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Our lastest in a 2 part series on sustainable, organic farming in Northern Thailand is out on Zester Daily. Read the article here and check out the slideshow. For more on organic farming check out our earlier piece in Zester Daily from China.
As an aside I shot this piece 2 days after this adventure. One of the great things about photography is that you never quite know what's going to happen from one day to the next.
I recently had a 5 day assignment for the promotions arm of Oglivy Australia. The brief was to tag along with Australia Masterchef Winner Adam Liaw as he leads a group 6 Australian / New Zealand food journalists and bloggers as they eat their way across Kuala Lumpur and Malacca. Not completely unchartered territory for me but a challenge non the less.
Challenge one was that apart from shadowing the group I was to provide images for each of the journalists stories. So essentially I'm shooting 5 stories at once while the bus moves from location to location. Tough but like anything, relax and work it. A place like Raju's (above and below) makes it a little easier.
I knew going it that it would be kind of a 'run and gun' situation. Work fast, get as many shots of the dishes, scene and group as possible while checking in with the journalists to see what they might need image wise.
Gear wise I packed two Canon full frame dSLR's, 3 lenses (all Canon) : 24-70mm f2.8, 70-200mm ISM f2.8, 50mm f1.2 (my primary 'food' lens), a 580 EXII speedlight + Pocketwizard Plus II triggers, and a Manfrotto Mag Fiber tripod. All of which (surprisingly) fit neatly into my ThinkTank Shape Shifter backpack. (for safety's sake I also packed the Ricoh GRD III).
(above Master Chef Adam Liaw, below the hard working ladies of Bayan Indah Culinary Retreat).
Over the course of the week I ended up shooting about 50gb of images. Not an extradinary amount but we covered a lot of ground between the two cities.
(above : Adam Liaw and Author / Chef Florence Tan at the Majestic Hotel, Malacca. below : Ayam pongteh).
And at the end of the week I was reminded that hey, this ain't such a bad way to make a living.You meet interesting people.
And you get to eat the props.
So this is my new home - Penang. I've been coming up here regularly since I first arrived in Malaysia some 5.5 years ago, but now it's where I'll hang my camera.
Don't get me wrong - no hard feelings KL. You were good to me but it was time to move on.
Since moving here I've had a chance to take several people around on photo walks and I'm always amazed what we'll find.
There's always something around every corner.
Pick up a copy of this month's Travel + Leisure SEA where I shot up and coming heritage hotels in historic George Town.
We've posted a pdf over here. You can download your own copy from this site.
Click here for more of my commercial and editorial work in the hotel and restaurant industry.
A temple near where we were staying in Kaohsiung was having an anniversary celebration which combined a number of Chinese mythical characters with way too many firecrackers. One of the characters was 'Techno Prince', which is a modern adaptation of the Guardian God, Ne Zha (or San Taizi). Part of the parade has him running across an expanse of exploding firecrackers. Asbestos 'jockeys' recommended. Don't try this at home.
