The Photographer @ Super GT, Sepang

last weekend has been extremely exciting. babyboss pictures was covering 4 events simutaneously. but for now, just wanna draw your attention to the one i was shooting...the Japan Super GT Championship 2007 at the Sepang International Circuit from june 22-24. not exactly "fun" but at least its something out of the ordinary for me, something out of the typical live concert shoots or weddings and stuffs.

more pics from the event, especially the actual race day on sunday (june 24), will be uploaded as soon as i can find some time. just finished the pics selection earlier tonite for my korean clients, Hankook. more pics of the infamous race queens babes, pit shots, race shots and also the gala dinner with the Hankook race team and babes! stay tuned here!

meanwhile, here are some pics of "the photographer" in action during the Super GT event.

still smiling under 38C heat at the track!

at the Hankook VIP Lounge with Senera C

cmg babes!

at the starting grid with our Hankook Porche car

our very own Hankook race queen!

Japan GT - After 2 Days

yesterday (friday) was a lil boring as there were only "cars" and "cars". but today, things changed for the better...the babes were out!!! the race queens r commonly known as umbrella girls all came parading out in their full "GT attire" or betterunderstood as SEXY.

as expected, literally all photographers present there were firing away on their 8 frames per second pro bodies. i am not sure if they reliased that the girls were exactly "moving" like 250km/hr! what was that 8fps for! while it took me like maybe 3 shots to get a decent picture, our friends would have fired like 20 frames!!!

the morning race was super hot...not as in hot babes but the hot burning sun! naturally, by evening, i got myself well-tanned...instead of ayam panggang, now we have michael panggang! more photographers came today, both the pros and the aspiring pros-wannabe.

anyway, here are just some pics to show of the event.

the lamborghini pits (above & below pic)

changing wheels, getting ready to start

all cars out of pit

photographers "banging" on the babes!

weee...more babes!

and babes...

and this is one fantastic babe!

and this is fantastic photog with fantastic babe!

Superiorly a D2x

i have now used the nikon d2x for 5 weeks and i must admit that it is indeed a fantastic camera. if you are holding anything but a d2x and if you have the budget, do seriously consider upgrading to a d2x. i regret i did not make the move earlier!

the color is bright and solid while skin tone is as close as it can get to a Fuji NPH400 professional film. simply awesome smoothness and color. of course, that is if you are consistently making accurate exposure measurements lar!

and the speed and performance is like asking a ferrari to hit 100km per hour...a breeze! on single shot setting, i could fire-on-demand easily as though the camera was ever ready, waiting for my next instruction while delivering my current request. simply effortless! with all due respect to my D100 and D70s, these two fellas are no where near to the d2x's performance and color reproduction.

another new finding...the nikon sb800 speedlight comes with a 5th battery option. USE IT!!! unless you plan to spend some 600 bucks on the nikon sd-8a flash battery pack, the 5th battery chamber on the sb800 is a great alternative and its free! with 5-batts on my sb800, a full charge takes only like 3 secs instead of the usual 4-batts at some 8 secs! while shooting press conferences and fast moving people (like the prime minister), the 5-batts operation gave me a lot more advantage and much quicker recycle times!

its definitely worth carrying 5 batts for your sb800...TRUST ME!!! and you also won't have to tolerate with the flash sync cable that comes with the sd-8a which has to run across your chest down to your belly before reaching the sd-8a device which is probably resting in your jeans pocket!

so, give it a thought.

ah yes...remember...next week...Japan Super GT Championship pics here in this blog!

Japan GT Championship 2007 - Sepang

fuyoh...another year for the overly hypped Japan GT Championship which is due to resurface on the sepang international circuit next weekend from june 22 to june 24.

if you were to do a search on the internet for "japan gt", you will find that the "race queens" and everything about them will dominate like 90% of your search results. based on my personal research, i found that 93% of people who talks about japan gt are actually talking about the japanese babes or more commonly known as umbrella girls or race queens. almost 99% of all unofficial photographers are at the race only to shoot the race queens. of course, official media photographers assigned to the event have to do their job shooting the race too, though once time permits, the lenses are again pointed to the babes!

a huge contrast to the world no.1 motorsports...the F1. people who go for the F1 are there for the cars. unfortunately, due to strict rules, i never got a chance to shoot the F1 races. as for japan gt, i was privileged to shoot 2 years.

this year, i will be shooting again! weeee.... but i am not covering the full race. my assignment is to cover one of the official sponsor and their group activities during the japan gt, including their kl city tour, shopping and jalan-jalans! i will also be with them during their golf friendly match and my assignment only ends on june 27 (when they've all gone home).

i hope this ain't hankook's official race queen outfit for this year...cause it ain't sexy at all.

stay with this blog for more japan gt pics when i do updates after june 27. till then..."look east".

Babyboss Photogs

just finished with the pics for the up and coming babyboss pictures official website.

introducing our babyboss pictures photographers :

associate photographer, william lim

associate photographer, caxton chow

associate photographer, paul kok

associte photographer, "dr"

junior photographer, sandra wong

junior photographer, christine wong

babyboss pictures director and chief photographer, michael sin

I Need Mandarin Classes

last nite i finally watched a dvd which i bought some 3 months ago..."the curse of the golden flower". no doubt, the much talked about "gong li" role was very "eye opening". i never knew that the imperial dress code for women was that "pushed out". i mean, the boobs were like almost popping out liao...something you don't even see in the old english victorian days!

anyway, it wasn't for gong li that i bought the dvd. really. i wanted to see actor chou yun fatt playing the role emperor. but after watching the movie, i tot gong li deserved a bigger hand clap than chou yun fatt, though he was, nevertheless, first class in his acting.

but the frustrating part was that the movie was in mandarin! and i couldn't even catch 30% of the entire converation! but i was able to guess what was happening. however, towards reaching the middle part where the conspiracy and killing starts, i was really desperate to know what was happening. if you have watched the movie you'd realise that there were these ninja assasins in black, then the archers at the mountains in redish outfits, then jay chou's army came in gold each wearing a "gong li scarf collection" and finally the army in silver outfit who trashed out the entire jay chou batalion at an ambush with hundreds of flying arrows everywhere.

