Good morning everyone! The crazy F1 week is finally over, it’s hump day and everyone is trying to make it through the week, looking forward to the weekend. We are especially excited because coming this Saturday would be Ah Loke and Lydia’s Actual Day Wedding, at Mandarin Oriental (one of our top favourite wedding banquet venue). Raymond will be shooting their wedding on that day (It’ll be the first time we attend our couple’s wedding as guests, and especially a crazy couple’s wedding! I’m sure it’ll be so much fun!!) 🙂 Usually Susu and I don’t get to attend couple’s wedding dinner because we need to stay in office to finish up our backlogs, and very most importantly to properly backup all the files which Raymond has shot during the morning part of the wedding.

Backup will take up quite some time, especially when we have to burn and verify all the discs, properly label them, double check that all files can be opened in another machine, and then store them in appropriate disc folders. Afterwhich we’ll need to also back up the files in the NAS (network-attached storage system). So in total we’ll have a copy of the wedding images in the main workstation, another copy burnt in DVD archives, and another set in the NAS. We’ll be setting up another NAS backup system in another location for the “just in case”. Call us Kiasu, but the backup is really necessary and especially important, and to ensure that the systems run + shut down smoothly, we even invested in backup power supply for the individual CPUs and NAS in case of power breakdown.

I think I have digressed again. -_-”

Anyway, today’s entry is to introduce Raymond Phang Photography to you guys, with an addition to the creative team. 🙂

The living Mascots of Raymond Phang Photography – Satin (on the left) and Bailey (on the right)!!! Satin is a very tamed and gentle + extremely shy chihuahua. Once you carry her she can just fall asleep in your arms. She don’t bark at all until she started learning all the bad things from Bailey. We adopted her, and she’s actually the sister of Bailey. Always bullied by Bailey, super curious, and you have to slowly approach her else she’ll just run away and hide underneath the table.

Bailey is a super playful, vocal, highly intelligent Chihuahua. We bought him from a friend when he’s about 2-3 months old when he used to hug pencil to sleep in place of a bolster. He’s super curious and enjoys playing hard to get. He’s quite vocal initially when guests come over. But once guests settle down, he’ll quit his barking and starts to wander off doing his own things. The next time he’ll start barking again is when guests leave. Somehow he knows it when it’s time. We’re still figuring out how and why.

This is Raymond our principal photographer. He observes the event, goes with the flow and captures as it is on a wedding day. We always tell couples 80% of Raymond’s style of shooting is like a fly on the wall, he doesnt interact much on the wedding day unless absolutely necessary. The remaining 20% would be posed shots such as unconventional group photos, or in the spur of the moment he’s suddenly inspired by something, he’ll ask if couples would like to have a quick posed shot to be taken. That’s why some couples thought our shots look like pre-wedding when they’re actually taken on a wedding day.

Raymond is a spontaneous person, cheeky, talented and highly intelligent. Throw him lemons and he’ll use the skin to sundry make dried lemon snacks, use the fruit to make lemonade, save a little to be used for lemon meringues and also for beauty purposes to lighten skin etc. =_=”

He graduated from Singapore Polytechnic with a diploma totally not related to Photography, went to NS, and Photography is his first full time job. We were formerly known as Raymondfotographie when we first started out, and we did a rebrand few years later to the current Raymond Phang Photography. The journey to where we are now (although not very accomplished) has not been the most easy, and we never could have done it without the support and understanding from our family.

But don’t see he cheeky cheeky, he’s an extremely serious person when it comes to work. We are not allowed to disturb him when he’s at work, otherwise we’ll be in deep shit. I can say he’s quite a demanding person also with high expectation to the work quality delivered. An anal perfectionist always hoping there’s more time on hand to perfect his works.

*Stress*

 

 

Next comes Angeline (aku, saya dan sendiri). I handle all the admin stuffs such as email enquiries, maintain and update the blog and facebook, paperwork filing, accounts, pricing structure, PR, HR, marketing, meetup with couples, daydream for the conceptualised pre-wedding and liaise with couples for the logistics, assist for pre-wedding shoots and provide opinions (which my boss calls me the art director), do R&D, cleaner, PA to boss, album layout + touch ups bla bla bla… =_=”

Not very intelligent, and I always picture my world to be super duper colorful (cos I love colors), filled with amazing things/ideas that we’ll probably not see happening on Planet Earth. My favourite activity of the day would be sleep. Because it’s the only time I can dream of the impossible, especially things I’d like to see it happen in reality but can never happen. Things such as giant marshmellow cottage house in shades of pastel pink and yellow sitted on a huuuuuuuuuuge patch of nicely trimmed carpet grass with red+white spotty mushrooms growing here and there (not forgetting dandelions too), then there’s bunnies hopping around chewing on baby carrots, bambi lazing around, subtle golden sunray peeking through the clouds. And then innocent kids giggling chasing each other across the field, suddenly the sky starts to rain. Not the normal rain but sparkly diamond dust, with an awesome hugeass rainbow sprouting from the far end.

