ROBIN WONG

I don't really have a good relationship with fitness, but I do my best within my capabilities to stay in good shape. I believe as a photographer you are required to have a good level of fitness if you want to perform and deliver results. Sure, you don't need to lift massive amount of weight, or run miles and miles to produce photography work, but it is a lot more than just merely holding a camera and clicking the shutter button. Being fit allows you to push yourself further and do your best consistently. As lazy as I am as a person, I understand this, hence I miraculously managed to find myself in the budget local neighbourhood gym and hit the weights. 

I don't do much large scale event shooting anymore, admittedly I am not getting any younger, I don't have the energy of a 20 something years old that can bulldoze anything along the way without food or sleep for 24 hours straight. When this job came, Yayasan Sime Darby Arts Festival which was the largest arts festival in Malaysia up to date, happening in Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre, I just had to do it. It is not just shooting an event, it was the privilege of being a part of something larger than yourself. Being able to contribute my craft in supporting the local performing arts was something I can be truly proud of. Looking at the images captured during the festival, I have to say there is so much to celebrate when it comes to diversity, culture and artistic adventures in Malaysia. The camera is just a tool, but art is real. Being present, showing up and working my skills to get these shots gave what I did as a photographer meaning and purpose. Why else do you want to become a photographer, if not to capture such beautiful moments?

I enjoy giving the stray cats some love and attention whenever I find them or they find me. I have been warned by my doctor friends on the risks of exposing myself to all kinds of bacterial and viral infection if I am not being careful playing with them. They do carry a host of diseases, the most notable one being rabies, which technically is still incurable. Yes, there are still rabies cases here in Malaysia. Nevertheless, nothing beats the affection of a complete stranger cat coming to you, choosing you to engage in some body rubbing and gentle cuddles. Sometimes, when this happens, all the worries and problems in the world just melt away. How can anyone not love cats? Moments like these are best captured with a smartphone camera - it is there all the time with you, and the image does not require technical gymnastics, it just records the scene as is. With the amount of stray cat images taken with my phone, I can actually start an exhibition with this series!

I was fortunate enough to be hired as the official photographer for the largest arts festival in Malaysia, the Yayasan Sime Darby Arts Festival. This is a biannual event happening at Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre, with hundreds of performing arts and creative events happening all at the same time spanning one weekend. It was not an easy job to shoot, I had a small team working under me (all Olympus shooters), the shooting hours were long, with practically dozens of simultaneous events happening all at once, but I think we managed it quite well. There was a lot of running around, lots of ground to cover, lots of stairs to climb (5 floors of event space), I was really thankful I used my lightweight/compact Olympus Micro Four Thirds gear that did not slow me down. It was such a fun job to shoot, so much vibrancy and color, so much passion and love for the arts, you can literally absorb all these energies being just there. Having the opportunity to work my camera was simply a bonus!

I first saw the exhibition that featured a few of my photographs in prints on the opening day, my images were scattered randomly and it was like a treasure hunt to locate them one by one. And then my friend Jason Lioh visited the exhibition and sent me some photographs he took with his phone which indicated the arrangements have changed! Now they lumped all images of the same photographers together. I think this new arrangement works much better, it is cleaner, there is a flow to the series of images and now the order makes more sense. Each photographer has a distinct style and shooting approach, even different subject content in their photographs, so mixing and matching everything together randomly was not really a good idea to begin with. Of course, I had to go see it again, and my friend Amir took a portrait of me with my images this time. If you are in Kuala Lumpur, do stop by the Eslite Bookstore in The Starhill, Bukit Bintang and check out the Ricoh GR exhibition there. This is open to public during shopping mall hours until 30 June. 

I think the Olympus 45mm F1.8 is truly a gem for Micro Four Thirds shooters. I have been using it extensively over many years for my professional shoots and my clients have been always happy with the results from this lens. It is such a wonderful lens for portraits as well as anything that requires a medium telephoto reach. It renders sharp results with such beautiful bokeh, yet it is so compact and light. The Olympus 45mm F1.8 represents the ideals of what Micro Four Thirds stands for. I believe it is time OM Digital Solutions update this lens with a Mark II version - add weather-sealing and improve the coating for the lens, I will buy it in a heartbeat! I brought the Olympus 45mm F1.8 and did some street photography with it recently, mounted on my Olympus E-M5 original! If you like to see the POV shooting, you can check out the video here (click). 

It was a brunch catching up session I had with my friends Jackie and Jaslyn recently, that we decided to try this trending restaurant Arimau Beta at Hextar Mall. I had low expectations, it looked like a normal restaurant trying to be hipster and unique by blending different local dishes together, namely nasi lemak and dry chilli noodles. When the dish came, all I did was whip out my cheap smartphone camera and took a quick shot with little regard to my composition. I just wanted a documentation of what I ate. Surprise surprise, the Dry Chilli Noodles Ayam Balado I ordered turned out amazing - in fact it was one of the best tasting noodle dish I have had recently. The photograph may not do the dish justice. It was unlike anything I have tried before - and the unique blend of nasi lemak ingredients inside the dry chilli Noodles turned out extremely well! Who would have thought? Perhaps I should revisit this dish and capture a proper photograph.