I watched that 1hr45mins movie TWICE just so i can hopefully catch the conversation and understand a lil more. it was tough. then i just played back the segents of the movie that needed clarification and i dreadfully struggled with the mandarin.

after much frustration (of not getting the clearer picture), i decided to shut everything down and go to sleep since it was already 3am. a i inserted the dvd back into the box, i read the back of the box hoping to catch some sypnosis or something. but my eye caught something else. there was this corner that says, "Language : Mandarin, Cantonese" and another that says "Subtitles : Chinese, English, Malay, Thai, Indonesian".

tahdaaah...i re-inserted the dvd back into my computer and set the language to cantonese and also had english subtitles! i solved the entire puzzle in 10mins!

great movie, stupid me! here are some pics from the movie.

the movie poster

gong li and chou yun fatt

jay chou as prince jai

huge setup

li man...probably the next gong li

ok lar...just one more pic of gong li lar!

Super Photographers!!!

i know of professional photographers who'd carry 3 bodies at one time...one on a mid 17-55 and another body on an 80-200, while still keeping the third body as spare in the bag. and that's kinda extreme already. for me, i only carry two bodies. and i am already feeling the weight!

but here are two super pros who'd carry like 8 bodies with flash and lens attached? wut were they thinking? 10.5, 50, 12-24, 16-35, 24-70, 80-200, 400 and 600? gosh!!!

super woman

this one lagi terror...600mm with knee pads too!!! wahlau!

Babyboss In The Studio

it was like an annual dinner-cum-get-together for the photographers at babyboss pictures. due to the new babyboss pictures website, a fresh image is required and thus a studio photo session was called. all 7 babyboss pictures associated photographers came together for some studio fun and also, of course, to get our new mug shots for the new website!

great dinner fellowship before photo shoot. we arrived at the studio and was not sure how we wanted to start. so we thought, maybe a group photo would be sweet. here are some pics...

setting up the place for the shoot

camwhores posing even before the set was ready

more camwhoring by babyboss pictures chief photographer

the babyboss pictures team

sandra with d'photographer

babyboss pictures chief photographer

Good Bye Video Cam!

just got back home this evening (mon, june 4) from my annual 3d2n holiday retreat with my family at port dickson. the kids had the most fun...be it beach or pool or water slides. a special mention to tiara resort...great man-made beach pool and slides. huge place, huge pools.

but the poor dad suffers. trying his best to capture the "happy moments", he gets his video camera splashed with thunderous splashes of water from all four angles. for some reasons, kids just love to splash on water.

on day 1, the cam was still working fine but after some "showers of blessings", the LCD screen seem to turn redish and sometimes greenish and sometimes blueish. on day 2, after more "showers of blessings" from the pools, the LCD screen seem to have dimmed and almost 80%darken and color is definitely messed. but the recording is still fine...its just the LCD screen that's going into a coma. by day 3, with much more "showers of blessings", the screen just went blank! and i had to resort to the tiny viewfinder.

a great simple trip but it has to be a "good bye" to my 5-yr old 1ccd video cam!

panasonic nv-ds60

A Youth Pastor

when you care and love for this young fella and this young fella does not care and love you the same way you do, what would you do? most people would just tell this young fella to go "fly kite". i wouldn't. i would continue to care and love for this young fella until one day when i die, the secret is revealed and this young fella would probably get on his knees infront of my coffin.

sounds so dramatic. but i really do care and love many of my young fellas who never understood why i cared and loved them so much. many harsh words and disrecpectful gestures were demonstrated to me as a sign of their superiority and so-called authority. because care and love is taken for granted in today's society.

the old grandmaster of the movie "karate kid" once said, "with wisdom comes power and with power comes responsibility". many of us exercise authority without wisdom and thus carry no sense of resposibility in their actions. these actions only lead to regret where the ego and pride hinders the truth from manifesting out.

haih...i m no grandmaster but i m certainly seasoned enough to see our young generation today falling into traps of the fleshly pride and ignorance. the kids of the late 80s have this issue. i am of the early 70s era where we play hor-lee and ride bicycles every evening! what about the youths of today? trying to look cooler than the guys next door and getting into relationships they could never manage?

in church, the youth ministry is booming like never before. why? cause young people create so much "opportunities" for churches to hire youth pastors to look into their issues and well-being. who is doing who a favor now? are young people creating job opportunities for youth pastors recruitments or are youth pastors saving the future of society.

i have been in this youth business for the last 5 years now and i assure any reader that it takes MORE THAN LOVE to give. it takes SACRIFICIAL love to give to our young generation. my only prayer is "God, give me strength".

sometimes i just feel like throwing in the towel and telling these young errogantly ignorant fools to just go FLY KITE! i have a life to live and i want to live it to the fullest for myself. but if Jesus can pay the price for our sins and foolishness, then so can i for the youths today.

that is why...i am a Youth Pastor.

Oikos Youth