2009 November | Avant Documentary Photography

Archive for November, 2009

Wedding | September 27, Kathy and Calvin

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

Today is Thanksgiving and I happen to be in Los Angeles California, before I start the entry, Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Back in August, I had the privilege to photography Kathy and Calvin’s bridal/engagement photo session all around downtown Toronto. Between the time from August to September, they had already obtained their marriage license. However, they picked September 27 to perform all the ceremony for guests and relatives that’s flying in from everywhere including China.

The day started with the tea ceremony, we went to a nearby park for photos and concluded a very fun banquet in Oriental Restaurant.

Location: Brimley Woods, Scarborough, ON
Location: Oriental Restaurant, Scarborough, ON

Makeup in the morning

Bride Preparation

Groom and his groomsmen arriving at the bride's house

Bridal Party photo at Brimley Woods

Bride and Groom in Brimley Woods

Bride playing with her veil in the middle of Brimley Woods

Another bride and groom photo

Passionate moment during the banquet

First dance of the night

Tags: Wedding
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Baby Portraits for Abby | Nov 8, 2009

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

So far I’ve blogged about music photography and cars, models. This time, I’m going to do something a little different, it’s a post of one of my friend’s daughter, Abby. Abby was born earlier this year and since my wedding work won’t start again till early next year, I decided to take some cute photos for Abby.

This is the first time I’ve taken photos of baby portraits on a more serious note (not including the times where I took photos of my god son or during full moon dinner) so I decided to get to their place early, play with her and let her be a little more familiar with me. It was very fun when Abby was just shaking her hips to her favourite music just before the shoot.

When it was time to shoot some photos, she just lit up to basically stardom in front of the camera. Coming from a 7 months old, she really knew how to pose for me and really smile in front of the lens.

Here’s a couple of my favourite photos from the shoot. Simple setup, one off camera flash light on a stand with an umbrella and a giant reflector.

Location: Richmond Hill, ON

Baby Abby | Baby Portraits

Lastly, here’s a 30 seconds slideshow,

Tags: Baby, Portraits
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Motorcycle and Benny, one light | Sept 24, 2009

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

As many of you might know, I’m a die hard available light photographer. Lately, I wanted to challenge myself and pickup playing with off camera lighting again. I went to pickup a couple of Pocket Wizards, Flex TT5 and Mini TT1, fantastic toys for my needs.

Anyway, so I got my friend, Benny to come on over on his bike and shoot some photos. We drove over to a nearby school parking lot and took a few photos. The interesting thing was, a security guard came over and I thought he was going to kick us out. Fortunately for us, he was a die hard motorcycle fan and just wanted to check out Benny’s Honda CBR600RR.

Here are a few of my favorites from the short session due to the wind knocking over my umbrella/stand/flash (speedlite) and all that.

Honda CBR600RR

Benny's Motorcycle with one light shooting

Benny and his motorcycle

Benny posing for his motorcycle

Benny and his motorcycle and one light

Tags: Motorcycle, Wheels
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Photo Exhibition | Sept 11, 2009

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

As I have stated previously, this one I assure you will be very different from my wedding posts. Back in mid August, I received a phone call from the bassist from Speed of Service and I was very honored to be invited by them to exhibit the photos I have taken for various Toronto underground music bands (mostly soft rock, hard rock, and metal) for the past couple of years. Of course, I was asked to help out with the photo documenting during their CD party release.

Here’s a slideshow I made that was played throughout the projector and my notebook all night long.

Toronto Indies Bands – Slideshow, 2007-2009 from Chris Pun on Vimeo.

On top of the slideshow, I had a printed portfolio for everyone to check out.

Here’s a photo of the small but efficient exhibition setup on three mini tables and a photo of me in action.

Thanks to all the friends who came out and supported the event.

Music of slideshow courtesy of Speed of Service – Official Website, MySpace, Facebook

Shouts out to Mok for providing these photos. All images were left raw, uneditted.

Location: El Mocambo

: Exhibition

: Me in action

Tags: Bands, Music, Photo Exhibition
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Wedding | August 30 Daisy & Preston

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

It was probably the funniest thing when the then “soon to be” bride and groom decided and told me the location of their venues, ceremony, hotel, banquet. All these venues are within walking distance, South West corner for their stay, North West corner for their ceremony and North East corner of that intersection for their banquet. All the locations were just so convenient. Fast forward to their wedding day, we started off with traditional Chinese tea ceremony in which the bride and groom must hand tea to their parents, and elder relatives. We then took off to Markham Civic Center for their ceremony and ended the night in elegant style at the banquet in which the bride changed to different dresses in Shanghai style.

Location: Markham Civic Center

Here are a few of my favourite pictures from the day.