Category Archives: For Photographers

I received a challenge recently to take some corporate profile portraits for a company in Kuala Lumpur. It was something I don’t do very often, in which I dealt mostly with brides and grooms in the past. This time, what I needed to overcome is to shoot portraits of about 30 executives and managers in the office.

It was a challenge to me, taking a few considerations. First, the portraits need to be taken in an office, not in a studio. Obviously I got to find a way to make or turn the place to be a temporary studio, or studio alike. My mission was meant to capture photos that look like being a studio. Second challenge was the logistic problem. Obviously I am from Kuching and the location is about 1000km away from me by flight, the city of Kuala Lumpur. It is almost impossible for me to bring heavy equipments to travel this way.

This challenge, however did not pull my spirit. It made me think harder to turn the situation to be my advantage. And I got excited over it for a change of different type of subjects. I truly understand my biggest advantage in my photography journey so far is being mobile, and the ability to adapt in all kind of situations meaning to leverage whatever I have on hands to create the best possible pictures. While not every photographer has the gift of being mobile and maximize every asset on hand, I appreciate this special gift from God. Hence, I decided to set up a temporary studio in the office for the 2-day assignment.

Since it was impossible to bring studio equipment, alternatively the Nikon CLS would turn to be my best solution. Pairing my Nikon flashes with Lastolite Ezy Box, my lighting problem solved. What I needed was a pair of light stands to hold and support my flashes. My background was simply a big piece of black velvet cloth, attached on Manfrotto background support set. Done! With appropriate equipments like lenses and camera, that was all I needed for the assignment and was all ready to go rock ‘n’ roll! All of these equipments added up for only about 40KGs. Still affordable to travel by flight. Pretty mobile, huh.

I chose black background, ahead of white and red for all my subjects. I was thinking, black should be pretty cool for a picture for corporate executives or managers. But I needed to be extra careful in separating my subjects from the black background. In other words, I got to ensure my subjects were all well lit to be separated from the dark background. Else, their hair and dark clothes would easily gel in the background that may not look as great after all.

The outcome? I pretty love them. The black background is just nice to bring out the corporate feel on each person. The result surplus my expectation.

Below are some of the pictures I took. What a pleasure! Hope you like them as much as I love the session.