One Asia Festival Singapore

One Asia Festival Singapore

The two day Photography event ended today on December 11,2011 at Suntec City Singapore. The prominent speakers from overseas were Steve McCurry, Michael Yamashita, Michael Freeman, Manuel Librodo & Gunther Deichmann.

The speakers from Singapore were Bob Lee, Bjourn Olesen, Joseph Tan and John Arifin (myself).

Asian Geographic printed the100 page limited edition of the “GREAT Photography getting the big picture” during the event. The book is a collection of articles from different photographers such as David Doubilet, Michael Aw, Michael Freeman and Michael Yamashita and more. My contribution for the book was a 6 page article on how to photograph birds in Asia titled ” For the Birds ” on page 48. I also gave two talks on ” Photographing Wildlife and Birds in Asia ” on both days.

Steve McCurry shared his love for incredible diversity of cultures and religions in Asia and how he used colour, design and timing to get the shots. Steve does not believe in staging the scene. He always waits for the right decisive moment to capture the essence of the shots. He also thinks that the scene should reflect the reality. Too much post production editing would bring down the photographer’s credibility. He always carries one camera with just one lens and rarely use a flash. He used natural light alot by studying the light quality and direction to get the pictures. During the Kodachrome days, he could have taken 36000 images but only 20 will be used for National Geographic.

Besides picking up tips from the event from various photographers, it was a good time for me to meet up with old friends and meet new friends.