First and foremost before I begin this post, I would like to welcome everyone to my newly designed site sitting in a new home. After much deliberation (and many theme changes), my blog underwent multiple theme change and multiple add-ons in the form of widgets as well as other funky adds. I decided that it wasn't the right move to do hence I have switched over to a single column theme. I cleaned up quite a fair bit of unused applications on my blog in hope that the design looks a lot cleaner and easier to navigate.

Secondly, as I mentioned, this site is completely new. How does it translate to new? My domain name (http://markleo.net) has been moved to a new registrar, my files has been moved to a new server and I gotten a new theme to suit it as well as made multiple changes to the design (a big thanks to @theBackPackr for your help!).



After reading Dane Sander's "The Fast Track Photographer", I was truly inspired by what he wrote about the various types of photographers. It was then that I knew where I wanted to be and to brand myself in that direction. This blog update is one of the first changes I am making and hopefully, you will see more of those changes in my shooting style as well.

Of course with this new site design, I will start to concentrate more on posting up more photos from various shoots and experience especially weddings and portraits. I am also quite glad that I can post up large sized images as well. I definitely need to update my Photoshop actions to suit the new changes.

I previously used to have multiple pages but have decided to limit myself to two pages, My Portfolio and About Myself. At this moment, my portfolio will be the next item on my to-do list to update and hopefully be completed by the end of July. Exciting times ahead and I can't wait to be able to share it with my readers.

Do drop me a line or two with your thoughts and comments on this new site. I would love to gather some feedback in order for me to improve it as much as I can.

.......that is posted on a Thursday.

So I got carried away with work yesterday and totally forgot that it was Wednesday. After being carried away, I ended up being so excited over catching Transformers 2 that the movie ended so late and I just got back. Yesterday, I went for dinner with a bunch of crazy photographers (so crazy that they can even make balloon dolls for you) at Delicious at Midvalley. Me, being me, driving all the way from Cyberjaya, I ended up taking photos with my trusty iPhone instead. But today is not about EatFest, today it is about Clicks, and by clicks I mean my usual list of interesting links.

• Check out this gallery of amazing photos that was taken with a camera phone! This further elaborate on my that it is the photographer behind the camera that makes the pictures (I said this during my workshop last Saturday).


• With so much hype about the government wanting to keep a register of bloggers, some say that bloggers are killing journalist. I beg to differ and so does this article.


• Want to know how much Twitter has grown? If you don't know what is Twitter, just join Twitter.com and add me in @markleo82


• Has the law finally caught up with Rapidshare?


• Check out this huge debate on what went on at Matt's Adobe Lightroom post. Very interesting and great arguments from both sides. The story originated from a guy who wrote a nifty little program that when you enter in a Flickr image, it will calculate out and create a Lightroom preset to achieve that effect. Some say it is stealing but some say that it isn't because no one can copyright Adobe Lightroom settings. If that is the case, no one can use +10 Saturation, + 20 vivid and vignette.


• Become a better photographer through the critique of others. What can I say, the title of that article says it all. Which was why I implemented what I have learned from Louis Pang's workshop and did a simple critique session for the workshop which I held recently as well.


• Check out this interview with Landscape Photography Legend Art Wolfe at Digital Photography School. Here is the link to Part 1 and Part 2 of the interview.

A brief Wednesday Clicks this week but watch out for this space, I have a whole new blog revamp coming up soon and no, I didn't do it myself. So it is going to look way awesome!

Alright, after @theBackPackr tweeted about today being a clean desk day and after he has reminded us again today with a blog post about it, I figured to myself, why shouldn't I clear my desk as well? I would pretty much say that my desk at work is fairly easy to clean. Its my desk at home which is the nightmare!

[caption id="attachment_898" align="alignnone" width="638" caption="Workstation at work"][/caption]

A quick description on what is on my desk, I have my laptop sitting on a laptop dock. It is connected to a mouse and keyboard which I use most of the time. The keyboard was a hand-me-down keyboard which I received when I moved places in the office. As you can see, my desk is pretty small which makes it easier for me to clean as well. I have an IP Phone next to me and a mini fan which I bought for myself because it is so friggin hot here.

Here are some more close up of my desk to show how messy the wires and cables can be!

[caption id="attachment_892" align="alignnone" width="576" caption="Mini fan with messy cables"][/caption]

The mini fan is my life saver sometimes but it can be rather noisy as well.

