Sydney, Australia | Jakarta, Bali, Indonesia | Wedding photographer | Wedding cinematographer

Yayyy, what a pleasant surprise that I end this year with two awards from one and only the coolest wedding photography Fearless Photographers. Please check out my first award.

Fearless Photographers is an online community to meet up the most creative and awesome wedding photographers in the world. When I said they are creative, it means they are out of the world. They are full of photographers who were my idols during my early career of becoming a wedding photographer like Huy Nguyen, Ray + Erwin of Apertura and also Ben Chrisman. In other words, yes I am competing with my own idols. It’s a super tough competition.

This time I sent five images to compete. I can tell you I was so fortunate to nail to win one among 1850 images to compete for. The feeling is wow. It’s like winning a world cup.

I am not only winning just an award, but this time my photo is one of ‘Best of Show’. I hope you understand what I mean, I am one of the BEST

But check out my award winning photo. Please tell me if I deserve to be part of the elite

Normally, I am not that sentimental with no of likes, but this time I am happy that a lot of people agree about the photo you can also certainly send your vote to this

This photo was taken during my trip in Jakarta, Indonesia in last July. I was honour to tag along my friend Jeff O’Neal of Poetih Photography to shoot this traditional javanese wedding of Adrianto + Tanya’s wedding. I hope that I can get the chance to blog the wedding separately.

hahahahhaa, yes I am. I just won one award in Fearless Photographers.

Now I can call myself as an award winning photographer Nah, I am just kidding. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to call myself an award winning artist as this is my first ever award in my 5-6 years career. I don’t see myself as so creative and ambitious to be the best artist in the business that really need an award to justify who I am.

Nothing wrong to win an award seriously, in fact I am addicted to the feeling after my first try in the competition. I learn a great thing, especially after looking at all my portfolio I realised that I definitely needed to improve because I said “If only it doesn’t have this” or “I wish that I shot this way”. It’s a positive experience. I will surely participate to more competition in the future. I definitely love to encourage people to participate in such good competitions like Fearless Photographers. Being the best is never an easy step. It is the same way for you being fearless. You can’t be easy and fearless at the same time. Being fearless is not easy. Being fearless is not about style. Being fearless definitely does not define you to be the best in the business. But being fearless is the attitude to accept the responsibility to create something unique for my client. That’s what I’d like to be more fearless to be the best as I can be.

My ambition this year is to taste winning any prestige competition in still/motion pictures. Now, the mission for 2011 is accomplished.

Why I never tried to go to any competition? And why I made the exception now? It’s a simple reason that I shoot for my clients, and my clients are the reason for me to shoot for myself. I definitely don’t see myself as a super creative photographer because I saw so many good ones out there. Obviously I was wrong that going into a competition is never about losing and winning, it’s about pushing ourselves to the limit. I finally made this competition an exception because most of the photographers in this competition are my living idols and legends in their own ways who are very and super creative in their crafts. If you don’t know about Fearless Photography, then you should go and check it out all the winning images you’ll understand how lucky I am to be part of this. I still couldn’t believe that I won one They are the superstars of wedding photographers in the world. Now, I am in the same level as them. Not bad Wiki Definitely I will try to kick their A** someday

Here is my winning award photo.

The photo was taken at Khemara + Maria’s wedding – I hope I can blog their wedding soon That night there was one group of people dancing around while the remaining guests are just too busy with their foods. I looked at them, they just made the circle and dance round and round when the time came they held their hands up. When I learned the pattern of their movement, I placed my off-camera flash inside the circle. I guess I shot it at the right time when everyone’s hands were in a bit up position.

