.: ShaolinTiger - Kung-Fu Geekery :.

So a while back I got an awesome phone call saying that I'd be shooting the Red Bull Rookies for FHM Malaysia!

Red Bull is very active in community events and various activities and the next female driver search is on, so do check them out at http://www.redbull.com.my/.

As you've seen in my previous post - the pics were featured in a 3 page spread in the August edition of FHM.

So say hello to the lovely Red Bull Rookies.

From left to right Leona Chin, Puteri Ayu Jasmin, Norlina Johor & Baizura Ruslan.

It was a fun shoot, all done on location in Sunway, some in a car tuning shop and some at a grimy old workshop. All strobist style with portable speedlights and some gels thrown in for good measure. These were shot out the back of the workshop as the sun was going down.

Norlina Johor

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Finally my first proper magazine spread, I was so excited to get the mag from the shop - it's a good issue too with the 100 most wanted women.

FHM Malaysia may not be as racy as some of the other publications in Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia but they are doing what they can and the new editor Joe Balan is trying to push the boundaries and be a bit more creative with the content.

I did a photoshoot recently for the Red Bull Rookies for publication in FHM and it came out with 3 whole pages!

With proper photo accreditation - woo!

The following 2 pages are like this..

It was all shot strobist style on location, it was a challenging and fun shoot. I hope to get the chance to do more stuff like that in the future.

I suggest you grab the mag and check it out now - support FHM Malaysia!

Well I don't know if I'd call myself a photographer yet...but I've just passed my second year in photography..

I got my Nikon D70s on June 7th 2006, 2 years ago last month. I had some cameras before that, an old Olympus mju 35mm film point and shoot and I got my first digital camera in 2001 (which cost me a fortune) - the 3.2 megapixel Canon Powershot A70.

It did me well and most of my earlier pictures on this blog were from that camera.

I'd say I started photography properly when I got the D70s, before that I'd just started exploring what I could do with with the A70 and was starting to find it's limitations in terms of speed, noise at high ISO, accurate white balance and fine tuning controls. I decided against getting a bridge or prosumer camera and to go straight for a dSLR.

My choices at that time were the Canon 350D, the Olympus E-500 and the Nikon D70s.

I hardly got chance to use the camera, and had only just bought my first lens other than the kit lens (A Tamron SP90mm Di Macro Lens)...and my camera was stolen only 3 months after I'd bought it.

That was heartbreaking to say the least...by that time I'd completely gotten the photography bug though so I couldn't give up...I had a choice to make between getting the Nikon D80, which had just been released or the higher model the Nikon D200. I went for the D200 for various reasons (solid build, more accurate metering, CF card rather than SD and so on) and I have to say I've never regretted the decision.

Anyway here are a few of my personal favs I've taken in the 2 years since I've gone from complete noob to slightly less noob.

With the Nikon D70s

With the Nikon D200

I've had a stranger buy one of my pictures though, I've been published in quite a few magazines and national papers, I'll have a spread in FHM August, I've shot a major musical event and I've recently seen one of my pictures on a billboard! I've got a lot of unpublished stuff, so perhaps I'll make an effort to get it on my blog. Also of course we started Shutter Asia to expand my learning and network of photographers for outings and trips - so far it's been great!

It's a start!

I've still gotten a long way to go though, only 2 years into photography...probably another 23 years to go before I get any good Most things take at least 25 years to master reasonably well.