As I mentioned in one of my previous post, I attended Louis' "Take Back Your Life" workshop last weekend and it was totally awesome. Why was it awesome, one might ask. Well my dear Watson, its because that I learned so much about certain aspects that it not only gives me more time now but it helps me to think in such a way to make more moolah!



Again, I am not kidding when I said those things above. Its true, you can ask the rest of the participants who attended the course and all of them can vouch for me. But then as my title says, I have taken back my life. A very good example would have been this week. I was already pulling in 12-14 hour days at work leaving me hardly any time to rest but I still managed to post process almost 2000 photos.



And what does it take to make a good workshop, good materials or perhaps even more paticipation from the class? Since it is also part of my job at work to give trainings and talks, I realise that in order to get a good feel of the group would be to encourage more group participation. And that was exactly what Louis did.



Added bonusses to the workshop was a talk by Alex from Integricity Corporation which touched on areas such as web marketing and making ourselves known in the online world amidst the million of other photographers, people, business out there. I learned lots of good tips and after all of those SEO stuff that I have been reading up online suddenly just makes sense.



The other parts of the workshop which was great was the networking and meeting up with other photographers who are so passionate about this field that they are willing to fly in all the way from Sabah, Sarawak and also Hong Kong, their passion just amazes me as well.



One of the other lessons I learned was to never put your coffee next to your laptop because someone might just hit it over. Poor Clement had to do without his laptop on Saturday because he accidentally spilled coffee all over it but thanks to his super-duper-ultra-quick-reflexes that can actually put superman to shame, saved his laptop. Yup, he pulled the power out in time. :)



As you can see from the image above, the class wasn't that big but because of the size, we had more time to post our personal questions and learn from each other a lot. Each and every one of us had something to share and that was just so great! Yes, I love it when people share, whether it may be their skills or thoughts, it just shows a little bit more of that person.



You know, they say that behind every successful photographer is a Mac. I have to agree with it since I also own one myself :P

Then again, how successful I am is another story lah. I like to say that I am still in the process of learning and finding more and more ways I can to improve.



Another part of the workshop which got me really really excited was the part about printing. I have fallen in love with prints ever since I attended the Charge Up conference in April. It was just peachy that Epson had a Stylus Pro R3850 available for us to use and print our photos. So much so that I went around The Curve earlier just now looking about for an Epson printer only to find out that they had limited models available. Looks like I will just have to experiment with my older Canon i850 printer at home first before I venture into another printer.



As you can see that I am not the only person who is excited about prints. Overall everyone had a great time at the workshop and I must confess that my expectations of this workshop was totally different.



Of course I would like to also thank CLICK for their wonderful hospitality and warm friendship. They took every effort to make us feel comfortable by providing us with plenty of food, snacks and most importantly, coffee (which kept me sane and awake).



And finally I would like to thank the other participants of this workshop, your presence there made all the difference. A big thanks to Olivia, Michele, Kah Yee, Chun Hoo, Martina, Sathia, Alex, Grace, Bernard, Clement and of course, Louis. You guys rock! (I wonder if that sounded lame...)

Yes that is right, blog.markleo.net just hit 12,000 unique hits over the past year!! Now, to me that is awesome as I always wanted a website that had visibility around and I do hope that more visitors will drop by and leave comments as well as enjoy the articles that I have to share as well as some of my photos.

In the mean time, I just returned from a long workshop over the weekend.



I am sure the image above says it all. I will definitely blog a little more about it when I get some sleep. After this weekend, I am truly confident that I can deliver my photos faster to my clients already. Watch out for some of my emails.

Until then, I need some sleep.

I got loads to learn about the photography industry. I really do. I need to find all the experience I can get and then learn from them. Usually I take to heart quite a fair bit of comments that I get. Only recently have I had to deal with more of them but slowly I am beginning to learn from them.

Learning slowly from experience photographers as well as going out to shoot and spending more time is something I try to do. Of course that takes away a fair bit of my own personal time but it is just so worth it when clients are happy with your products. My main goal would be that my clients and future clients will feel comfortable working with me as well as love the products I produce.

With that, I have to apply the same professional skills that I use at work as with my photography. Working in a consulting firm, the firm treats their employees are assets. Its very different from my previous job when I worked in a factory where the company treat their machines, design documents and factory as their assets and their workers as just employees. It is just so different when it comes to a consulting firm.

Every year I am given a training budget to apply for either internal or external training. Of course I can't just simply take any sort of training but usually those that helps my career and guides me in the right direction. On top of that, the firm would then spend millions of dollars to provide all the staff with thousands of online training sessions. Mind you, these are not the simple online trainings but ones that provide plenty of test cases as well as videos to further enhance our learning experience.

Yes, training is deemed very important and hence the same approach I shall take towards my passion in photography. Hence I have deemed it 200% worth it to spend my hard earned money to attend workshops and training courses so I can improve further in the field of photography. A lot of people I know always said that some courses or workshops are expensive but its not! You can never ever put a price on education.

If you must know, if I didn't spent a single ringgit on workshops I probably would have pre-ordered my Nikon D700 or perhaps be shooting crappy shots with my Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR lens instead. Like many photographers will eventually tell you, its not the gears that make your pictures, its the photographer.



Anyway I will be pretty packed this weekend attending Louis' workshop entitled "Take Back Your Life" at CLICK. The workshop starts tonight and I can't wait to really take back my life and get away from the rut of sleeping 5-6 hours a day. Of course, I also can't wait to here what Alex has to talk about on the topic of “Out of the Tempurung”. (Note: Alex Lam is a special guest who will make a guest appearance for the workshop)

Out of the Tempurung

A light-hearted session with internet guru Alex Lam from Integricity Corporation on how to remove the barriers that prevent your photographic art from being showcased to the masses. He believes that many of the best photographers are camping beneath their tempurungs, but need to come out and harness modern-day technology to assist in marketing themselves. Set yourself apart and move from being “just-another-ordinary-photographer” to one who “has-a-kickass-website-and-extraordinary-tools”.

Alex will touch on topics such as using Facebook for business, enhancing your website, search engines and various other tools that can be used to impress and dazzle your prospects and clients.

Until then, I hope to post up some pictures of the workshop.