Wildlife photographers, bird enthusiasts and eco-lovers would be thrilled to find out about the inaugural Langkawi Birding & Fotofest which will be held in Langkawi, Malaysia from the 19th – 21st November 2010. This Fotofest has a lot of interesting events lined up for participants and their families such as Bird Photography Competition, Photography Workshops, Nature Talks, Children Nature Activities, Nature Walks & Tours, Exhibition and Trade Fair Talks amongst others.

19th November 2010 (Friday)

9:00am – 5:00pm Booth Exhibitions at Langkawi Fair
8:00am Arrival of Participants & Registration for Workshops
8:30am Launching of the Langkawi Birding and Photo Fest

9:00am – 1:00pm Workshops
Session 1
Title: A Purposeful Approach to Photographing Birds (09:00am – 11:00pm)
Speaker: Mr. Choo Tse Chien

Title:Digital Videoscoping (11:00pm – 1:00pm)
Presenter: Mr.Tee Lian Huat

2:00pm – 6:00pm Workshops
Session 2
Title: Macro Photography Techniques – A Bugs Life (2:00pm – 4:00pm)
Speaker: Kurt (aka Orion Mystery)

Title: Birdwatching Tourism (4:00pm – 5:30pm)
Speaker: Andrew Sebastian
5:30pm – 6:00pm Birdrace and Photo Competition Briefing and registration
6:30pm – 8:30pm Guided Nature Walk – Rainforest Afterdark (Media)

20th November 2010 (Saturday)

7:30am – 8:00am Official flag off of Birdrace and Photo Competition
9:00am – 5:00pm Activities and Booth Exhibitions at Langkawi Fair
5:00pm – 8:30pm Guided Nature trip – The Great Hornbills of Gunung Raya (Media)

21st November 2010 (Sunday)

8:00am – 9:30am Guided Nature Walk – Langkawi Awakening (Media)
9:00am – 5:00pm Activities and Booth Exhibitions at Langkawi Fair
12:00pm End of Bird Race and Photography Competition
4:00pm – 7:00pm Exhibition of Participants Competition Photographs and voting for Peoples Choice
8:00pm Dinner & Prize presentation

For the official program, rules & regulations and registration details, please head to the Bird Festival’s Blog.

KLPF is back again!

Any photography buffs interested in attending talks and seminars, acquiring new camera gear and meeting other photo enthusiasts alike should head to Mid Valley Exhibition Centre at Mid Valley Mega Mall from the 29th – 31st October 2010. This is an annual event which is free to the general public draws a sizeable crowd. For the detailed program and further information do visit KLPF’s website.

A quick update on my blog with what I have been up to lately…I attended an inspiring session called ‘Hot Shoe Diaries’ on lighting from the master himself, Joe McNally on 2 February 2010 at the ShangriLa Hotel in Kuala Lumpur. A huge thank you goes out to Louis Pang from Wedshooter.tv for making all the arragements for Joe to come down to Malaysia.

Joe started off the day with a slideshow and explained his techniques and how he achieved some of his famous shots which appeared in National Geographic magazine.  He then demonstrated the use of small flashes as well as multiples lights both indoor and outdoor.  The one day session with about 15 other photo enthusiast was enlightening and inspiring.

Its nice to meet Joe at last, he is such a down to earth person and so generous with his knowledge.  His sharing on his humble beginnings as a rookie photog  working for a local newspaper in New York to his current status of being one of the world’s renowned and travelled photographer is indeed eye-opening.

Here are a few images of the day.

With the ever famous Joe McNally, got him to autograph my Hot Shoe Diary book as well :O)

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It was a last minute decision and I almost never made it for Jerry Ghionis‘s 1-day seminar which was held at Park Royal Hotel, Kuala Lumpur on the 25 September 2009.

Joining the seminar also gave me the opportunity to mingle with over 130 enthusiastic photographers from all over Malaysia. All of us had a funfilled session with Jerry who kept us entertained with his jokes and interesting stories, but most of all, he inspired us to be a better photographer!

Some of the pointers I picked up from Jerry were posing techniques, tips on directing couples, how to capture the natural magic on the wedding day and to create magic of my own and ways to make the best out of challenging environment.

As a photographer I am always on the look out to improve myself by reading books on photography or by attending seminars to give the best to my clients!

It was definitely a priviledge meeting Jerry for the first time, as he is has been named one of the top 5 Wedding photographers in the World. Before I end this post, I’d like to share my favourite quote from Jerry with everyone.

“You can be intimidated by Successful people or you can be inspired!

