Last October, Wendy and Paul had a beautiful outdoor Hong Kong wedding at one-thirtyone, near Sai Kung in the New Territories. I was particularly excited to shoot their wedding day since it would be outside, which is not as common as you might think in Hong Kong.

Wendy and Paul welcomed an intimate group of family and friends to their wedding, many whom traveled from the UK to be with them (and for those that couldn’t, there were live updates from their wedding party – what a great idea!). The morning prep started in Tsim Sha Tsui, and the ceremony and reception took place on the lawn of one-thirtyone in Ma On Shan. Here are some photos from their big day.

The Royal Pacific Hotel and Towers

Ceremony

Wedding Formals

Reception

Lately I’ve been asked to shoot a lot of in-studio corporate headshots, and I have to be honest, photographing executives in business suits is not exactly the sexiest area of photography. Nevertheless, I’ve really grown to like it. For my clients, their need for new headshots usually marks an interesting crossroads in their life. Some have just arrived in Hong Kong in search of new beginnings, others have been here for years but are joining a new firm. Some clients need portraits to update their online or social media presence (eg. LinkedIn, Facebook), others as part of their first steps in setting up a new small business. Some have no concrete plan at all (which I can particularly relate to). So in the hour that I usually spend in a portrait session, I usually get to hear an interesting story or two. As the subject, I think the session is a fairly relaxing break in a busy day – when they can chat, loosen their tie (if the shot doesn’t need one), and maybe even smile!

Here are some outtakes from some recent corporate headshot sessions that were not the final picks but I like them anyway:

Rebecca, executive coach and proud mom (laughing at her daughter making faces over my shoulder).

Angela, Director in recruiting.

Kieron is restarting his career in HK. Ella works for city’super!

Earlier this year I had the privilege of shooting the Korean-British wedding of O-Hyun and Mark at the Hullett House in Hong Kong. I was excited to be their photographer because Mark wanted natural and candid shots which meant that we would photograph the night by just capturing moments without interfering very much with the festivities.

The wedding was simple yet beautiful, with an intimate ceremony and dinner reception. During the open bar at the Mariners’ Rest Bar we used the original jail cells from 1881 to make an awesome photobooth!

Ceremony at Hullett House’s St. George

Reception at Loong Toh Yuen

jail cell photobooth!

The story looked at organic farming in Hong Kong, requiring shots of a local farm and an organic farm market in Tai Po. I don’t regularly shoot a lot of editorial assignments, so I was a little bit anxious. Sure, storytelling or shooting something like a wedding in a “photojournalistic style” were some of the first things about photography that I fell in love with, but this would be a different challenge. I wasn’t able to scout ahead of time to plan lighting. I had no idea what time I’d be given to get through my shot list. The New Territories address I was given had google maps completely fooled.

Fortunately, I was picked up from the mini bus stop by Jeannie, the owner of The Green Patch organic farm. She was the type of sweet, hospitable woman that you could sit with and listen to stories for hours. During my tour of the farm she told me about her travels, her prior businesses, and her rather strong opinions about organic farming and Hong Kong as a whole. By sunset, I finished getting my shots and Jeannie gave me some takeaway fresh salad before I left.

That weekend I went back to Tai Po with my girlfriend to shoot at the Farmers Market (definitely worth checking out, every Sunday except the first of every month). We bought some veggies and homemade pasta from Jeannie’s booth. I also gave her a set of prints from the farm shoot. It was the least I could do for the salad and intruding on her work schedule. She also kindly invited me and my girlfriend to return in the Spring to work on the farm for a day.

In the end I was pretty happy with the shots I came away with from the two days. But sure enough, only about 4 or 5 of what I thought were only decent images ran in the actual article (I’m not sure who photographed the other 3 or so shots in the story). Nevertheless, it was very gratifying to see the work get published. Perhaps there will be some point in the future when its no big deal and I won’t even care to see what photos of mine get selected for print. But hopefully it isn’t too soon =)

OK, one more scan from the issue…

…some other shots I liked that didn’t run (is this why photographers typically hate art directors?)

