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Showing posts with label Photography. Show all posts

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Christmas Memories with Fujifilm

Posted on Saturday, January 5, 2019

It's been a wild Christmas and year end getting the house done, dealing with The Ordinary Co's busiest period of the year and also finding time in between to hang with friends and enjoy the festive season! Super grateful for Fujifilm for sending me their SQ20 Instax to capture all the memories over December!


While I already have a rectangle Instax, there's just something very classic about a square one which has been missing in my life!! The Fujifilm SQ20 is the latest version after the SQ10 and comes with all kinds of nifty features like the live screen to preview and edit your photos before printing, and a large dial to navigate the camera. While part of the fun and mystique of printing instax's is not knowing what's going to come out, it can also be costly at parties because the moment may have passed and people may have moved on (or the precious instax may come out blank or not properly lit... which has happened to me so much :'D)


Fortunately this goes away since you can brighten and even add a filter to the images before printing them out! And if you want more than one, the photos can be saved and reprinted so that you don't have to get everyone to stand there and wait for multiple shots so that everyone gets an Instax, letting the party move on.


While it comes at a heftier price tag of $299 compared to other Instax cameras, it's a nice bridge between digital and analogue to future proof your moments! Now I can't wait for to capture the rest of the year. Cheers guys!

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Another Valentine's Day

Posted on Friday, January 12, 2018


PUPPIES x THE ORDINARY CO
Jewelry: @theordinaryco
Puppies: @chubsandlexie
Florals: @tweedtwigs
Models: @eletheowl & lee
Photography: Myself

So I literally did not have time to blog the moment December hit but hey look, I'm back! I'm actually really pleased with myself having shot both CNY and Valentine's Day lookbooks for The Ordinary Co before 2017 was even over, but it was more serendipitous in that I was thinking of reaching out to Ele about shooting her puppies and as if she read my mind, she beat me to it and asked if I wanted to collaborate with her and Guo (of Tweed Twigs!) and just nice it was in time for Valentine's day so we even got Ele's partner, Lee on board for what I now fondly like to call my first family photo shoot :'D

So yeah. Shoot day was a bit off a mess with 4 adorable but crazily energetic puppies running everywhere and tearing up all the flowers (cue many blur photos in which made me want to cry when I first opened the raws, haha) but somehow once they started getting tired and flopping around it got a lot easier to shoot! I'm really pleased with the results and the feedback I've been getting is overwhelmingly positive.

I included some little extras here but do check out the full lookbook here guys!

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Saffron x The Ordinary Co

Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2016


SAFFRON x THE ORDINARY CO
Model: Saffron Sharpe (@saffronsharpe_)
Photography & Styling: Myself (@luxmondi)
Make-Up: Trishna Goklani (@trishnarawr)

The first time I did a studio shoot was for Miaowen's Lookbook more than a year ago but I literally did nothing except walk into the studio and ask the people there to help me set up the lights, then changed nothing throughout the whole shoot because of my lack of knowledge of how to deal with lights and unwillingness to mess anything up.

I think since then I've grown bolder thanks to a little push from Hanya to try it out again, but this time, I was to take control of the lighting myself. I wanted to avoid those kind of old school "professional" studio shoots, if you know what I mean. The goal was to be modern, clean and soft, and I'm pretty pleased with the results!! FYI, I didn't do any airbrushing or touch ups for Saffron's skin at all - the lighting just made it glow like that! (And I'm super lazy, so phew?)

Throughout the shoot I changed the light here and there, but most of the time I still didn't know what the EFF I was doing - but at least I was trying to understand. I feel like it's a lot of trial and error at the start that no one can really teach you because you have to look at the images and make your own decision if it's what you want in a photo, but also highly stressful since the studio charges by the hour you kind of have to produce results... or else. To be honest, there are a lot of fail photos as well and I feel that the picking of photos after a shoot is done is almost as important as the shoot itself.

I don't know how I would have had the courage to move forward without the help of Hanya and Trishna so I'm super thankful and blessed to have their support! The success of this shoot definitely would not have been possible without them in any way. So yeah, I don't know if I was mad to just go ahead and do it without much understanding of anything (I didn't know how to on the lights, BTW), but ok I'm excited to take this step forward in my continuous quest to understand more about photography and light!

