Mandurah is less than 2 hours from Perth. With the ceremony located near the water front. The groom and groomsmen cruised to the location in their own boat. I spent the half day capturing the bride and bridesmaids getting ready, the ceremony and on location photos with the couple and their party.

At the end of the day, the after sunset color in the sky matched perfectly with the purple color theme from the girls. The whole day from getting ready, to the ceremony and location photo session. I saw so much joy and laughters from the bridal and groom’s party. I could feel the bond and friendships between each individual. Blesses to Kendel and Jamie and their family and friends.

The Red Tree photo album has finally arrived. This is the first ever order from the Red Tree and I had no hesitation to let my client know that I’m ordering them something even I haven’t seen it in person. They trusted me and I trusted Red Tree to provide the highest quality they could deliver. And they did not disappoint me neither the album craftsmanship nor the photo prints. The prints on fuji crystal archive paper came out as what I see from my calibrated screen. The Japanese silk fabric is so pretty with the texture that sets apart from the leather.

For this album, Nicole selected the Tuscan Red fabric which is well suited for her Chinese background. The debossing is minimal to show the simplicity and elegancy of the album. As how I preferred, the album is lay-flat binding with thick pages.

Now that I have seen the actual product from Red Tree, I will order their sample album and swatches soon to let my clients see them in person.

I will provide Red Tree albums in 10×10 and 12×12 with minimum of 10 spreads (20 pages). A mini size of the original is also available in 5×5.

This was a wedding held in Fremantle near the Authur Head Reserve, which is just outside of Kailis Fish Market Cafe. It was a morning ceremony with breakfast at the reception. Simple and relax was the way Susan and Andrew wanted for their wedding. I fitted in perfectly with my journalistic photography style, capturing the event and the details of the day.

A photo session before Valentine’s Day is perfect for your love ones. Tamsin and Dave arranged their portrait taken at Claisebrook Cove, East Perth. A little area with classy houses and apartments. The area is near the river with beautiful green surroundings. As usual, I brought the couple for a walk around the location and let them enjoy the session and capturing their natural love moments. Luckily the session was taken after the heatwave in Perth. With the afternoon breeze, it was so much comfortable for everyone of us there.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

To end 2011, I went on a short road trip to New Norcia in Western Australia. The little town is the only monastic town in Australia and has buildings in a Spanish style of architecture. It’s certainly an interesting place for a visit. To get there, I drove through the beautiful Chittering region via Chittering Road. There are many citrus farms and a few vineyards along the way. So It’s worth to stop by and take some photos. Especially the hilly landscape is perfect for panorama photos.

Summer time is when the hays get harvested. So it’s easy to spot hays rolled up on the landscape. With the perfect lighting and scenery, you can always capture great pictures. The day was sunny with some clouds scattered across the sky. It was a perfect day for landscape photography. I always feel plain blue sky is boring on a photo. Clouds add texture and gives an image more dimension when looking at it.

When I got to New Norcia, it was 2pm and so I spent 3 hours to explore the town. I switched to my Mamiya 645 to capture the town on films. So I should post them when I get them processed and scanned. The purpose of this road trip was to capture some astronomy images and create a time lapse short clip of stars. I had to kill 3 hours somewhere, so I drove around the region for other photo opportunities.  With the hilly landscape, I could easily spot group of trees and sheep on the land. They are often picturesque and is impossible to leave the place without taking a shot.

The sky finally gets dark enough to photo astronomy. I realized there is a large space antenna near New Norcia. I knew it would be perfect with it on the foreground with stars exposing behind. However, it’s not for public access and I couldn’t find a better location to capture it from a distance. So I ended up at this open land with a tree as foreground. It wasn’t an easy night photographing astronomy. There were many bugs and mosquitos bothering and the place was pitch black. You have no idea what is around you that could attack you in the wild. That was the downside of being out alone taking astronomy images. The results were awesome though and I’m satisfied with the output. The next location is very likely to be at pinnacles in Jan, 2012. Looking forward to it.

New Norcia Star timelapse from Gary Wong on Vimeo.

Many would call their photo session before wedding an engagement photo session. However, in many Asian countries, they call it Pre-Wedding photo session. The bride to be would dress in a bridal gown and the groom to be would wear suits. Whereas in engagement photos, both would dress casual or smart casual. Either way, the most important is to show love while enjoying the photo session.

Nicole and Leon will get married in China. They want to have photos taken in Perth to bring it back to their home to show everyone the characteristics of the city. We travelled from Fremantle, to UWA/Blue Shed and to Swan Valley. To capture the popular Perth sceneries that they would keep in memories. All the best to your wedding and marriage life Nicole and Leon.

For Sarah and Owen’s wedding, I was a 2nd photographer along side Paul at Blaque Studios. Whether I’m the main photographer or a 2nd photographer. I work with the same mindset. I capture the flow of the wedding and the details on the day. The main difference is that I am able to see things in another angle while Paul is doing his tasks. This adds more varieties on the photos for the wedding coverage.

The wedding ceremony and the banquet was held at Chapel Farm in Swan Valley. The venue is very pretty itself with a vineyard next door. It’s perfect with the sun setting behind.

The set of images are processed with the new presets by VSCOfilm. Speed up my workflow even more!

I’m slowly moving some of my portrait works back using films. With my Mamiya AF645 and the large aperture of f1.9 on the 80mm MF lens. The output would be awesome. However, found out that my camera had an issue on focusing! There is a back focusing problem, which means whenever I see it clear in the viewfinder. It’s actually focused a little further than the actual focused point. And the film back has a light leak!!! All of these were found out after I’ve taken a few rolls in Perth and Hong Kong. That’s a total disaster!!!

Although light leaks didn’t bother the result much when shooting indoor. The back focus affected the most. Nearly all frames were out focused. I sent the camera straight to Mamiya Hong Kong to get it repair. Hope it’s problem free now.
These photos were developed by Richard Photo Lab over in L.A. It’s the best lab so far, but I will try some labs in Perth to compare the quality and cost. At least I don’t need to wait too long for results in Perth.

Took me a while to get internet ready. So no blog post for a while and the main site www.garywongphotography.com still under construction. That’s not good and that’s not how I planned. The initial scheduled relaunch date was 31st Oct. This will definitely change as there is no way I can prepare all content in 4 days time. On top of this, I will be away from Perth for 10 days. It’s going to be a long delay.

Yes, both www.garywongphotography.com and www.garywongblog.com are owned by me. I want to separate the two domains, so that my blog domain is to show all my recent works and updates. Whereas, the main site will become a showcase of selective favorites and projects that I have completed or in progress.

If there are any dead links or not found pages, please contact me to resolve them. Thank you!

Gary