Instant Photography, Live Event Photography by LiveStudios

Willy did a shoot for Samsung and the photo was being placed for advertisement on 9 April 2010, The Straits Times.

+Bookmark:

Here’s Live!Studios at the week-long Audi Fashion Festival!

Jonathan

Willy

Lorraine

Taking down names of the people in the photo, for easy identification and photo retrieval after.

The sea of photographers crowding at the front of the runway.

+Bookmark:

Last week, Willy has had the pleasure to conduct a workshop at World Gourmet Summit 2010: An Afternoon of Photography Appreciation with Leica. Together with food stylist, Chef Anderson Ho, they share tips on food photography and styling techniques at Singapore Tourism Board’s Auditorium.

Getting started

A shiny, metallic surface to demonstate reflection. The ‘before’ shot.

And after…

The setup. Using clamps to hold the styrofoam boards to bounce off light in a certain direction and having black cardboards as background to provide an edge for light reflection.

Chef Anderson, on the other hand, is preparing the hero dish. It is interesting to note that food for photography should not be eaten (unless you wish to) as they are specially handled. This means to say that the food are either not fully cooked (as above, Chef is just flaming the squid for its visual appeal)… or you just don’t want to eat them upon seeing how they are being handled during preparation.

A small step ladder comes into handy in this case.

One trick to make your food shine – glycerin. You can opt fpr egg white as a more readily available option.

Getting the aperture, ISO and white balance right is just the first step. The purpose of food photography is to represent the dish at its best in a single shot. You will have to twig its ingredients around for it to look tastier.

Pulling the clam from behind the pasta and adjusting the position and angle of each clam to reveal the juices they contain.

You may also wish to consider what you would like to highlight in the dish, and ensuring that other ingredients do not steal its limelight. Therefore, it usually takes quite some time to manually adjust not only the settings of the camera, but also the presentation of dishes.

Due to a shortage of time, we didn’t manage to demonstrate capisicums being dunked into water as we had originally intended to. Click here to view the shots that we have done in our studio.

+Bookmark:

It’s been a long while since we’ve updated this space. The past year has had been busy. We had more than 500 events that kept us going despite the worldwide economic crisis and we are really thankful for all our clients who have been supporting us all this while.

So here’s to another event(full) year ahead! New year resolutions (yes, we know it has been 4 months past the new year)? One of them is definitely to keep this space updated religiously!

Microsoft has organised a Photosynth 360 contest offering a unique look at Singapore’s historic, cultural and sporting landmarks using Microsoft® PhotoSynth technology. This competition encourages students and photo enthusiasts to select, capture and stitch photos of Singapore attractions into one big interactive 3D viewing experience.

Now you may be wondering how it all works. Photosynth takes your photos, mashes them together and recreates a 3D scene out of them that anyone can view and move around in. Vastly different from static photos and video, Photosynth allows you to explore details of places, objects, and events unlike any other media. You can’t stop video, move around and zoom in to check out the smallest details, but with Photosynth you can. And you can’t look at a photo gallery and immediately see the spatial relation between the photos, but with Photosynth you can. You get to visit places that you may not have been, yet knowing the exact details of each spot!

This contest positions Singapore as an ideal location to host international events like the Youth Olympic Games, as it presents Singapore’s unique cultural heritage, architecture and exclusive sporting infrastructure in a virtual 3D format to the international public. Beyond the games, the contest is a celebration of Singapore’s cityscape, and serves as an avenue for youth to express their creative interpretation of landmarks in a cinematic and immersive way. All the 3D synths of Singapore sites will be permanent fixtures on Bing Maps.

“It’s clear that photography has taken off in a big way in Singapore – there were a number of great synths that really captured the essence of a given landmark. Synthing opens up new areas for photographers, at any experience level, to express their creativity and create more artistic imagery. This competition was a great platform for encouraging young photographers to experiment with composition, lighting and how a fully 360 degree image differs from a static shot. Being able to have their work immortalised on Bing Maps is also pretty cool,” commented Willy, one of the judges for the contest.

Over an interview at Mediacorp Radio 938LIVE, Willy shares what this is all about with Keith Nakamura, John Fernandez and Zainolabidin Bin Esa. Check out the photosynth of the studio done at http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=54efa70e-9f9b-4fd5-a07d-39dde548ecd6.

Or do drop a visit at http://www.photosynth.net for more information.

+Bookmark:

Livestudios toasted its way to the successful launch of Moët & Chandon’s latest product – Rose Imperial @ Clifford Pier. During the event, guests had the Livestudios team snapping glamour shots of them sipping on the new champagne.

Three of our photographers were stationed at our mobile studio setup with a luxurious-looking couch as the centre piece and flowing golden drapes as a backdrop. Guests were invited to pose as our photographers captured three different angles of them at the same time. Each set of three shots were printed in film-strip format. Upon receiving them, the guests raved about the unique print-outs, and they totally loved them! It was a great and sparkling night throughout. Check out the photos below!

Cheers!

Ta-da! The Images are presented into this stunning flim-like strips!

The Hunks!

One of the dynamic duo twins. The May and Choy Sisters.

Some pretty ladies~

Another one!

Finale shot~

+Bookmark:

LG Singapore hired our Chief Photographer, Willy Foo to go around Singapore to take photos for a guess the location quiz. Can you guess where are the exact locations of the places showcased in these photos?

