Kumi the drummer queen of Hong Kong has a new team of full time staff. Drum Jam goes corporate…
We recently shot some new material for them. Kumi is a great inspiring light, and her monthly free drum jams at the Fringe Club in Central are always very popular.

Kumi has been doing corporate team building sessions for a couple of years and they are very well received. Her client list reads a who’s who of HK companies. So next time you are thinking how to inspire and motivate your team to work as one… Think DRUM JAM…

Mechelle and Matthias’ wedding. Yesterday we were honoured with the task of photographing Mechelle and Matthias’ wedding. The ceremony was at Cotton Tree Drive Marriage Registry, and almost didn’t happen. Apparently in Hong Kong, you cannot be late for you wedding time slot as the Registry runs on a very tight schedule and if you are more than 10 minutes late you miss out. As it was the happy couple were rushed thru the whole process with barly time to catch their breath. Another thing, make sure your wittnesses bring their passport or ID card as they will be needed, as it turns out I the photographer ended up being one of the wittnesses and when the ceremony was starting the Magristrate said for me to sit at the table, someone had to sit in for me and then I had to sign the marriage license. All in all it was a fun light ceremony and the rush job did nothing to diminish the couples enjoyment of the event. They were one of these couples so clearly in love that nothing would have spoiled the day. And as luck would have it, once the ceremony was over and everyone went outside, the rain had all but stopped. So then on to pictures in the park by the waterfall…
After pictures in the park the 50-60 guests were all bussed up to the Peak Lookout Restaurant for a lovely sit down luncheon… Wow do they ever have the best Tira Misu in the world…

(f4.5 @250 ISO 200 Lens Canon 35-350 L)
On Saturday the 20th of May we photographed the Shek O Open Water Race. About 70 swimmers competed in the event which saw them swim from Big Wave Bay to Skek O back beach. The winning time for the 2.2km race was 26 minutes 6 seconds by Hong Kong’s top triathalete Daniel Lee Chi-wo… As open water swimming has just been added to the Beijing Olympics there was a fair bit of media coverage of the event.
After the race, athletes and specators enjoyed beach volley ball, beach dash running race and dance performance by the Hong Kong Youth Outreach Program. Thankfully the rain held off and the party continued into the eveing with DJ Antoine spinning on the decks… A very nice day out…
AQUAFEST - Hong Kong Open Water Swimming Race

Lighthouse Resources - Course schedule for the Spring term’s computer classes is finally out. Apologies for the delay.

These courses are run by Sleiman Mattar and are very well received, if you are interested it is advisable to sign up early as some of the courses fill up quickly… Happy Learning.

Course Titles and Dates for Spring Term 2006

Microsoft Powerpoint For Beginners

Introduction To Website Design With Frontpage

Introduction To Website Design With Dreamweaver

Introduction To Photoshop

Photoshop Workshop: Portraits

Spreadsheets With Microsoft Excel

Introduction to Microsoft Word

Improving Microsoft Word Skills

(f 5.6 @ 1/500 ISO 100 Lens Sigma 24-135)
After weeks and weeks of saying to each other we have to go fly the kite, we finally got over to Lamma island on a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon. First we headed to the Man Kee Restrauant in Yung Shue Wan, for some of those tasty fish and chips, yes they are still as good as… Then we hiked up the hill to the Lamma Winds Turbine Wind Turbine…

(f 5.6 @ 1/500 ISO 100 Lens Sigma 24-135)
The project is now finished and there is a little park and interpretation center at the bottom of the giant 71m wind turbine. It is so cool to be standing below the thing as it swishes around and around. It being quite a windy day the turbine was turning at quite a pace. We then headed south along the brush trail heading toward the south end of the island. On the next hill over from the Turbine, Ju says to me, “why can’t we fly here its quite windy”. And what a good idea it was, a good wind was blowing and we got to fly our kite on a hill overlooking the lamma channel. What a beautiful day…
(f 5.6 @ 1/500 ISO 100 Lens Sigma 24-135)

We just finished a job for Alshahzadi Persian Carpet Gallery. As part of the deal we are the proud new owners of a fine Afgani carpet… I think it is magic!!!

Alshahzadi has an amazing selection of the finest carpets. All are hand made some very old. If you are looking for an investment you can walk on, check them out. 265 Queen’s Road East. Tel: 2834 8396

To shoot these carpets we had to come up with a plan. In the end we worked out that if we laid a roll of white paper on the ground in the street and then shot down from the third floor balcony we would get the desired result. The problem is that we didn’t want to have any perspective distortion. So shooting down on them with a 300mm lens did the trick very nicely…

(f5.6 @ 125 ISO 100 Lens Canon 35-350L)
A couple of weeks ago we went down to the Kowloon Typhoon shelter on a photo safari, we commissioned a sampan to take us on a little cruise around the typhoon shelter. As we were sailing past all the container barges, cranes and other assorted vessels we spotted some herons or cranes, what ever this bird is I don’t know, but as it took off I tracked it with my camera and somehow managed to lock the focus on and get one shot off. This is an amazing shot if you look closely the tip of the wing is in perfect focus and you can see the detail in the feathers. Anyone in Hong Kong will instantly recognise the background as being a container barge…
One of my very favorite shots this year… so far…

(f 5.6 @ 1/60sec ISO100 - Lens Canon 35-350L)
Sai Yeung Toi Street, Mong Kok, Hong Kong. Also known as the goldfish market. Hundreds of fish in plastic bags waiting to go to someones tank. As is always the case in Hong Kong, thousands of people out shopping on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Tomorrow the Flower market…

If you are looking for an image of Hong Kong, maybe a picture of Victoria Peak, or the IFC2 (Hong Kong’s Tallest Structure), or maybe Mickey Mouse at Hong Kong Disneyland. You can try the vast selection at Alamy Images. They are open 24 hours, well it is a completly automated web site so you can search from 4.9 million images by keyword and description. Once you have found your selection you can easily pay for it and then it downloads instantly. Alamy is great in that you will find images that are not available in the big commercial stock agencies. This is because Alamy does not edit the pictures for editorial content. They allow the photographers to contribute any image they want as long as it meets their very strict technical requirements. So next time you are looking for some Hong Kong Stock Photos click on over to Alamy…
You’ll be glad you did…

If you ever walk past the Fringe Club during the monthly DRUM JAM, you might wonder what is all that noise. Who is banging all those drums. Well, come find out at the FREE monthly DRUM JAM organized by Hong Kong’s best drummer KUMI. To find out when it is you can check this drumjam.com.hk. Send Kumi an email and she will include you in her mailing list so you will be sure to know about all the upcoming drumming events. Drum for LIFE!

Saturday was quite a day, after first leaving our squash rackets in a taxi on the way back from the squash courts, Juliana then leaves her purse in another taxi. We called the Taxi lost property line and had the request put out over the air, but heard nothing back from them. Then on Monday Ju gets a call from her agent saying her wallet had been turned into the Police and she must go to claim it. So today she heads down to the police station and guess what… Her wallet with $1300 cash in it is sitting in police custody. So somewhere out there is an honest taxi driver that I would just like to thank. You give all of Hong Kong some hope. We love you Mr. Nice Taxi Driver.