Everything is nice, warm and fuzzy. But not all of my dreams end up on a sweet note. Sometimes it continues to something like this; the kids suddenly feel the earth moving, shaking, and realised it’s a quake. Bunnies hopped for their lives, bambi still lazing around, kids screaming and running in circles. The quake got more and more violentl, and the clouds slowly turned dark. The kids look up to the sky and see a pair of giant hands reaching out for them! They got toppled over and started spinning around. End up it’s an evil witch with nose the length of a cue stick. She captured the kids and put them into the snowglobe as puppets. Hence the diamond dust rain. -_-”

*Stress*

Next up is SUSU! She has got a lot of nicknames such as Susu (her real name is Sulin), Susulini, Sushimi, and sometimes new nicknames when we’re inspired to call her something else. Muwahahahaha! Susu first joined us in September (2009?) when we put an Ad looking for D-Eye artist, which is actually D.I Artist (Digital Imaging). Her email caught our attention amongst the many application, so we decided to ask her for an interview where they had to process some raw images.

The result of her images came out with purple colored skin tones, but we decided to confirm her anyway because of her attitude. Personally we find that attitude is one of the most important factor. She can click well with us, and had the room + potential to improve.

I remember the first day of work I placed a box of chocolates and sweets on her desk, and kept feeding her with food in case she shy don’t dare to raid the fridge for food. Now she’s a professional fridge + cupboard raider, and her skills have improved tremenduously over the past years. No more purple cast, and much more detailed. 🙂

Susu is a “I’m anything one” person, but sometimes she’s also not that person. Pretty prideful at times, but definitely crazy enough to do stupid things such as flashing to a field of cows in New Zealand with truck driving past and driver saw her flashing, humping the sakura lookalike tree in Prague just to make the petals fall for a conceptualised pre-wedding shoot and had people fiercely asking her to better stop it yet she continue humping the tree.

Sometimes she’ll play angsty music in office, and she can listen to a song on repeat mode for the whole day. Sometimes we’ll have little chats in between work, talking about Lotus and discussing how the robber will let us go if we tell him his lotus will not open if he robs us.

Besides doing DI work, susu is also a good photographer, and second shoot sometimes. Not forgetting she also assist Raymond for conceptualised pre-wedding shoots carrying lights (sometimes have to hold till whole body starts to vibrate like lao pok car engine), throwing food and money etc.

In short, this angsty anything one lady here specialise on the digital imaging work, does occasional shoots, and also assist for conceptualised pre-wedding when required. Oh if you’re a hug person like Susu, feel free to hug her.

*stress*

 

 

Next up, our new addition – BEN CHAN the crazy potato!! He has a few nicknames too, sometimes I call him Benito, Benoi, Bennie etc.

He was first introduced to us by Angthommie (Thomas the awesome photographer from peeeeeeeepiiiiiiiing thom). So Angthommie text me the website to view Ah ben’s works. Not bad, this lad has got potential. Ah ben has been assisting Angthommie for a couple of shoots, also second shoot at a few weddings as well.

The first time I met Ah Ben face to face was at SOHO, when he came up with Angthommie to borrow the Sun Gun for a pre-wed shoot. He looked so serious and no nonsense, I scared. HAHAHAHA!

So after their pre-wed shoot ended, we met up at Lavender area for supper at Cheng Mun Kee (delicious meatballs). Ah Ben was super quiet, super shy. But maybe because he was too tired to entertain us, so nevermind.

Then he started helping us with some DI work as well. He dropped by SOHO alone, he was super quiet as usual, so anti social, sit one corner don’t dare take water to drink etc. But strangely, feedback from Angthommie is that Ah Ben is NOT LIKE THAT ONE…..

Which is true… because after working with him for a few times, he slowly started to open up to us. He’s really sweet and good natured, extremely hardworking and effort 100%.

Besides photography, Ah Ben enjoys breaking an arm or a leg with this activity called Long Boarding. Hahahaha! His favourite drink when he’s tired happens to be Red Bull + Naughty G, he can eat like 2 packets of Nasi Bryani at one go for lunch and feel hungry 10 minutes later. If you guys are interested to have your wedding shot in Film, Ah Ben is also the man you can look for.

He has assisted us for a couple of conceptualised pre-wedding shoots such as Roy and Amy, Tony and Cheryl, Eileen & TP, did a few batches of editing for wedding day, also second shoot for a few weddings as well.

Raymond is very pleased with Ah Ben for his work attitude, and also the potential to be an awesome photographer.

So Ah Ben will join us officially as a full time photographer in October, and we’ll be participating in the Style Weddings Love Affair 2011 roadshow happening from 6-9 October 2011, 11am to 9pm at Main atrium level 1 Plaza Singapura. We will be launching a super attractive promo bundle for full day wedding photography coverage for Ben + Susu’s photography service, only for signups at the roadshow. You will not regret coming down for a visit. Hehehe. 🙂

Not forgetting there’s the Red Hot Deal happening at every hour where you’ll get additional discounts/freebies on top of the existing promotion. So do drop by our booth to say hi and see some of their beautiful photography works ya? Looking forward to see you guys soon! 🙂

 

Love,
Angeline