Unlike last week, this week has been especially good to me! My Monday started out great – I received 2 enquiries for commercial work, one of which has been confirmed and the other, fingers crossed I’ll get the job too! To add to the good day, Peter invited to be a platform speaker at their upcoming WPPM conference in August! And yesterday, my client finally approved the Lotus flower I had been working on (and sweating balls) the past two weeks! So yes, it’s been a great week for me and I hope it’s been a good one for you too!

Here’s what I’ve been working on for Beaubelle. With new blood in the company, they are currently undergoing a rebranding exercise for a cleaner & fresher brand image. If you follow me on Twitter on on Facebook, you would have known how much time I had spent on the lotus, the main brand identity shot. The problem was finally resolved by individually photographing each lotus part and carefully putting piece by piece together in Photoshop. After countless variations and adjustments, I finally managed to get the show below (You won’t miss it, it’s a gigantic flower!)

We learn things everyday and this assignment has taught me a few valuable things:

1. Always persevere, never give up, even if you feel like you’re gonna.

2. Nothing in commercial ads are real nor perfect, thanks to Photoshop.

3. After getting the full image, always re-take your subject in individual parts, just in case you need to DI a part in later on.

4. Layer masks, warping and blending.

My weekend kinda starts today so ……. HAVE A FANTABULOUS WEEKEND!

… and drum roll pls… for the famous Lotus!

Models: Patricia Knudsen & Josiah Mizukami

Makeup + Hairstyling by Emilia Marcelo

Today, I ran 10km. And the real accomplishment, is that I did it within 1 hour and 10 mins. Today’s run is the very first time I’m gaining confidence that I would finish the Energizer marathon (my very first participation in a marathon!) this Saturday (I’m doing only 10km of course) and to be able to finish the run within the time limit of 1 and a half hours is certainly a bonus and an ego boost! Fiona, Ming and I have been “training” for this marathon for the past month, but not diligently enough of course and before today, I never really thought I’d be able to finish it within the time frame. Honestly, it’s more of a mental thing than your physical ability. Seriously, before this 10km, the furthest I’ve run was 8km and that was way back in November when I was on holiday in Melbourne. The furthest I’ve done at the KLCC park is 5 rounds, which works up to be about 6.5km, and that was last year too. In the past month, I could hardly make 4 rounds and even till last Friday, I only did 3. Today, i kept pushing myself, and kept re-setting my goals after I reached the previous one. It’s all about psyching the mind. It’s all about telling yourself you can do it! I’m feeling really good tonight and am all pumped up for the race this Saturday!

Here’s a commercial shoot I did a few weeks back for Beaubelle. I was excited to do this shoot as I can’t remember the last time I shot products! And it reminded me of how much work and precision these shoots are compared to photographing people, especially when working with reflective surfaces, which required quite a lot of digital imaging! All in all, I had fun a look forward to more of such challenges!