Thursday, November 13, 2008

2008-10-11 Stephanie and Oliver

Binh Trinh, what can I say, you and Lin really captured our day. Amidst the road closure, missing padre, everything was in its stride. We and our guests were thoroughly impressed with you and Lin and the feedback was you were easy going, relaxed and captured the real u. Crying children, drunk groomsmen hard to control but man, the finished product was well worth the time and effort. If I could redo the whole wedding thing again, you would be my first call. I don't recall much of the day but the photos have captured it well and I see what everyone else saw. You worked with a backdrop which wasn't the greates waterfall but you made it amazing, You are easy going and made everyone look their best. You made me and my girls feel like princesses and that will forever be a memory I will cherish.

Thank you again for your time and effort on the day. Anyone not wanting to have you as their photographer woudl be a fool. So I say book in now if you want a guy that will make you all feel at ease and make your day extra special. Amazing Amazing Amazing fantanstic photos a must do.

Stephanie and Oliver.






2008-10-25 Peter and Jaime - Wharerata

I love weddings, especially with clients who are just so relaxing and easy to deal with. They love the images, and so do the rest of their families and friends. I reckon some of these will win awards in the near future.





4th Annual B/W Spider award


WOW - to be recognised and to have our names listed in such a prestigious competition is an absolute honour.

The Spider Award is the world leading competition for black and white photography, with judges include the head of the Tate Gallery (London). For this year, my sister and I entered 10 images, which me being in the professional and Thu Trinh (my sister) entered into the amateur side. She completely kicked my butt. She received an Nomination, as well as achieving an amazing 3rd place - Honour of Distinction in the Still Life category. I achieved 3 Nominations, and have my names up there on the website, along with some very big names in photography. Very exciting indeed.

Next year, we will definitely compete again and hope to take home more awards next year.


Signs - Thu Tring - 3rd Place - Honour of Distinction


Lizard - Thu Trinh - Nature




The last dance

Abel Tasman National Park

Please stop!

Kodak Gold Awards

The Kodak Awards is a prestigious annual event on the NZ photography calendar. It celebrates outstanding photography and recognises excellence and creativity in the industry. We are proud to have earned 1 Gold and 3 Silver awards. In particular, the Gold award was in the wedding album category, which is a particularly difficult category as it requires an entire album to have consistently powerful and emotion images, as well as the ability to tell the story. I have always believed that a good wedding photographer must be able to show of entire albums, not just individual files. Hope you enjoy these images.




Silver in Portrait. Lin's first award, yippee.

Silver Portrait

Silver Portrait: another award for a nude image for The Naked Truth project

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

When is a good time to buy a DSLR?

The prices of DSLR will always drop, so it is unrealistic to wait for ever. So the important thing is to understand what you need from the camera, depending on your current skill levels and also how far you want to achieve in photography. Once you understand your needs, then your choices will be much more limited, maybe down to just one model from each of the brand. After that, you just need to figure out which one captures your imagination.

Now is the hard part, do you buy it now or wait for the prices to come down.

If you have some major events coming up, then I would suggest you buy it asap, learn to use the camera, and of course put it to good use at the event. With Xmas coming up, there is not much time to wait. Most camera manufacturers release their new models twice a year, February and September. So if you need to capture images at X-mas there is really no point waiting as it is unlikely any big brand would bring out a new model now. They will have specials, but unlikely to have new models.

So what camera should I buy?

DO I NEED A DSLR? (a blog I wrote in my first newsletter)

DSLR stands for digital single lens reflective. Essentially, they are cameras with interchangeable lens that most pros use. The answers to this questions is yes and no:

YES: if you really want to be a good photographer who understands the technical sides of photography and uses the knowledge to create beautiful images. DSLR are very cheap these days, starting at just over $1000 for a body with lens. If you are a beginner, you should attend courses to improve your understanding.

NO: if you simply want take pictures for the sake of record keeping. However, if you think you want to have the flexibility to improve your skills, then please invest in one of the more high end point and shoot which does give manual controls. the Canon G9 is an extremely nice camera that delivers great pictures in both point and shoot, as well as manual modes. In addition, the G9 is a cool looking camera with cheap underwater case. As a bonus, the video resolution is very high, at 1024x768.

Next time, i will discuss which DSLR are worth looking at. Please feel free to ask me any questions.
 
Site Meter