The Magical Pixel

Another kind of project that challenge my ability in photography this year is this Photo Essay project. It’s another project granted by Pahang State Museum to me. The photo will be put in the Tenun Pahang Diraja (Royal Hand Woven of Pahang) book which planned to be launched on September this year.

The Museum team lead by the author of the book Mr. Ahmad Farid who is also the Director of Pahang State Museum are now on heavy task force trying to complete the 400 pages book on schedule.

Myself as the contributor of image are also being dragged in this busyness. Of course busyness means business. So I took the challenge. They require me to produce a set images like Annie Leibovitz, the famous Rolling Stone Magazine photographer who now working with Vanity Fair Magazine. Her photo was amazing. I have to spend time researching her starting from her video interview, books, productions and her post production style and method just to make sure I can get the same result.

You can check out here some of Annie’s work.

Annie's work for Disney Dream Portrait

Annie's work for Disney Dream Portrait

Amazed? yess.. Me too. All of her picture for this Disney’s set are telling us a story. In a single image, we know what’s the story is about. That is Photo Essay and sometime, photo essay come in series of images. It’s like a HDMI quality of comic book. The power of Annie’s photo come from the actor inside the photo are real celebrities besides her angle and post processing.

So, what story did I get fro my photo essay? I have been given a scene by the director of the book Ms. Kassandra Kassim. The scene title is “Girl & her Dragon”… The girl in my photo will dress like a princess in Tenun Pahang Diraja dress and inside the same photo there will be a dragon. The girl is easy.. The background is easy.. The lighting is easy.. But the dragon is a pain in my ass.

Where the heck can I find a dragon? is it like an English dragon? or more like Chinese snakey dragon? So, I’m confused. I ask her and she just asked me to put in an Iguana as a replacement of the dragon.  I tried, but the Iguana looks very.. hmm “manja”.  Well, lets try..

So I called up my friends, Tom Ramzul for lighting, Kirin for Make-up artist and the model Fiza. I also managed to borrow a few Tenun dress from the Tenun Pahang Diraja Butique. We do a photoshoot around Kuantan area. and the result came out like this… oh.. the word “This” can also be scrambled into SHIT!

The Girl & Her Dragon 1st trial..shit!

I have placed this image on a few forum for critique.. and I get a lot. The lighting on the dragon head is not right, the model pose is awkward, the mood is not helping.. btw, I get the dragon from google images.

I’m frustrated. I again do some research on Annie Leibovitz post processing and I had a discovery. A discovery that will change my way of post processing. Maybe it’s not the same like Annie’s but I like it more and the client loved it.

For my 2nd trial, I have again gather my helpfull friends. This time is different, I called it “Punk Tribal” theme. I have again called Tom Ramzul the Lighting expert, Dyana Sofia – a model from Dyana Beauty Academy, Gezzeg – The owner of Gezzeg Photography Studio and two of my bodybuilder buddy Saufi & Zam. I aslo called Wan Ermie to borrow his guitar and amp for props.

This time I shoot 100% in the studio with a controlled lighting.  After the photoshoot (thanks to all my friends) I sat and keep fine tuning the post processing technique and finally… a new achievement for me in post processing.

Scene 1 - Punk Tribal

Scene 1 - Punk Tribal B&W

So, yesterday I show this images to the client and they loved it. So now.. I have to record all the editing steps since I did not follow any tutorial to achieve this. My recce date for location have been set. I’ll go to Aryani next week to look at the location before the actual photoshoot.

So.. it’s worth it. Really worth it. oh I forgot to mention the models name that I will shoot for the photo essay. I’m not sure if it’s confirmed or not but there will be 3 model to model the dress in my photoshoot. It’s Nini Ramlan, Devakhi Nathan and The legendary Iman Abdul Majid.. David Bowie’s wife.