background and another overhead light for front fill. Exposures were measured using a flash meter.

The products was laid out on white plexiglass, which gives a nice smooth reflective effect. I love it because this cuts me time in post. It's just shoot, colour correct and bam! it's done! 

The Shot
For each setup, I used WhiBal and QP card for colour reference.

Post-Production
Imported the images in Lightroom, batch colour correct and export to hi-res TIFF! Simple as pie.


Hope this inspires you all to give a go at some product shooting on your own. Cheers!

Bella's photo shoot. (Wow! It's been a while since I last updated this blog)

Hello Friends,

It's been really quite a while that I've updated my blog. I was pretty blocked out with work and personal matters until now. As a matter of fact, I still am. But I has come to a point that life and work will always be jam packed with events and unexpected matters. If I were to wait for a free time to update, then the next update will be a long time from now.

Now, procrastination on updating my blog has to stop. Hence I'm updating this short post with what I've been doing lately.

Last week on the 14th, we had a short session to photograph Bella. This was her second visit to FOTOMOMO since February 2010. Bella wanted to update her portfolio in line to seek modeling assignments in town. In the beginning I thought that I could handle the session on my own without an assistant, but then again, I wanted to spend more time thinking about the overall look that we'll be shooting. On the last night before the shoot, I posted a notice seeking assistants in Facebook. It was quiet as expected, until in the morning, my good friend Denis Erroyaux, from Belgium, who's also a photographer, currently staying here in KL called me up offering his service. In my head, I said "Dang, why didn't I thought of him last night?"

I was glad to have Denis around. An extra pair of hands really speed things up, and free me up to shoot. Here are some out takes of our shoot. Enjoy!

A typical group photo to wrap the day. "Where's your shoes Denis? Safety 1st, isn't it?"
From left: Denis Erroyaux, myself, Bella and her husband, Rex.

Now, for some funny faces.

Denis giving me the grin because I took his job as an assistant for a while when I dialed down the flash power of one of the flash heads. "Hey! That's my job." he said.

Night Class: Basic Studio Lighting for RM50/person. Would you be interested?

UPDATE! CLASS IS FULL. Thank you!
Hello all, please note that this Night Class is now FULL! Those who's registration number(turn) are #11 and above will be on my waiting list. Don't worry, you'll be privileged to be notified 1st before I announce future classes/workshops. Thank you for your support.

Hello friends, and friends of yours,

I'm just throwing a crazy idea. I'm in the mood of sharing (because I have some breathing space, finally, but only for a short while before work gets crazy again).

Here's the idea.

Idea #1: Night Class. 31-MAR-2010, 8.00pm-12.00am
Ideal for working professionals, hobbyist, or part-time photographers with a day job. This class is an ideal opportunity to learn hands on basic studio lighting. It's 4-solid hours from 8.00pm till midnight 12.00am. You can come straight from work, and get back home in bed, ready for your next day. It's just a fraction of your time, and a lot to gain.

Idea #2: Basic Hands-on Studio Lighting.
Since it's night time, it only makes sense to learn something in a controlled environment. Rather spending time chit chatting over some mamak stall, let's all spend some solid 4-hours to gain something for our knowledge.

When I say "Hands-on", this means that you get to shoot, measure light, set the light and learn some basic studio etiquette. This basic experience would be valuable for you in terms of opening up some doors to assist other established photographers and learn from them. Established photographers are looking for assistants that are reliable, dependable, knows what to do, and how to work around a studio environment.

Idea #3: Basic Expectations.
Here are some things can expect to learn in 4-hours.

1. What the heck is a light meter/flash meter?
2. You crazy? Light  meters are expensive. How can I measure light without a light meter?
3. Where do I position my lights?
4. I'm a newbie. For God's sake, I don't have four lights... How do I light with just one light?
5. How do I get that glossy white floor finish?

Summary.
In short, when you walk out of our studio door, I want to make sure you walk away empowered with these skills, which are your basic survival skills in mastering studio lighting.

1. You'll know how to measure light, and set exposure without a flash meter.
2. You'll know basic studio etiquette, so that when you rent a studio, the studio owner's gonna keep you in his/her good books (which may get you some discounts, just maybe).
3. You'll know how to light with one or more lights.
4. You'll know how to manipulate simple light to create various background tones.

RM50? You crazy? What's the catch?
RM50 to learn survival skills in studio lighting?
Yes. I'm crazy.
No, there's no catch.

Wait, there's one or two catch.

1. To ensure that information can get through your heads, and stay there for a long period of time (and also because of studio space), I can only take 10 persons maximum for this night class. 
2. You'll NOT become Joe McNally overnight in 4-hours, but I can assure you that you'll feel less intimidated with studio lights. Consider it as your first date with studio lighting, yes?