[caption id="attachment_893" align="alignnone" width="640" caption="Super messy cables including laptop lock"][/caption]

The IP phone has a network cable connected to it and another one connected outwards towards my docking station. There is also a laptop lock for

After a quick organising and cable management, voila, this is what happened to my desk.

[caption id="attachment_894" align="alignnone" width="640" caption="Cleaned desk"][/caption]

Doesn't look like much but mind you, the documents are all stored in the cabinet! Took me 3 seconds to stuff everything in there. I was seriously so amazed because of my super organizational skills.

[caption id="attachment_895" align="alignnone" width="640" caption="Mini fan revisited"][/caption]

After careful thought and consideration and weighing various techniques and options, the best solution I came up with the mini fan was to tie the wire with a cable tie. It took me a strenuous 5 seconds to tie it up. Talk about hard work and quick thinking strategy.

[caption id="attachment_896" align="alignnone" width="640" caption="Less clutter behind the laptop"][/caption]

At the end of the day, I get a cleaner desk where I can throw more documents on the next day especially after a meeting and get my feet tangled up because I love to cross my legs when I am at my desk due to the dangling cables.

[caption id="attachment_897" align="alignnone" width="640" caption="This is where all my cables went to!"][/caption]

So I would love to encourage everyone to spend a little time to clean up their desk, preferbly on Monday. With that you have 4 more days of the week to mess it up again in order for you to clean up your desk again next Monday. I think I shall start a trend, #MessyDeskFridays.

Yup, as the title says, I will be conducting a workshop this Saturday on basic photography at my company's office in KLCC. I think it will be an exciting and interesting event so I definitely need to beef up my slides a bit more to ensure that I can help them visually see the effects when tinkering with their cameras.

The great thing about it was that I was totally overwhelmed with the response. I had initally told them that a small crowd of 30 participants would be perfect including a couple of mentors. So the email went out company wide and within a couple hours, all seats were taken up. I am totally surprised by the overwhelming response (there is even a waiting list) so to be extremely honest, I feel to pressure to need to ensure that the workshop is a huge success.

I started working on the slides on my flight to Los Angeles as well as when I was waiting for my flight. From what I can see now, there is a lot more for me to improve as well as making sure I put into practice what I learned from reading my Presentation Zen book.

Now I feel a little nervous but I definitely want to help everyone learn about the wonderful beauty of the world of photography. Wish me luck everyone!

Its Wednesday today and you know what that means, more interesting links out! I have for one thing learned recently that it takes friggin a lot of discipline to work and study at the same time. Anyway, before I skew off even more, let's check out what is new this week.

• I know everyone is waiting for the iPhone 3.0 OS to be release for their iPhones. Well this isn't really a link but here are some links to some new applications which will be launched as well. Tweetdeck for the iPhone (YAY!) and MapQuest is releasing their alternative software to the GoogleMaps.


• I posted in last week's Wednesday Clicks about a video which theBackPackr created for the McDonald's competition to win the iPhone. Guess what? They won the challenge and are now proud parents of the iPhone 3G.


• There are rumours of a leaked press material for the upcoming Nikon D300s. I am not too sure myself if it might be real.


• If you wanted to know more about Adobe Lightroom and how to maximise your workflow, Jon Low, a professional wedding photographer of IdealWedding has just the right answer for you. Thanks so much for sharing Jon!


• Check out Timothy Tiah's blog post on his holiday to Phuket. For those of you who are curious on just who Tim is, he is one of the founders of NuffNang which is a blog advertising network. One of the reason why it's up on this week's WC is that there is an interesting link in his blog post I found, it was in regards to a travel agency which handled his trip, PYOTravel.Com. I checked out the site and it definitely has very cheap prices. Site booked marked.

Before I finish this post, I would like to remind you that there are 3 ways you can eat "pan mee".

The first way, which is the most common one is to eat it in the form of a noodle soup.

Image source: Eating Asia

The second way is to eat it in the form of dry noodles with an accompanying bowl of soup.

Image source: Eating Asia

The third way, which I think this new restaurant is trying to revolutionize, is to eat it frozen.

Dang, chilly "pan mee", do you top it up with ice cream?

Anyway, this is another branch of super kitchen's chilli pan mee which is located in SS2, near Ang Kee restaurant and further down from Kayu Nasi Kandar behind Lim Mee Yoke restaurant.

I am still so excited about how ShootFest turned out to be that I spent an entire night making this slideshow. Well I was a little tired from studying and I managed to complete my book already but the crunch time is here and I needed to release some steam so I started on my mini project. After making my previous slideshow here, I thought lets make another slideshow for ShootFest.