Portraiture has always been my favorite genre of photography. One of the things that I love the most about shooting portraits is being able to meet all the different people that I photograph.

Hong Kong brings such a diverse group of people from all over the world into a relatively small community. Here are a few that I met recently.

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Sarah Brennan, Children’s Author, Australia

Pascal, Entrepreneur, France

Kay Ross, Marketing Consultant, Australia

Edith, Horn Player, Hong Kong

Lorraine, Conductor, Hong Kong

Last week on July 29th, Slash, former lead guitarist of Guns N’ Roses, performed live in Hong Kong’s AsiaWorld-Expo.

GnR has been my favorite rock band growing up. But since Axl went crazy years ago and with all that bad blood within the band, I was pretty sure that I’d never see them live ever. So you could imagine how giddy I was with anticipation when I heard Slash’s tour would be coming to Asia.

On to the show itself…absolutely unreal. Myles Kennedy (Alter Bridge) lead vocals on the older GnR and the more recent Velvet Revolver stuff was impressive. He didn’t quite have the reptilian dance moves of an Axl or a Scott Weiland but he did have a style all his own. Meeting Slash was a dream come true. Underneath his iconic sunglasses and top hat, he was a gentleman during the VIP meet and greet and a guitar god on stage.

My favorite songs from the night: Night Train, Slither, and Sweet Child O’ Mine. Gave me goosebumps. Here are some of the event’s photos from the night.

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A few years ago, I met Stephanie in Hong Kong while photographing an event in Central. Like me, her and her husband Tom’s move to Hong Kong from the US marked a chapter in their developing careers. Earlier this year, Stephanie was 7-months pregnant and had asked me to help photograph a maternity portrait session in her home. We took our time to plan our shots which would eventually be slightly fine-art in nature and a little less photojournalistic than my other portraiture.

Last April, in the early hours of Sunday morning, Stephanie gave birth to beautiful baby Gabriel. Here are some of the pregnancy and newborn baby shots (taken at 8 weeks).

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Last week was all about Legend Fighting Championship, Hong Kong’s first professional mixed martial arts competition, leading up to Fight Night last Thursday June 24th at HITEC’s Star Hall in Kowloon Bay. Earlier in the week, I had the opportunity meet with some of the fighters who were still getting over jetlag and cutting weight. Among them were new and returning fighters that were in good spirits and overall were really nice dudes.

Last January, Legend 1 had the tall task of becoming the first MMA production in HK. This time around, I felt Legend 2 raised the bar even higher for fight promotion in Hong Kong, drawing what I thought was the biggest, most excited and most MMA-savvy crowd I’ve seen here. The fights did not disappoint either – showcasing brutal knockout power, advanced grappling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, paired with fair officiating and judging. As a huge fan of MMA anticipating big things for the sport in HK, I’m very excited =) And oh yeah, did I mention Legend 3 in September?

Here are shots of the excitement from the Legend 2 fight card.

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Vivek Mahbubani aka HK’s Bruce Buffer

Takuma flattens Wang Zhen for a rear naked choke

Jo Nam Jin eats a headkick from Kevin Belingon

China’s Zhang Tiequan guillotine submission over Daniel Digby, 0:30 in Round 1

Rob Hill lands a superman punch on the chin of Kwon A Sol

Taiwanese Justin Lee shocks the Hong Kong crowd with a first round KO of Kenny Yeung

Adrian Pang knees Yu Woo Sung on his way to the lightweight belt

Gary Jackson is a writer, comedian, public speaker, blogger, podcaster, DJ and all around gweilo of Hong Kong. Jackson performs regularly at the TakeOut Comedy Club in SoHo, but you can find his many web presences on letterstowindsor.com, gweilojackson.com and soulparking.com.

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Nothing beats natural light for headshot portraits, so we did a lot of the shooting on the balcony of his Mid-levels flat. We also walked around some of the local HK backstreets and finished up at the Pacific Coffee on Hollywood Road, his favorite writing spot.

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