My day always begin with me getting ready for work (on weekdays of course) followed by my ever none changing routine of driving 50 kilometers to Cyberjaya. The drive might be boring to some but I have gotten used to the long drive (albeit not as long as those who get stuck in KL traffic!). During this long drive, one can either be completely immersed with the musings of the morning crews of various radio stations. Other forms of entertainment could be listening to CD's, iPod's or even counting the cars that over take you on the ELITE highway.

Yes, that is my typical morning on my way to work on almost a daily work-day basis. Then work will continue throughout the day with several meetings in between time at my desk and scooting about to the pantry for a coffee refill and rushing in for meetings with several clients. Balancing several portfolios is never an easy task and constantly I tend to rely heavily on collaboration tools such as my Office Communicator and Live Meeting sessions. In this economic downturn, virtual meetings have slowly begun to replace teleconferences.

By the time I am done going through all of that, light has almost fallen and by the time I reach back in the neighbourhood, two options arise. Either I head over to the gym which I did yesterday and finished by 11pm, mostly the remaining option is to hang out with some of my gym mates or head back for some early snooze. Apparently either one can happen but it does take a drain on me (especially the gym part because it is meant to tire me out :P)

One thing I really wanted to do was to process some photos and post them up on the blog but most of the time when I do process my photos is it would be usually done when I am in the office between the time of 7-8pm where I can use a meeting room to slowly process my photos. Now it gets harder because I am trying to live a little bit healthier hence the need for me to go to the gym.

I guess I began to realise that I had to make time for my photos and photography. At the same time to also spend time developing myself as a photographer in both skills and the way I work. Never an easy task because most of the time I want to relax but there is this bit in me that wants to drive me to achieve more, to achieve a whole lot more. One of the first steps I took would be this recent promotion which I launched last week. I am so encouraged by the number of respondents so far that I am also excited to plan out these portrait sessions.

My point is that life gets hectic and sometimes we also do miss out on the main thing. This got me thinking to myself, what is the main thing? Ask me that 5 years ago and I will give you a very textbook answer but it wasn't the answer which came from myself. It came from the textbook. Ask me this question now, you might get an answer closer to my heart. It is also so ironic that as I am writing this post, Zack Arias then posted this post on his blog.

My favourite quote from there mentioned,

You are standing on the dock and you can always stand on that dock. Always. Or you can get in a boat and push off. A well known photographer once said that they dove in over their heads and swam for the top. That’s pretty inspirational. I’ve done the same thing. However… I don’t think they said anything about how many dead bodies that they had to swim by to get to the surface again.

I think I definitely need to get out from sitting all day on my butt!

To be honest, after being to islands like Phuket, Bali and even Singapore (no, I am not talking about people with an island mentality), I have come to realise the vast difference between Langkawi and these other tourist destinations. Seriously, the place could definitely use something to spruce it up but then, what does Langkawi really have to offer?



No, I don't think the escaped Ian is always there in Langkawi as captured above!



No, there aren't that many escaped jumping humans about. Perhaps you might catch a glimpse of some other interesting life forms there.



No, there aren't that many beggars sitting by the sidewalk waiting for their other halves while they shop for 4 hours. (ok I was just kidding about the 4 hours).



I don't think people usually come to visit the water bottle carrying man from Penang who hides in the deepest of alleys in the streets of Langkawi as well.



Like every other island, the relaxing sound of waves hitting the shores whilst the cool breeze skims through your hair is enough to melt away all of our tensions. Perhaps that is what people might head to Langkawi, to catch a little rest and relaxation. As I mentioned in my previous post, I was in Langkawi for a shoot and then for a little bit of R&R with the WeddingStory team. After a very very tiring first day, I totally overslept and skipped breakfast. That aside, I woke up definitely in time for lunch :)

After lunch, we all decided to walk along the beach and after several sessions of banana boat rides and watching Nigel and Lai Yeen defy gravity and got dragged across the ocean on a para-sail. It just took me 15 minutes standing under the bright sun to note that I was being cooked alive! Yes it was that hot so our time on the beach was cut short because we were heading out for our own photo shoot!

Yes, Grace and Alex planned that we needed to all dress up for a private shoot and did I really come unprepared. Whilst Munz brought a nice dress, I wore a polo shirt and shorts which she definitely made me change into something a little more formal. Oh well, I guess I had to suffer in the hot sun with slacks and a long sleeved shirt. After the whole fiasco with my clothes, we arrived at our destination.