And here are the results.

ShootFest By Mark Mark
View in HD Download Version Visit Mark Mark's ExposureRoom Videos Page

For best results, press "play" and then followed by "pause". Wait for the video to be fully buffered and then watch it :)

Do let me know what you think of the slideshow by commenting in the comments section ok? At least I can get some feedback on my slideshow making skills.

At the moment, crunch time is here and I am trying to spend as much time as I can to study for my upcoming exam, next week on Tuesday.  This is actually a professional certification for project management (yes, even project managers need some sort of certification for a professional body, in this case, PMI). After so many years of not studying for exams, this has come to be a shock for me. Now I have enormous respect for those of you out there who are studying part time especially whether it is for your CPA, ACCA, CFA or MBA (man that is a whole lot of acronyms) which is much longer than my PMP (another acronym pulak), all the best! (Fiona, Boon and Jun, my hats off to you!)

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="506" caption="PMI"][/caption]

Will be right back after these long pauses. In the mean time, I worked on a slide show for Shootfest, well basically something I had in my head and at the same time, I was trying some new slideshow making techniques so stay tuned as well. At the mean time, I will leave this post with an image from my recent trip to New York.



I took this shot when I was up at the Empire State building. My advice, don't go up there in shorts, slippers and a t-shirt. It was absolutely freezing cold!

Shootfest came and shootfest finished in a blink of an eye for me but instead of dreaming of the past, I will strive to move forward. Forward with this week's Wednesday Clicks, that is. I also realised that a post without pictures is definitely boring! So here is a image I took while I was away in NYC.


The park in the image above is the famous Central Park of Manhattan.

• This link highlights how organisations can use Twitter to their advantage.


• After Jenny's talk at Shootfest on personal branding, this link is definitely an interesting read as it teaches you how to do your own personal branding at work.


• For all of you iPhone users out there, check out what to expect with version 3.0. It will be launched next week on the 17th of June! I definitely can't wait for it!


• In case you have been living under a coconut for the past couple of days, Apple has announce loads of stuff at their recent WWDC conference. First up is their new refurbished line of 15" MacBook Pros and 17" MacBook Pros. Oh right, I shouldn't forget, 13" MacBook Pros. Yes, Apple is now calling all unibody laptops, MacBook Pros while they maintain a single white MacBook in their line up. Also to be anticipated is Snow Leopard which is being offered at USD$29. How cheap is that? And what everyone has been waiting for as well, the announcement of the Apple iPhone 3G-S.


• Chase Jarvis says it all here on why the new Apple iPhone 3G-S is a must have for photographers.


• Interested in seeing how many apps are there available for the Apple iTunes App store? Check out this wall of LCD monitors to find out more.

Here is a little reason why I chose Wednesday to have the Wednesday clicks, its because in the week, whenever you reach Wednesdays, its all downhill from here. Have a great week ahead!

It has been a tiring two days but it was totally worth it. More updates to come on Shootfest and plenty of behind the scenes shots to be shared as well such as Zach's crazy booth photos and hopefully we can get some of those slides/presentations used to be uploaded and with all of my fingers and toes crossed, the recorded videos of all the presentations.

For all of you who participated at Shootfest, do leave your comments and feedback at this site here.

6.30 p.m
Last but not least, Alex, is wrapping up the session and we got another group shot. We love taking group shots!




5.45 p.m
And the final event of Shootfest was Powerpoint Karaoke! Powerpoint Karaoke basically puts a volunteer up in front and they have to present out a deck of slides which were randomly picked from Slideshare.net and they have to present it as if they created those slides and they were the main presenter. It was hilarious because I participated in it and it was really really fun!

Ian thought us to think "Youtside the box"


Ben had to convince everyone that advertising is dead!


I had to convince everyone that you can best manage your time if you DEFER your work. A nicer word than procrastinate! LOL!


And Woody had to teach us what are the 7 points to making great powerpoint slides.


5.00 p.m
We were all running a little late but everyone was still excited to listen to the last speaker for Shootfest, Jenny Sun, who talked about branding and how to brand yourself as a photographer. I think I felt that I might fall into the supermarket photographer. Oops, time to do some seriously thinking and planning.


4.30 p.m
Mun Tzin had a quick slot as well to talk about and share stories about Bridezilla's and she gave a very stern warning to me because I changed the slides too fast. She was a PresenterZilla hehehehe!