What one man (woman) can do, Another can do better!”

Here’s a shot of me & Jerry Ghionis taken by Huey Yoong

Interestingly enough, this was my 2nd conference on SME that I had attended in a period of 1 week. I had received the invitation from the organisers to join the Malaysian Small Medium Enterprise (SME) Congress on 18 August 2009 at Sunway Pyramid Convention Centre.

The 1-day congress was titled ‘Overcoming Adversity: How SMEs Do It‘, there were well over 300 participants who came, as far of as Penang to network, learn from the panel speakers and mingle.

Here’s the program for the day:

• Registration & Networking
• Welcome Address by Mr Wayne Lim, CEO Malaysia SME
• Presentation by Dr Clara L Chee, Founder Clara Group of Companies
• Tea Break
• Presentation by Mr Jeffrey Soo & Ms Michelle Hah, Fire Fighter Industry Sdn Bhd
• Presentation by En Mohamed Ali Noordin, Abx Express (M) Sdn Bhd
• Opening Ceremony, Lunch, Networking & Lucky Draw
• Presentation by Dang Tai Luk, Founder of myNEWS.com (Bison Stores Sdn Bhd)
• Panel Discussion
• Closing Address, Coffee, Networking and Lucky Draw

All in all it was a great session of learning from the pioneers, I was impressed with the sit-down course dinner, the wealth of knowledge from the various speakers, their humble manner in sharing their past on how they started their business. Clearly starting a business is not easy, many have put their tears, blood and sweat into making their dream a reality.

The sponsorship from the 3 main giants Cisco, Celcom & TM made the event accessible for everyone and on top of everything, I was lucky enough to win the SME Premium membership worth RM888.

So glad to be on the right track road of a successful photographer cum Entrepreneur.

Thanks to Michael Chan from MMS Advertising for this shot

I’ve just attended a two day event (12 & 13 August 2009) titled ‘Women Entrepreneurs Conference’ organised by Gorgeous Geeks at Technology Park Malaysia in Bukit Jalil. The conference has been nothing but empowering and mind-blowing. We had the chance not only to network but be exposed to social networks, technology, grants and utilising the Internet to its highest potential.

We were given inspirational and motivational talks by leading entrepreneurs which kept our mind racing with innovative ideas and forums which consisted of a range of panels discussing issues on business and marketing.

Here is a brief breakdown of the 2-day program:

Day 1

Session 1 – Started with Dr. Dominic Lau who spoke about Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant. Click on Dominic Lau to download the seminar notes.

Session 2 – We had 4 panelist: Dolly Kee – Director of Image Power, Laletha Nithiyanandan – Kelly Outsourcing & Consulting Group – MD Salt Media Consultancy & Dato’ Susie Yeoh – CEO Uptrend Network spoke about ‘The Journey of Entrepreneurship’.

Session 3 - Oon Yeoh – Columnist & New Media Editor & Colin Wong the founder of Sharein who spoke about Social Web Media for Business.

Session 4 - Another forum titled “Redefine Working Culture in the Digital Age’, panelists were Alecia Heng – President GG, Hoe Kian Choon – Sales GM Coway, Nadiah Tan Abdullah – HRD Microsoft Malaysia and Thomas Low – eHomemakers.

Session 5 – We were enlightened about the available financial support and grants for SMEs, Panelists were from MDeC, MAVCAP and SMIDEC.

Day 2

Session 1 – Forum titled Leverage on Social Web Media Marketing for Modern Business, panelists were Christ Tan – Chur Associates, Kid Chan – Kid Chan Studio, Timothy Tiah – Nuffnang Tand Tan Yet Mee – Emmagem

Session 2 – Product & Marketing Positioning, Applying the Blue Ocean Strategy by Sharon Ang from Laurent Bleu Skin

Session 3 - The Online Opportunity – Why We Should Be Selling on eBay by Carol Fung

Session 4 - Another forum titled ‘Journey for Financial Support & Grant for Business – part 2′ by Christy Lee – MAVCAP, Eliza Noordin – Teak Capital, Koh Lee Ching – Calms Technologies, Siti Mariam Abdullah – Clear Insight Technology

Session 5 – E-Payment for E-Commerce by Terry Yee from ipay88

Session 6 - An interesting talk by Hanson Toh, Google Country consultant on ‘Letting Customers Find You & your Products on the Internet’

Here are some shots taken by Eric Chan who was the designated photographer (yes yours truly decided to participate in the conference for once!)

Alecia Heng, President of Gorgeous Geeks

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