We started off shooting and shooting and trying out various types of shots with various techniques. Personally, I was trying to utilize the natural lighting as much as I can and to use it to my advantage as well. Here are some of my shots from the session.





Took a couple of photos with Munz for a while whilst trying to figure out how to pose her for a couple of those shots. Not easy trying to pose your girlfriend especially when I am sweating like mad and my sweat was stinging my eyes! I must bring a towel on my next portrait shoots.



I liked this photo of both Alex and Grace because of Grace's expression.



Now who says you can't do some serious shots in padi fields?

After taking even more photos of the rest there, the sun was setting and we quickly headed back to our hotel (which was conveniently next to the beach). Since we were on the west coast of the island, we wanted to capture some sunset shots by the beach. This was when I could change back to my shirt and shorts which was much cooler!





Ok, we arrived there a little too early and it was still extremely bright. Good time to shoot a couple more portraits on the beach while waiting for light to diminish.



The sunset was totally awesome. One of the nicest I have seen around Malaysia. The other occasion was when I was in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, atending Louis Pang's workshop.



I even managed to get the sunset as well as the crescent moon as well. Was a tough shot to take because I had my 50mm attached with me at the moment.

After spending two days in Langkawi and eating overpriced food which was still good, I guess the main attraction over here was the statues on the beach. Some say that orcs erected them up to celebrate the crescent moon, or maybe elves wanted to erect landmarks to guide their ships correctly.



All I know is that, these statues have a story to tell.

Now try and guess what they are saying,

Before anyone asks where is Day 2 of the WeddingStory Langkawi trip, I decided that I definitely wanted to post up some other photos of my recent trip to the US. Back in May, I flew to the States to attend a training in Chicago for a week where I planned a short break after the training session. Since I was already at Chicago attending the training, I thought it would be great to stay a couple of nights in Chicago with a bunch of my colleagues over in the City whilst taking in the sights.

The bus ride from St. Charles all the way to the city was horrendous. We were stuck in traffic for about 3 over hours for what should have been a 45-min bus ride. By the time we arrived in Chicago, it was already 5pm in the evening and we had little time there to enjoy the sights.



Chicago City itself, home of the mafias and also known as the Windy City.



This is a view from my hotel room. The building next to the hotel had a very interesting concept, it was totally round and had built the parking lots below the rooms. Look at the parking spaces, there are no walls at all! I can't imagine parking my car there overnight. I would probably be having nightmares about my car falling off from the building.



Chicago has a river running through the city where they have plenty of water taxis and Architecture tours available for tourists to ride up the Chicago River. Look how nice and clean the water is much compared to our own wonderful Klang River which runs through KL City. The secret to this is not only civic minded folks who don't throw every single bit of rubbish into the river but they actually have a processing plant to clean the river's water.



Before I went to Chicago, a friend of mine, CWCW, told me that I have to try a deep dish pizza. After checking out with some of my colleagues during my training session, I was told that I should check out Giordano's for some of that awesome deep dish pizza. I guess Giordano's is sort of like those franchise type stores, much like Domino's or Pizza Hut.



As it's name suggests, this pizza is definitely a thick crust! The pizza is so thick that after 3 slices I was totally filled up to the brim, of course the extra added cheese did not help at all. The crust itself isn't like the usual pizza crust you might get but it had a combination of pie crust in it. If you ever are in Chicago, I would highly recommend that you try out a deep dish pizza.



After stuffing ourselves crazy (with plenty of leftovers), we decided that a nice long walk would be suitable and since Grant Park was nearby we headed there for a walk. As light began to disappear, shooting in low light was going to be a tough challenge. The weather itself was just awesome, nice and cooling without any hint of humidity.



As we were walking, we chanced upon this interesting monument. I love the fact that it was rather stylish and interesting, mainly because it was totally reflective!



Which means I could take a photo of myself!



I loved how the syline of the buildings behind were also reflected on it the monument.



This was the skyline of buildings behind it.

After snapping a couple more photos, we headed towards the Sears Tower where the attraction there would be to head up to the upper decks or the "Sky Deck" to catch a 360 view of the Chicago City.



The one thing that caught my eye is how straight the roads were! Everything is so nicely planned out.



The SkyDeck definitely showed us all how large Chicago is. By the time we got down (we stayed till it was closing time), we were totally wiped out and proceeded back to our hotel.

Day 2 of the Chicago trip to follow up!

* 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.