4.00 p.m
Up next was a combined session where Syahrin Aziz shared about shooting both videos and photos using the Canon 5D Mark 2 camera. A good tip is to make sure that you don't shoot video continuously. Malaysia's weather is hot and it heats up the camera until the video quality degrades.


3.00 p.m
Up next in two different session rooms, we had Johan Sopiee sharing on "How to buy 2nd hand equipment". Coming from one who loves to find good bargains at those shops, Johan's talk was really good because now I know what to really look out for when checking out 2nd hand equipment.






While William Goh gave his talk on Quality vs Quantity vs Composition. Wait, did I get that right?


Kee Sitt was busy recording William's session.


2.00 p.m
After a quick lunch break, we started off with Zach sharing on shooting creative photos. His photos were amazing and his definition of a park, is actually a car park!


1.00 p.m
Last session before lunch, Asther Lau, speaking about how to write up your contracts for photographers. As photographers, contracts is important and it exists to protect both parties.




12.40 p.m
Danny Chew speaking on shooting fashion wedding shoots with two speedlights with @eeyern as his model.




Ian was even Tweeting from his laptop on the left while he was modelling!


12.30 p.m
Adie is speaking about how to create creative wedding videos, his videos are so funny!


Kee Sitt was busy Tweetering away....


This was what he Tweeted about....


12.00 p.m
Kaz talks about Western weddings and how East is meeting West.




11.45 a.m
Jon Low is back in front talking and sharing about Chinese Weddings. There are so many different styles about.





11.15 a.m
Johan Sopiee was up next to talk about Malay weddings. Some of the "wang hantaran" he has seen has gone up to RM99,999. Amazing!


10.50 a.m
Some of the participants playing around as well as documenting the day by taking loads of photos. I can literally hear Tweetdeck updating in the background as well.






10.45 a.m
Jon Low sharing his experiences with taking Sikh and Punjabi weddings.


10.30 a.m
Visithra speaking about Hindu weddings, Malaysia is so blessed with so many cultures and traditions.




Day 2 of ShootFest has started and the first session is about multicultural weddings!

And finally the last but not least, a group picture of participants who attended ShootFest today. Can't wait for another exciting day tomorrow!


6.30 p.m
Last talk of the day with Mun Keat with post processing and using actions in Photoshop.


5.45 p.m
Grace talking on Story telling editing in the other session room. She explains how adding two photos together can tell a whole different story altogether.


5.30 p.m
Jon Low talking about post processing and digital workflow. His key quote is that "there is no wrong digital workflow". Totally awesome sharing on how to refine your digital workflow with Adobe Lightroom.


4.00 p.m
Its time for pecha kucha! Pecha kucha pits photographers/participants to present 20 slides with a time limit of 20 seconds per slide. Apologies to Ian as I didn't manage to capture him because I was manning the time. Was trying to balance my coffee cup, my camera and my iPhone which was acting as a camera.

Woody up first talking on what he usually shoots and he wants to shoot. His photos were awesome, nature photography, totally cool!


Grace sharing about a Bangladeshi wedding she took with Ian.


Kee Sitt sharing his experiences on how videos can help photographers.




Jon Low sharing his experience in Melbourne where he was there for 20 days.




Jen sharing her experience of how she started photography.


Ian also shared a really hilarious slides on "What not to do on your wedding day". He had many goofy wedding photos.

3.15 p.m
Kenneth Hiew speaking about "Photojournalistic Weddings". He is wearing his HTML shirt! (How To Meet Ladies)




3.00 p.m
Kevin Lau speaking on very interesting topics on audio for video and how a lot of videographers do not pay as much attention to audio and capture everything via the video camcorder.


2.15 p.m
Alex @theBackPackr is currently speaking about "Artist in a haystack" which is totally awesome. Everyone is so engaged!




2.00 p.m
Ian, Jon, and Zach are goofing around and setting up an umbrella


12.45 p.m
Kris talking about "Getting The Best Out Of Wedding-Related Media Channels"






11.00 a.m
Both Fiona from Fifoto and Kee Sitt from WeddingStory are speaking at the moment.





10.15 a.m
Grace kicking off Shootfest with an introduction and some house rules before Kaz starts off with the ice-breaker session.



9.45 a.m
Everyone is now here at Centrepoint, Bandar Utama, attending Shootfest. As the clock ticks before icebreaker starts, everyone is mingling as well as taking the time to prepare their slides (including me!). I will be keeping this post updated with photos and updates or look out for the #shootfest tags in Twitter.