I just thought that it's time to give back. There's a lot that I've learned along my short photography experience, those of which I also learned from other great photographers. It's only fair that I passed along some of that knowledge to be spread around.

When photographers are empowered with knowledge, only then quality will arise. When quality arise, there's more great Malaysian-born photographers. When that happens, our photography standards will eventually rise and hopefully we won't have to charge peanuts just to make a living, because some clever photographer is desperate for money they lowered down their fees to succumb to client's ridiculous demands.

Location of the Night Class.

FOTOMOMO STUDIO

No. 9D, Jln Petaling Utama 12

Bt 7 1/2 Off Jln Klang Lama

46000 Petaling Utama

Selangor, Malaysia

Map to our studio here:

http://fotomomo.com/contact/

View FOTOMOMO STUDIO in a larger map

"If you think I'm crazy for giving away RM50 fee per person, consider this, perhaps you're crazy not to attend."

Now, did I get your attention? Register now. Sorry, registration is closed because class is full.

Register via this form below. You'll be contacted on payment methods and seat confirmation. Hurry, while stocks last and first-come, first-serve!

My Food Photography Workshop

Last two weekends I've conducted my 6th & 7th Simple Food Photography Workshop. It was a good turn out and I was very excited to inaugurate my studio for this workshop. The space was good, the food was good and we all were on track on time.

There are a lot of great food photographers out there who does this for a living. My Simple Food Photography Workshop intends to give an insight on how it works, from preparing the food, styling, shooting, and marketing.

The objective of this workshop is that at the end of the course, each participants will have a set of food photography portfolio that they can use to pitch for future photo work. For this purpose, my class is limited to a maximum of 5 persons per workshop so that each participant have a comfortable shooting time and enough attention from me.

Overall, the workshop went smoothly and I couldn't help myself from photographing some of the food, during conducting my workshop! :)

I'm conducting more workshops in February, and hopefully at least once a month from now on. Keep checking out posts on this blog! Cheers!

Tasty Spaghetti Beef Bolognaise


Grilled Chicken with Tumeric Sauce


Classic Macaroni & Cheese


Grilled Chicken with Tumeric Sauce, on white background


From Left: Yaziz, Arief, Azhar, Sham (looks kinda like Vin Diesel's brother don't u think?), Shafik and Zuraini. Group photo of the 7th Simple Food Photography Workshop held on 31-JAN-09, at FOTOMOMO STUDIO.


Zuraini evaluating her shots.


Shafik's turn photographing food.


Yaziz in the background while Sham shoots.


Our food prep station. This is where the styling and preparation takes place before the shoot.


Sham Abdul, photographing food at my studio where I conduct my "Simple Food Photography" workshops. Next to him is Shafik from Penang.


Arief & Zuraini, discussing some shots.


Here's my studio. In the background is Kyrol and Azuddin, who's working on the laptop. Unseen here is Jailani during the 6th Simple Food Photography Workshop.


Another view of my studio from the main entrance. It's quite spacious, which makes work so comfortable.


Jailani (on the ladder), with Azuddin and Kyrol (on far right).

The Most Exciting Birthday Shoot Ever!

I've had my share of interesting assignments throughout my years of being a photographer. Not a while ago, I was greatful to be awarded a private birthday shoot by Zaki. It's very rare to have an assignment as close to this. Zaki called me up one day to say that he'd like a birthday shoot with his close friends, all dressed up in different themes, in a studio environment. "Each theme represents a part of the story of my life, in somewhat my journey until now", says Zaki when making a comment regarding his concept. I loved the idea and was looking forward to this exciting assignment.

We shot a whole straight 8-hour session from 2pm-10pm, with a pizza break in-between. It was tiring for the "talents" (cos most of their energy went into waiting for their turns in the shots), but when their turns was up, boy they were so energized and all of them gave 110% for the shoot. Thanks to Hatizal, for being my assistant in this session. Easy-peasy cos' everyone's havin' fun!

I must say that Zaki is lucky to have these true friends, who really support him. They're very close and are like family from my point of view.

All I can say is thank you Zaki, Happy Birthday & many, many Happy Returns!

Best wishes!

Azhar Ariff.

Enjoy the pics!

Zaki in Black & White with tie.




Shopaholic


All White. Shooting white subjects against white background? Sounds impossible? It IS POSSIBLE. Very much possible indeed.


With Ateh


Jet Set


Birthday Party!


Close-up, cosmetic


The Haunting


Rockstar


Jeans




Black & White


Prep Style



Office Wear



Dolls