Part of my 7days in KL is to attempt Creative Asia Conference, it is one of the first international photography conference that hosted in Malaysia which invite various big name photographers. Joe McNally, Michael Greenberg, Dane Sanders, Jason Magbanua, Manny Librodo, Daniel Capobianco, Louis Pang and Mike Langford, those name will link you to creative asia website which contain their portfolio information and link to their site, have a check on them if you like.
Basically this is a 3days conference which consist of photo judging, speech by various speakers, shootout within 3 photographers and award given night. It was intensive, inspirational and highly educating. But it also wasn’t for the faint hearted or for those have a DSLR but do not have any understanding with ISO, shutter speed, F-Stop etc.
Why I said that?
First and foremost, I actually submitted some of my photo to the competition, while hoping to win (which highly unlikely) but more on wanting to see where my photography skill stand, how well I am doing regard photography and how is it compare to other photographers.
And I was surprise to see all my photo won Bronze award! Especially if you look through all the top 125 finalist photo in real size, those photo will make you drop your jaws and may even make some of you drop photography altogether. It is that good! By the way, those photo entries doesn’t just limit to Malaysia, there are competitors from USA, Australia and some other countries, so the photo is really international standard. Go check the link if you can:
http://awards.creativeasia.tv/
The photo judging is delivered by the inviting speakers, sometime can be quiet discouraging in a way that all those photo that amazed you and wow you in so many ways only getting a score around 82 83, hardly any above 85 (silver award) and those photos that got a gold award is only a handful. But on other hand, the judge able to point out the strength and the flaws of the photo and let you know what it need to deliver a world class standard. So after the session, I learn to see photo in a more analyse way but on a flip side, all my photo sucks! XD
Speech by various speakers
All of the speakers during the conference is giving their top notch, informative, inspiration and challenging speech and some of their work is like out of this world. What I really like about them is that they don’t just share about their success, but also their failure and struggle while being humble and personnel; so photography as a profession wasn’t just about sunrise or flowery all the way. I particularly like Joe McNally, Jason Magbanua and Dane Sanders.
Joe McNally life as a photographer is really really amazing, and seeing him talk about his career as a Life Magazine Photographers, National Geography photographer and the inside story is really amazing stuffs.
Jason Magbanua is one of the top videographer base on Philippine, one of his trademark skill is capable to broadcast his wedding photography within a day, to be more precise is within a few hours while still producing top quality works. He talk a lot about his work, branding and marketing for videographer business.
Dane Sanders, it is a waste that he cannot make it to KL to deliver the speech. He is one of the speakers that I really like to meet, I have read his book and also some of his education video. What I can said is that he is the same person through the book, video and during the speech. So during his session he is basically having a live web seminar with us and answering question through twitter. He delivered a really inspiration speech about being unique, authentic and how to standout in a market that is really saturated.
Michael Greenberg, easily my flavour among the togs, attending his 2days workshop give him a unfair advantages among other speakers in term of impact and inspiration to me. Through the 2 days workshop, we get to know him better, the amount of knowledge and information that he gave to us is just mind blowing! He delivered a workshop not just good for you for the 2days and it will continue to linger in you for the rest of your life (provided you do what he told you) And his style of photographing his wedding is truly unique, orthodox yet classical and artistic (what a contradiction statement you may said). he is like the only photographer that don’t need to look into the viewfinder and yet able to capture amazing photo.
What I will wish or complaint regarding the conference will be having more booth regarding photographing stuffs. For whatever reason it is, the only company that is displaying is Epson with their Epson printing products. I really love to see some other products like lighting equipments, camera equipments or even books, album and etc. Then the 2nd thing is to have refreshment during the break, which will be easier for the participants to network with one another. Both of this points was also raised by other participants when I chit chat with them so hopefully CreativeAsia can look into this if they are planning their next conference.
Finally, I really like to thanks Louis Pang and his team for taking such responsibility and burden to host such an event. It wasn’t easy, it is tough and challenging, but the result is well worth the cost. While it is really tiring through out the conference, but I truly enjoyed my time through and I know many other participants shared the same views as me.
