Jacky Yong

Where the heck is Bagan Lalang! That was my initial question when Wei Ching popped this place for me. It’s somewhere near Sepang, and there is beach over there. I never knew that Sepang has a beach!

Wei Ching and I were discussing of a place where we can go for our outdoor bikini shoot. I have promised Ellie Choong for a long time that I will go to a beach to take her picture with her friends. They wanted a bikini themed shoot. With not just one, but at least 4 models, 3 girls and a guy! We couldn’t resist it!

We met in Jusco Equine at 1:30 pm. Kian Kheong, Wei Ching and his fellow Alpha Brandon Lai were awaiting for us there. Ellie and the models went to Bagan Lalang themselves first. Brandon, Wei Ching and myself were driving. Brandon was having problem with his GPS, it couldn’t connect properly to his cigarrete lighter, so he passed it to me. My cigarette worked with his GPS, so it stayed with me for the entire journey to Bagan Lalang. It was to be my first ever experience driving with a GPS! And it also talks in Cantonese! Cool! I must get me one of these gadgets!

Once arrived there, we wasted no time. We scouted for a suitable place for us without the spying eyes of outsiders. We only found one; the far-away sea about 500 metres from the beach. It was low tide, so we could safely walk across.

Ahhh shoot! The horizon is senget! Otherwise, I love this picture!

We had a couple of fun and energetic young people to be our model for the evening. Daren, I heard, is a full-time model, and he is quite a looker!

For the entire theme, I choose to do the strobist style. That means that I meter correctly for the subject, but I underexpose the background. The background will look dark, while the foreground will be brightly lit. The effect would be complete had I use an off-camera flash unit, but I do not have the luxury of that, unlike the Alphanians Wei Ching and Branden.

Still the 430EX did a wonderful job attached to my 350D. I played around using M mode most of the times, and fully utilized the cloudy sky and the sun as my diffuser and my light source respectively.

I work with the end result in mind. There was one particular Dave Hill look that I wanted to capture. The image has always been in my mind from the day I have decided to take on this project. With this in mind, I went ahead and posed the girls in a row. Alex was not exactly tall, but the end he was the perfect height for this picture. Janice, being the tallest among the girls, stood at the back row on the right. With a lot of post-processing, here is what the end result look like:

I loved it. I am satisfied with what I have got!

There was however moments when natural lights did the trick just fine.

We went to great lengths to get our picture. Have a look at this picture. Notice the low water level.

My camera was very very low, almost to the point of touching the sea. Take a look at how Kian Kheong does it:

We’re that crazy! Not only we got ourselves wet, our equipment also bear the brunt of it:

Kudos also goes out to the brave models who endure our crazy requests and got all down and dirty for the sake of art!

But in the end, it was all worth it! We all had fun, and learnt a whole lot from the experience. Unfortunately my baby Yan Yan was getting cranky, so I have decided to call it a day at about 5 pm. Anyway I had a dinner to catch too, that was why I can’t stay late even if Yan Yan was not around.

Great working with you guys! Looking forward to more photo sessions in the future! For more pictures, go to my gallery.