Not only that I am happy that I won an award for my photography career, I also consider myself to have a double winning when my Indonesian friends from Wiki School Pedia – Indonesia won too in this very same competition. This is a very important break through, as the founder of Wiki School Pedia – Indonesia it is my ambition to influence Indonesian wedding photographers to go to the world stage. It’s been tough to start something like Wiki School Pedia in Indonesia as I couldn’t avoid people who started to question my motives in creating WikiSchoolPedia. Obviously, I am not trying to please everyone. But overall, I am very pleased that big numbers of photographers are motivated and inspired in a very good way. To see them winning, I feel that my journey is now starting to pay off in this commitment to teach and to inspire. So It’s a super win for me

Talking about Wiki School Pedia – Indonesia, my friends and I’ll be hosting a workshop, story essay and also a seminar. All of them are 4 days event. The workshop was sold out. However, the seminar that is something for other professionals to meet each other in real life is now open for registration. Check it out!

yeah I know, I was one month late to post this

You know me, always chased by crazy deadline every minute of my life.. hahhaa but I love it to death

Anyway, Ilona‘s hobby is to sleep in. So I gave her a little sleep in while I was with the kids in their bedroom on this year’s mother’s day. I recorded and edited using imovie from iPad2.

I’ll be blogging a lot of me using this video tools to share more the journey that I made to make WikiSchoolPedia (WSP) to become reality in this upcoming few weeks. If you don’t know about WSP, go check it out the web. Especially please do check it out starting next week to hear my thoughts about WSP. If you are not interested in WSP, it’s ok just to have an excuse to see me looking stupid in front of camera talking hahaha *lol*

I’ll be away in 1-2 months to travel in Asia. I spent most of the time in Jakarta, Indonesia where I’ll be hosting a seminar and workshop under Wiki School Pedia. So if you are interested to catch me, please do not hesitate to drop me an email to connect@wikilee.com.

Ciaoo

“Life is Beautiful” was a concept photo session that I started in beginning of 2010. It’s a concept because I direct them to what kind of story I want to portray.

I am sure you heard a lot of people mentioned that if you work in one company, you’ll become a furniture or something like that. I feel like that too after doing a countless of pre-wedding/e-session. I wanted to discover more about the couple rather than showing the outer beauty. By the end of the day, similarly with the idea of wedding day documentary I hope that the couples who book me put more importance in moments, something to look back and remember the day by. In my point of view, that’s also what I see in the session prior to the wedding day. It’s something that helps me to understand what kind of couple you are in order to capture a story uniquely theirs.

As the name says, it’s about to discover the beauty of their relationship. I am not sure why a lot of people come to me telling how they are boring and how they don’t look good in front of camera. I can tell you all couples in my works are normal people. They are not model and they sometimes don’t have a story to treasure or to tell others. They still have to work, earn living and sometimes are too busy to look forward to their wedding. I just need one day of theirs before the wedding day to spend with me to tell what a beautiful life they are living in.

One of the biggest strength that I have is to find people’s personality and to work with them comfortably. I am a happy man since I am running this concept session as I don’t go to client’s wedding just to shoot, but to be their friend who understands the couple. I am not kidding you, I feel the honour of a real storyteller to listen someone’s story and portray them with what I see. That’s my definition of my work “To see, experience and portray the story”.

This session started from the meeting before the session, I call it a “private time”. This is the time when I figured out what kind of story I need to portray them. Yes, most idea of the story what you see in this website are not from them. I found out as soon as I talk to them and understand who they are. Then I gave some suggestion for the session.

Ali and Catherine were my first couple to try on that. I still remember the first time I met up with them, they brought a photo book of animals. I instantly suggest them of how cool it’s that to do the portraiture session in the barn surrounded by animals. They were surely up for it. If you know them well, they will be up for anything mentioned to them literally Then they came with me after the meeting how they found the place and also booked a portable zoo. There you go! That’s how we did it in this video. Check it out!

The behind scene were shot by Kuswendy of WIMO who visited and collaborated with me during his trip to Sydney. Thank you dude!!!

I also thank you for Ali + Cat who never said no to me for this session. This session also gives birth to my fusion portrait films, “Life is Beautiful” in still + motion pictures.