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Sisterhood

Posted on Sunday, January 24, 2016


Sun, Sea & Sisterhood | Lookbook for The Ordinary Co
Models: Azel Han, Miaowen Sung, Jennifer Ang, Jasmine Sim
Photography: Myself
Artwork: Trishna Goklani

Definitely one of my favourite works in a while - nothing like a day by the beach with the infectious energy these girls brought to inspire some serious whimsy moments of sisterhood; and Trishna's artwork just made everything so... tumblr-able (I know that's not a word, but you know what I mean).

I've always considered myself more of a one-on-one person, I just clam up around new groups of people, but the thing is, I am an introvert but I seriously love being around people. I'd rather sit in a room full of people and enjoy everyone's company but not need to say a word. I just don't like talking when there's more than one pair of eyes looking at me, does that make sense? Anyway, I have this theory that all (or most) bloggers are introverts. We hide behind screens and share our lives online because it's not as nerve wracking - can anyone attest to this theory?

Anyway, if you want to win a pair of Customised Bangles like the ones shown above from The Ordinary Co this Valentine's Day, do check out @theordinaryco's Instagram page on how to win! (Contest closes on 31st Jan 2016)

View the full Lookbook on Facebook here.

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Quiet Mornings

Posted on Wednesday, October 14, 2015



Just some photos I took not too long ago for my dear friend E-main as an early birthday present for her! I haven't been awake this early in a while, but somehow found the strength to stumble out of the house at 6am in the morning to catch the sunrise. It looks like they were at some cold, beautiful lake overseas, but in actuality it was MacRitchie Reservoir! We even managed to walk home together afterwards, cause #thomsonpeopleunite, haha. If you guys are interested in getting a casual couple shoot done, feel free to drop me an email at monica_lie@hotmail.com for my rates!

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Ready for the New Week

Posted on Sunday, February 15, 2015


I know it's a good weekend when I get new toys to play with for photo editing, hehe. Trying not to feel too overwhelmed, but at the same time I can't wait to try every single on of my new presets from VSCO Cam, which everyone has probably heard of because of their phone editing app, but did you know they also have an absolutely gorgeous and wide repertoire of presets for Adobe Lightroom as well?

They have 6 different packets - Modern, Classic, Instant, Slide, Archetype and Alternative Process Film, each containing a ton of different presets to make you go wild with creativity on your photos. But of course, it doesn't come cheap at US$119.00 per packet. I had packet 1-4, and now I have completed it this weekend with packet 5-6. Don't ask how I got them, haha.

Play time!

Photo by E-Main Lee (@eosculum), Editing by Myself

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Kathleen and the New Year

Posted on Monday, January 12, 2015


Kathleen for The Ordinary Co
Photography: Myself

If left up entirely to artistic preference, I would have just made this entire album for The Ordinary Co black and white, but I have to sell stuff so you guys get to enjoy it all in colour here! Anyway, the New Year has kicked off to a good start already, and after all the hard work from 2014 between changing jobs and having to really think about what I want to do while I am still young, I'm finally going to put some time aside to start properly traveling again this year!!! Booked my flight for a girly trip to Seoul in April for the cherry blossom season + two exciting trips far away that is a sekret for now (only my close friends know). It's weird, but life is good now, you know? I half keep waiting for the day when suddenly it falls apart because I know how good things never last, but for now, I'm as happy and satisfied with life as I think I can ever be.

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Erica for The Ordinary Co

Posted on Tuesday, December 16, 2014


ERICA for THE ORDINARY CO
Model: Erica Loh
Photography: Myself

Some of my favourite snaps of Erica from the latest TOC Christmas Lookbook. Whenever I plan a campaign I always shoot them how I think girls want to be shot. Not cheesy mass-market commercial stuff, not hyper-sexualised, but kinda just there and present and yourself. Sometimes I feel like if I cloned myself then this blog will be updated more regularly, haha. But till then, someone has to take the damn photos, right?