Location A

         Location B

          Location C

                                         Location D

        Location E

                Location F

                                           Location G

          Location H

        Location I

         Location J

Could you also have guessed that these photos are taken with a mobile phone? Willy was the featured photographer for the launch of LG Renoir, the hot new 8 megapixel camera phone. On the day of the launch, our crew went there with our mobile lighting to take pictures of the invited guests. All photos that you see here were taken with LG Renoir.

Willy giving a talk about how to choose a camera phone and what are the special features of LG Renoir.

The guests joining in the contest of guessing the locations of the places in the photographs.

The fabulous-looking LG Renoir promoters

+Bookmark:

It is not everyday that you’ll get to attend a 70th wedding anniversary, but if you do, you’re almost certain you’re at a place full of love. And that’s what we witnessed during Mr and Mrs Chia Cheng Guan’s 70th Platinum Wedding Anniversary.

It was also LiveStudios first ever MyStamps job. Not only were the introduction of the stamps a successful and overwhelming response for LiveStudios, more importantly, it brought back the nostalgic feelings from the past, 70years ago, the day that Mr Chia and Mrs Chia tied the knot. 70 years down the road, everything else had changed, but the beauty of the love the couple shared remained evidently present till this very day.

Family, Friends, School Mates, and Neighbours turned up to congratulate the couple.

The host of the night giving his welcome speech.

The host of the night took the time out to research and find this bottle of wine and newspaper article that was manufactured and published during the year that Mr and Mrs Chia got married.

Cutting their 70th Wedding Anniversary Cake.

Liane & Joanne. Grand-daughters of Mr and Mrs Chia

LiveStudios first MyStamps job received an overwhelming response from the guests.

LiveStudios would like to thank all our clients for the support give to us over the years. Here’s wishing everyone a Happy Lunar New Year.

+Bookmark:

Our CEO and chief photographer, Willy Foo, was interviewed by The New Paper as one of the nominees for the 2009 Martell’s Rising Personality Award. As we were thrilled and happy for his nomination, we were also happy to be involved in the Martell events that are on-going currently. The Martell Award is an annual effort to give recognition to 10 talents who are on the path of success and rising above. Voters will also be rewarded with exclusive prizes from Martell for their effort in giving support. To find out more, visit http://www.martell.com.sg. Here is the full write-up of the interview, titled Sharing Stories With His Lens, featured on page 27 of The New Paper on 18 Jan 2009:

We often forget who was behind the camera when we look at a beautiful picture. However, Willy Foo is one photographer who deserves all the credit he gets. Not only is the 33-year old an award-winning photographer, his effort in promoting his passion in Singapore is commendable. He regularly judges photography and conducts workshops for budding photographers. We find out what the man behind the lens is like.

Q: What makes a good photograph?

A: A good photograph should evoke an emotion or carry a message. It could be sharing a grandmother’s joy of playing with her grandson or stimulating a thought        about preserving the beauty of nature.

Q: What makes a good photographer?

A: Other than being technically capable, a good photographer needs to communicate with both the subject of the photo and the viewer who looks at it.

Q: What is your most memorable photoshoot?

A: It was a shoot in a nature reserve in Seychelles, on an island called Cousin Island. There are thousands of birds on this little island and I took more good photos in that one hour than I ever did in my past four years of natue photography.

Q: Who is the most famous personality you’ve shot – and any secrets to share about him?

A: The one that probably struck me the most was Jackie Chan. I’ve shot him on two occasions and he’s always very friendly, with no airs at all. a very likeable person indeed.

Q: Do you like being photographed?

A: While I’m more comfortable being behind the camera, I know better than to shy away from the camera when people is pointing at me because people who sun the camera almost always spoil a potentially nice shot.

Q: There’s a rising popularity in photography among the youth here – how do you feel about that?

A: It’s fantastic that more people are picking up photography. It’s an easily accessible hobby and does not need to be expensive. I’ve started a “Singapore Photographers” group on facebok and currently have about 2,300 members. We have weekly contests, monthly gatherings and a very active community who’s there to learn and share in the spirit of helping each other.

Q: Who motivates you? Who inspires you?

A: Al Reis and Jack Trout, who wrote the infamous 22 Imutable Laws of Marketing. The book was published in 1993 but the concepts are still applicable today.

Q: What does the future hold for you?

A: I am planning to expand my range of services and I’m also starting to conduct courses for photography.

Q: What is your favorite genre of photography?

A: I would say travel photography. You are in a different environment and everything is new. You get fresh inspiration and you start to see things differently as well.

Q: What does it mean to be a Rising Personality, and what’s the best way to drink your Martell Cognac?

A: Its an affirmation that I’m on the right track and that I should’nt rest on my laurels. Try Martell with green tea. Its a pleasant mix.

+Bookmark:

Happy 2009!

LiveStudios had a fantastic year with a total of 723 photoshoots in 2008. We look forward to a more challenging year ahead and wish all our clients, partners and friends a good year ahead.

The first day of 2009 started with a wedding lunch using our LiveSMS services. We’ve made improvements on the LiveSMS service by being able to control the size of the scrolling display at the bottom of the screen as well as having instructions printed on every table at the wedding.

+Bookmark:

Here’s the Draft version of the 2009 Bloggers Calendar. Click on any one the images and use the arrow keys to navigate.

+Bookmark: