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The last post

It’s been awhile since the last post and this will be the final post for this blog before we move on to the new blog. The reason for the new blog is partly because of new structure wordpress in the the years. It has been increasingly difficult to port everything over to the new blog, so I have made a painful decision to start afresh on the new blog. That said, this blog will still be here and can be accessed via a link from the new blog or www.feldberyl.com/voices. The new blog can be accessed via www.feldberyl.com/blog.






Two firsts!

… as in first time!:D

The first is a Honorable Mention for an underwater photo for the 2012 International Photography Awards. Many thanks to William Chua who have been telling me that I should submit my underwater images for the competition. It took more than afew reminders and encouragement from him for me to eventually do it. Thanks dude!! I know I’m a slackball like that. Will try to do better the next time round!

The shot was taken in Tulamben, Bali during one of my dive trips. I spent 4 days in Tulamben and mostly dived with my macro lens at the wreck. On the last day, I decided I would go with a wide angle lens to capture the jacks. I planned a dawn dive with the divemaster and told her to leave me with the jacks at 5 meters while she brought my friend down further to check out Pygmy seahorse. I spent a good 1 hour with the jacks and they put up a beautiful performance with the rising sun  that left me mesmerized. When I surfaced, I told myself, that was the most amazing dive I’ve ever had and the photos were a bonus. I have a 5 foot print of this on canvas hanging in my living room now. It’s a reminder of the beautiful things that exists in the ocean.

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2012 International Photography Awards Announces Winners of the Competition

Buan Sen Tan was awarded in the International Photography Awards Competition. International Photography Awards (IPA) has announced the winners of 2012’s competition.

Buan Sen Tan was Awarded: Honorable Mention in Nature – Underwater category for the winning entry “Schooling Jacks.”

ABOUT Winner:

ABOUT IPA:
The 2012 International Photography Awards received nearly 18,000 submissions from 104 countries across the globe. IPA is a sister-effort of the Lucie Foundation, where the top three winners are announced at the annual Lucie Awards gala ceremony. The Foundation’s mission is to honor master photographers, to discover new and emerging talent and to promote the appreciation of photography. Since 2003, IPA has had the privilege and opportunity to acknowledge and recognize contemporary photographer’s accomplishments in this specialized and highly visible competition. Visit www.photoawards.com

Contact:
Buan Sen Tan:
wansheng@feldberyl.com
http://www.feldberyl.com

IPA Contact

Jade Tran
Competition Director
International Photography Awards
jtran@iawardsinc.com

 

Honorable Mention in Nature – Underwater category for the winning entry “Schooling Jacks.”

And for the sake of it… the “winner’s seal” as they call it.

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This is my first submission for ISPWP contest. It’s a portal for wedding photographers and I’m glad to have a placing for the first time. Lucky 13th.

Oh… and if you wonder why the difference in name. Well, I belong the confused generation where they switched hanyu pinyin name to dialect names. I still face that identity crisis now.






A facelift for feldberyl.com

Sometime this year, wordpress introduced some major changes in their upgrades from version 2 to 3. Nevermind the new stuff that they added, but some of the old codes seem to conflict with my previous theme and it kinda messed up the layout a little. Minor, but I didn’t like it. So I did a little shopping on themes today and found something that has the minimalist feel I like and a simple one column layout. Did some tweaking to fit my site and here it is, the new facelift before the year ends!:D

Do drop me a note if I overlooked something that doesn’t work properly. Thanks and I hope you like it:D

 






feldberyl images on Tatler Weddings Singapore

Last week, KC told me I had two weddings featured on Tatler Weddings Singapore. Then I remembered, yeah, I was told that they will be featured some weeks back. So I made a slight detour before heading home to get myself a copy. Love it. And then I realized I had 2.5 featured. One of the weddings was covered by me, but wasn’t credited:s Oh well… sometimes it happens. It’s ok, here are the pictures! It’s been a wonderful week for us at feldberyl images😀 Thank you Tatler! And as with all thank you speeches… I’ll end off with “get your copy now!!”:D

The Wedding of Joe and Aili.

The Wedding of Steven and Clara.

The Wedding of Markham and Tiara. They had a total of 3 wedding celebrations. I covered the holy matrimony (only right page).

A picture from Steven and Clara’s wedding. Love the toes:)






The feldberyl images website is updated.

It’s really been awhile.

The last update to the wedding portfolio was in early 2009. One of the most frequent comment I get from clients are “you should post more images”. I know I should, so now I am.

I still am enjoying photographing weddings, be it portraits or the wedding day itself. Rekindled hobbies like scuba diving have taken up a considerable amount of time as well. As with all other forms of photography, they tend to cross-inspire one another. Over this 2 years, I’ve learned a lot more than to create images. But knowing what these images mean to people and myself. Life experiences shaped the way I look at things and little things in everyday life inspires living.

I’m happy to be here again, sharing what I’ve done over these years. I will be posting some weddings on the blog in the coming days. Nothing much has changed for the website and blog, except the images and some simplifications. I hope you enjoy what you see. Thank you.

Please let me know if there’s any errors or problems viewing this site. You can drop me an email at wansheng@feldberyl.com. Thanks!








Got a “huat” placing:)

For WPJA‘s 2010 Q4 contest. And I’m quite happy about!:D

The full band at Joe and Aili’s wedding. This was taken during the rehearsal, moments before the spotlights came on.






Getting out of hot soup

“Why don’t you take shark’s fins soup?”

The Thresher shark. An incredibly shy creature. It is slowly recovering from being overfished.

How many of us ask this question when we see someone refusing to have their share at a wedding dinner? And how many of us know the answer? Or perhaps, the “right” thing to do?

There is no lack of literature and documentaries about shark conservation out there. Do a google and you should be able to find the information you need. I am neither a scientist nor a marine biologist, but I do believe the information that is presented because it makes sense. Not only is shark finning unsustainable, it can also be very cruel. After cutting up the fins, the sharks are thrown back into the ocean. Most sharks need to swim in order to breathe. Without those fins, they literally drown in their own habitat where they either wait and die or get eaten up by something else. If you are interested, “Sharkwater” is a good documentary on shark conservation. “Oceans”, which was recently shown at the movies has some chilling footages of the killings, as well as some amazing footages on life underwater.

They might not be the cutest animals in the planet. Fearsome as they might look, most of them they are pretty much harmless towards humans. These creatures play an important role in balancing the ecosystem. I can only speak based on what I have read, seen and experienced.

Not all sharks sport the hanging rows of razor sharp teeth you see in movies. National Geographic did a documentary about the Thresher Sharks at this very location and was shown on TV couple of weeks back. After watching it with my parents, I told them, if you ever see them underwater, chances are, you will never want to take another bowl of shark’s fin again. It’s one of those unexplainable feeling that one gets.

I am a diver. I had my fair share of this “delicacy” up till now. A friend of mine (who’s also a diver) used to call me an irresponsible diver because of that. So I asked him, so what you done for shark conservation? By boycotting a bowl of shark’s fins soup? How many weddings do you attend a year? And while you excused yourself quietly during that course because you probably can’t bear to see them being eaten by your friends, what good does it do to educate the masses?

I don’t blame the people who take the soup during a wedding dinner. Afterall, it’s a happy occasion and as a guest, “boycotting” a dish definitely doesn’t make the hosts look good, especially in large numbers. I don’t think anyone would like to be caught in a situation where an entire table of guest boycotts a dish (short of holding up placards and shouting anti shark finning slogans…).

How about this? Spend a little time talking a close friend who’s getting married and let them know what you know about shark finning. If you can convince someone to change the menu to something else, you’d have easily saved a few hundred bowls of sharks fins. That’s more than a lifetime worth of boycotting shark’s fins soup (provided you get invited to a wedding every month for the next 20 years).

Suspect to be a pregnant shark. The gestation period for a shark can go up to about 2 years long. The long reproduction cycle and maturity period of a shark makes it even more vulnerable to extinction.

From the people I have spoken to, most said that it’s not really their choice to have shark’s fins on their menu, it’s the senior folks who insist on having them. I can totally understand their position. If they had it their way, I am sure shark’s fins will be off the menu. By the time our kids have their weddings; I believe we won’t be insisting on shark’s fins on the menu anymore, because there might not be sharks anymore. Our generation can wait, but they can’t.

Most hotels have replacements for shark fins soup that are equal in value, if not more. One that particularly caught my attention was the bird’s nest soup at The Capella. Freaking awesome soup… pity I wasn’t fast enough to get a second helping:x Not forgetting the “Buddha Jump over the wall” and “Eight Treasures soup”.

6 years in the wedding industry and I don’t think I have given much back to the society. I can’t say sharks are part of our society, but they definitely play an important role in the ecosystem. feldberyl images will be going on an awareness drive for shark conservation. A S$200 credit for any full course Chinese wedding dinner that goes without shark’s fins will be given to the couple upon sign up (Terms and Conditions apply). This will valid till 31st March 2011.

Suggested Articles:

WWF Hong Kong Shark Fin Initiative
Oceanic Defence – Stop Shark Finning

*Terms and Conditions:

1) S$200 credit only valid for full Chinese wedding dinner that do not serve Sharks-fin dishes.

2) Credit can only be used for the redemption of items such as prints, extra pages, albums, that have not been part of the original package couples have signed up.

3) Credit is not exchangeable for cash or rebates or to be used in combination with other promotions.

4) Valid for bookings made from December 2010 for new sign ups up to 31st March 2011.






WPJA Contest Placings for Q4 2009

My third day in Hongkong now. Temperature has dropped almost 10degC since I arrived and it’s due to drop another 10 by tomorrow. That’s a good change from Singapore’s 35 – 36 degC “spring”. The shoot is going to happen in about 30mins time. This shoot is going to be “no sweat” for me. I’m sure.

And I’m happy that we’ve got 4 placings in the final quarter of the WPJA 2009 Contest. It’s one of those things that makes you smile after a year of making wedding images. It sounds kinda silly, but it’s like having exams. The morning I received the emails, I logged into the website via my phone while still in bed and scrolled through them one by one. It’s just one of those fun things that I miss during school… checking results (not all the time though! lol!). Many thanks to the couples who have given me the opportunity to do this.

Here are the images,

2nd place in Bride getting ready category

12th place in Creative Portrait category

16th place in Groom getting ready category

16th place in Dancing category