Rock Climbing Event - Rock On 09

Singapore Climbing Association invited me to be their official photographer for this year's Rock On competition. Basically I was hanging on the side of this 15 meters high rock wall taking shots of the finalist. I was using my trusted Canon 40D with my favorite 24-70mm L lens. I must say, the sky that day was really great for shooting.

Hong Kong - Locations & Textures

Hong Kong - I'd say a 3d Artist's heaven for textures. Here are some shots of the place while we gathered 3d references as well as backgrounds for usage on future jobs.

Had a lot of problems choosing photos to put up as they were so random and they look very different full screen on a 22" LCD screen compared to this blog. Can't really see the grain and texture from the treatment once its this low-res.

Anyway, hope you think it's cool. Cheers.

D700 said "And let there be light!" - BackStreetBoys - Coverage

So Obscura got to cover the BackstreetBoys event during the F1 in Singapore. Apparently reason no. 268 of 2009 reasons. Interesting ad campaign push

We worked with Sony BMG on this one. We tried to keep it journalistic and slightly different, hope you guys like the photos. I must add, the BackstreetBoys are a very funny, happy bunch of buddies and were fun to work with along with the Sony people.

Via Ferrata - Adventure - Kinabalu

Sorry everyone, I realized I have been talking quite a bit about the Via Ferrata in my last post but I didn't place any photos of the Via Ferrata. So here they are! Photos of the Via Ferrata. Hope you'll enjoy them.

Mt Kinabalu - Adventure - Kinabalu Freezing Cold

I went on a project with the Communication Boutique to promote the World Highest Via Ferrata which is run by Mountain Torq in Mount Kinabalu. Basically we spent a week up there filming the Via Ferrata.

I decided to stay another week to take more photos of the Via Ferrata for Mountain Torq. At the same time, Adrian and myself wanted to learn traditional climbing while we were there. Mr Wilfred, the owner of Mountain Torq offered to teach us that skill. My girlfriend, Kim, tagged along to see what traditional climbing is all about.

Of coz, as a photographer, I couldn't help but drag my annoyingly huge camera with me during the training.

Donkeys Ears

Practicing traditional climbing (Photographer : Kim Ng)

In order to get closer to our training area, we had to climb up 3810 meters to stay in a mountain hut called Sayat Sayat. From the hut, one can see the Donkeys Ears peak. On the first day at Sayat Sayat Hut, Mr Wilfred brought us up a little higher to practice traditional climbing.

White-out

Kim feeling miserably cold

On the second day, there was a white out. We spent the morning lazing around in the hut with nothing to do. There were no electricity, no TV, no PSP, no X Box, no Internet, basically, we were bored to death! In the afternoon, the white-out cleared a little. Mr Wilfred suggested hiking to the Gurkha's Hut. Knowing that the view around the Gurkha's Hut is beautiful, I quickly agreed to that idea and started packing my camera into my bag. Kim was more then happy to get out of the hut as she was bored to death. Adrian didn't seem too keen as he thought it would be just crazy to be walking out there in a white out. He was right, it was just crazy! It was cold and wet and I couldn't see a thing and Kim wasn't a big fan of the cold. After walking for nearly over an hour, Mr Wilfred came to the conclusion that the white out wasn't going to clear and decided to turn back to Sayat Sayat. Frankly, all of us were more then glad to head back to our warm hut. On the other hand, I was a little disappointed I didn't manage to get any pictures of Gurkha's hut's surrounding.

5 Degrees C

Bored John

Kim keeping warm

Rock climbing cams and nuts

While in the hut, we all got really bored again. DEAD BORED. I was so bored, I decided to walk around the little hut looking for anything to shoot with my camera. I shot my watch which has a temperature gauge that read 5 degrees C. I even spotted John (one of Mountain Torq's Staffs) entertaining himself drawing on the window. That's how bored John was. I shot Kim keeping warm in her sleeping bag. I shot my rock climbing gears. YES, I WAS BORED!!!!!

View of Mt Kinabalu at about 3810 meters (Photographer : Kim Ng)

Adrian on the Via Ferrata (Photographer : Kim Ng)

Thank God on the 3rd day, the weather was better. We managed to get out there to do the Via Ferrata. Oh yeah!! Once again, do check out the Via Ferrata at Mt Kinabalu!! Its superb!!!

