* Apologies for the confusion, I am trying out a new desktop publishing tool and it seemed to have screwed up the entire post and I have lost everything! *

The one thing I really hate to do is to retype an entire blog post which I have spent quite a fair bit of time writing. It saddens me that a simple mistake or being totally oblivious to the new tool which I am trying out can cause about 30 minutes of work down the drain. Nevertheless, the post must go up! Let me try to recapture what I have written in my earlier post.

I wonder how many people out there get up on a Monday morning, feeling worn out and said to themselves,"Wow, its going to be a great week ahead!". Most of the time I hear from my desk is that people are either feeling the Monday blues or they are updating their Facebook status about what a wonderful weekend they had recently. Personally, my weekend was the bomb!

Together with the WeddingStory team, we headed to a part of Malaysia I have not been in over 10 years, and that was the island, Langkawi. Feeling excited about Stuart & Amy's wedding, I took the 8am flight to Langkawi on Friday and I can safely say is that, don't fly so early in the morning. Why? Think about it, if your flight is at 8am, then you would probably need to be at the airport by 6.30am to check-in. Which means you have to leave your house at 5.30am by taxi. Hence you need to be up at 4 something in order to get ready.

And that was what happened and I have to thank Alex and Grace for hosting me and Mun Tzin the night before so that I didn't have to take account the time needed to travel from my house to their place. Also I have to thank Mun Tzin for waking me up in the morning by rubbing her wet fingers against my face. That really didn't give me a shock at all.

By the time we arrived in Langkawi, rented two cars, checked into the hotel, the first thing I did was sleep! Yes, sleep was the first thing in my mind and after a quick nap, whilst Alex and Mun Tzin went to pick Kee Sitt and Sharon up from the ferry dock, I felt hungry. A quick walk along the main road where our hotel was located, we found ourselves in a cosy restaurant ordering some dishes and eagerly waiting for our food to arrive



Kee Sitt then decided to try out Nigel's camera while we were waiting for our food to arrive.



By the time the first dish arrived (fried rice in case you were wondering if this was some special Langkawi grown rice), we were all too hungry to take more photos of the rest of the food. Ok, I admitted that once I started eating, I didn't stop until the food was gone!



The one thing I remembered about Langkawi was that it was a duty free island, meaning that all alcohol, chocolates and cigarettes were very cheap. It was so dirt cheap that they even served my chinese tea in a beer mug.



After lunch we decided to walk about and check out some of the stalls across the street from the restaurant. Apparently Alex and Nigel found a new toy, Langkawi Poken!



Kee Sitt loved playing with his new toy so much so that he took loads of pictures and videos with it. Can't wait to see all of them when he is done with it.

After lunch, the team got ready and drove about 45 minutes up north of the Island to the famed Andaman resort. There we were to shoot Stuart & Amy's beach wedding. I will leave more details about the shoot in a separate post. :)



This was the view from the bride's room. Look how lovely the scenery is.



And last but not least a view of the beach side where the ceremony is to take place. The decoration and the lovely sea breeze was just amazing, makes everything feel so romantic. The wedding lasted from 4pm all the way till past midnight and it was just so much fun!

I was totally wiped out by the time we got back to the hotel which means only one thing for me. I need more exercise!

Stay tuned for day 2 of the Langkawi trip.

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!