LX3 & I - Portraiture

Model: Kelly Latimer

I'll start off by apologizing for the lack of posts. Been really busy balancing everything and my methods of DI can be a little painstaking, but I am comparing those results & what one is able to get through plugins and filters.

Obscura has done quite a body of work since we started but posting is always an issue and we tend to take awhile getting around to that.

As for the shoot. We've got a couple of shots of Kelly but I have yet to post the remainder but will eventually get around to filling this bit with about three to four shots.

Hope you'll like em. Nothing too daring nor artistic though. Hope we get a wicked crazy project soon.

Communication Boutique - Portraits - The Old Days

Okay this one isn't a commission, I've got no model releases and heck, they might sue me for putting it up.

These two are friends from CommunicationBoutique. The Russian WWI one is Shaun Koh - very passionate, energetic director. The Wild Wild West dude I believe is named Mark or Marc - he is a writer and slays Native american indians with his pen.

Look em up if you need any production work done. Anyway, I just spent a few minutes playing with the images I took of em when they interrupted us on our VERY important job by jumping in on set and goofing off! haha I kid, I kid. It was really cool having them around with Chew and I.

Raffles Institution - ONE

Obscura did a shot for the guys over at Orbital. "ONE" for Raffles Institution. We did a few more days of stock photography with these guys for a number of other clients but I am just putting a single picture up.

The good guys at Orbital handled the cover design and everything else. Obscura just supplied the photographs.

I know there has been a lack of updates, turns out I ain't cut out for this constant updating thing especially with the ever growing amount of photos that require post-editing and all that jazz. I'll try to throw up some photos done by us from another shoot soon.

Please do keep checking back or follow my twitter. I'll tell you guys when there is an update through that.

Gymnastics - American School Gymnastics

I've been getting quite a few questions about the gymnastics advert we did awhile back so I figured I'll give a brief walk-through the thought process and include just a few before and after shots.

We were using a D700 on F2.8 24-70mm. We had one 90x60 soft-box on the left and two rim lights on the back left and right. We gel-ed the right flash rim with 1/16 CTO to give a little bit of a kicker.

As for the settings. I can't be bothered to check but I used a slightly wider aperture to make sure we got it all in focus regardless of movement. Also when I shoot, I tend to check my histograms, making sure nothing is blown-out but still pushing my highlights close to clipping points in the particular case.

In my opinion, this way, when you up the contrast in post... everything drops nicely and you don't have to deal with high colored noise levels which seems to show up in the background when light kisses anything there by a tad. Had I shot it to look more like the final shot but in-camera, I would really not be able to do that much without putting a lot more effort in photoshop.

I guess what I am trying to say is, when you shoot, do what is best for DI and not what looks good on your lcd screen on camera. And I know, we should have tethered but we had to move a lot on this one and work fast due to limited time. Oh and lastly, just painted out the light and the remaining reflective materials in the background.

Rock Climbing Event - Pumpfest 09 - More Photos [Part2]

Alright, finally found sometime to pick a few shots from Chew's roll and right on top is a shot from Stefan's. I really digg the film look he has got going with that shot. While I strobed with a 24-70mm with two flashes at 1/16 power bouncing off the tent canvas (Strobist info).

Chew hung back covering with the event with his wonderful 70-200mm under natural light. Love the last shot the most. He always gets the expressions! Arse. I was never a natural light junky.

Speaking of which, got to go get a few studio gigs before I forget how to work those lights. Been really busy doing some advertising work with 3d instead of a camera. Have a good weekend people.

Rock Climbing Event - Pumpfest 09 - More Photos

I've always disliked events for the sheer number of photos i'd have to go through and the amount of restraint i'd have to practice in order not go in and tweak every photo one way or another. Well these are the few I liked. Hope you like em to.

Rock Climbing Event - Pumpfest 09

First time Obscura is blogging work done in the field. Covered a rock climbing competition in Singapore hosted by NTU at Velocity mall, Novena.

Probably might upload another set of photos later. Depends. Still figuring out our export process for clients as well as blogs and the like. Cheers.