I’ve known Myra for a couple of years now as she’s Idzrona’s (one of my besties!) cousin. And knowing how Myra is, I knew that the engagement ceremony and portrait session of her and Aizam was goin’ to be a fun affair :) Having previously shot Myra’s other cousin Nadesh and Nina’s wedding, most of the relatives knew who the big haired photographer was so it didn’t really feel like work for me as I felt like a part of the family throughout the party. wOOt!

The weather on the day of the engagement ceremony was sunny and this was absolutely befitting as they had a little gathering for guests at the poolside after the ceremony was over. I love love love shooting events which are held outdoors! No details were overlooked for the get-together as the simple decor, thoughtful doorgifts, yummy catering were all looked into by Myra, who has a great sense of style. With her family members helping out from the weeks prior, everything went well on the day and proceeded as planned.

I love the shot on the right where Erfie’s doing Myra’s make up with their aunts around them. You might not be able to tell from the picture,
but at that moment, you could feel the love emanating from the aunts :) Yes, cheesy I am ;p


During a Malay engagement ceremony, representatives (usually uncles) from both sides of the family will have a brief discussion and prayer session
before the soon-to-be bride comes out…

…and when she does, the mother of the soon-to-be-groom will be the one who puts the ring on her finger.

Aizam arrived after the ceremony was over and we took a couple of minutes for me to take some quick portraits of the lovely couple

It was Myra’s birthday on that day and Aizam surprised her with a birthday cake too :) Suh-weet!

At the poolside, the sign in table had pieces of paper where guests could write their well wishes to the newly engaged couple…

…and these two are a tie for the funniest notes written ;p For those who can’t read Malay, the note on the right translates to “Aunty Wawa, is it your birthday or is it your wedding day today aunty Wawa, from Danish”. LOL! Danish is her 6 year old nephew and he gets everyone laughing (and also NUTS!) with his antics at times.



After most of the guests had left, silly portraits were taken with the close knit cousins :D
Too cool for school yo!



Here’s Myra & Aizam together with Erfie, Idzrona & I :D

Myra and Aizam, thanks again for being the fun-loving couple that you are. Hope you two have tons of fun preparing for the big day next year. Judging from the engagement party, your wedding is definitely gonna be a blast! And thank you too to the whole family (Nasseries!) for being sooooo nice to me. Everytime I see all of you cousins, I feel like part of the gang too! Love you all long-long ;p Hugs

Headed to Pushmore this morning to get my daily workout fix and hey hey, it was one of my fave exercise ever - deadlifts for the win! This workout has no time component but you basically lift as heavy as you can for each set. Below are my results.

WOD093009
Deadlift 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5
Results: 110lbs, 143lbs, 165lbs, 170lbs, 176lbs
Started off with my body weight and slowly increased the pounds at each set. After the third set, I attempted 90kgs (which is almost twice my bodyweight!) but only managed to do 1 rep. Personally it was still quite an achievement for I think that’s the heaviest I’ve ever deadlifted. More information on the deadlift and a demo video can be seen at the Pushmore blog here. That being said, my lower back is sore and my upper back is now feeling the DOMS from Search & Rescue two days again. Will take a break from working out my back tomorrow. 

On another note, read John-son’s latest blogpost about getting enough rest in order to achieve better results during workouts and it was a reminder to myself that whilst for now I could (and always do >.<) live on 5 - 6 hours of sleep, it was starting to take a toll on my body as I’ve been trying to do as many things as I could within the day (shooting, workout, hang out with friends, meet clients, edit pictures, etc). Meh.

I’m gonna start tracking my hours of sleep as well and see how much it affects my workouts. Last night
approx 6 hours (0330 - 0930)

Edit: Went for a quick jog at TTDI park with Eon in the evening (alot of mozzies today! Aaarggh!). Didn’t have my watch with me but jogged approximately 3km and did 50 lunges thereafter. The jog left my calves and shin absolutely pumped, I really need to run more to increase my cardio level 0.o Stretched it out at the playground thereafter. That being said, I’ve noticed that the more work I have, the more I want to go workout. Call it a stress reliever but despite getting physically tired from working out, it does help me cope with work better.

12 years. That’s exactly how long they were dating before Aly and Ng got had their marriage registered at Putrajaya. And yours truly was there to be part of their special day.

I met Aly and Ng, together with their family members who came aaaaaall the way from Johor Bahru, on the day of their registration at Putrajaya and I must say, it was sweet that even after 12 years, they’re still affectionate with each other.

Aly and Ng, it was great to meet you AND your family members. Aly, even though your nieces were endless with their ‘interrogation’ I enjoyed myself cos I felt like a part of your family. Hahah! Weird huh? I just found it hilarious that they had endless questions ;p Thank you and Ng for having me be part of your ceremony that day and I enjoyed myself throughout the ceremony and your portrait session. Hope you did too! See you two soon :)

Picture on the right is nothing to shout about, but for me, I found it absolutely cute that the WHOLE family were prepped for the bouquet toss.
Even the married ones! Hahaha! So cute!

A day after shooting their family portraits, I had the opportunity to hang out with Angeline and Leslie again :) This time round, it was for their church wedding ceremony at the Trinity Methodist Church and dinner reception at Le Meridien. Despite it being an uber packed day for Leslie and Angeline, it was evident that they were happy to be able to share their union with family members and close friends after months of preparation (not to mention the postponement ;p).

Not only did I have the honour of being part of the celebrations, but I also had the pleasure of working with photographer Darren Jee of Armadale Weddings as well as videographers Kee Sitt and Sharon from Wedding Story. Great team of people to work with as everyone had the same vision in mind, which was to capture the joyful moments throughout Leslie and Angeline’s big day :)

Leslie and Angeline, thank you again for the honour. It goes without saying that you two are a match made in heaven and I wish you happiness and mutual love for the years ahead. Hugs

Angeline’s make up was by Cynthia of Wedding Isle.


Angeline and her Dad right before walking down the aisle



Love how bashful Angeline was when Leslie was about to unveil her for the kiss ;p



Score for hawt bride and dashing groom!


I ’stole’ them for a while during the dinner reception ;)


Heartiest congratulations again Mr & Mrs Gan!

Headed to Pushmore to take a breather from work and the barbells tempted me to do a workout which I had intended for Wednesday. So instead of doing the Karen WOD which was actually today’s workout, I did the below.

Search & Rescue:
Deadlift @ 110lbs, Clean @ 65lbs, PJ @ 45lbs
Results: 59:33
Tag teamed with SW and instead of doing total of 10,000lbs, opted to go fr the ‘discounted’ accumulated weights of 7,500lbs. The deadlifts were actually quite easy but the cleans were abit tricky as it took me a couple of reps to get my form correct. Faildotcomdotmy. Same deal with push jerks. Years of doing bicep curls has made me accustomed to using my upper body instead of my legs. Aaaarggghhh!! Will attempt this again after I come back from Sydney end of this month *fingers crossed* That being said, I had fun doing this workout but I know the DOMS is gonna be quite a killer tomm.

Edit: Sept 29 (the day after) Surprisingly the DOMS aren’t as bad as I thought they would be. Perhaps tomm. We’ll see.
Below shot courtesy of Pushmore. Yes, must have poser shot of me doin’ some barbell lovin’ :D

4 rounds of;
50 Walking Lunges @10kg
20 Mountain Climber
Results:9:18
Due to the despair (yes, I like to emo when it comes to my workouts :p) caused by my sub 1 hour time for S&R, I decided to do another workout just because. Edmund came up with the above core workout for me and let me tell you that lunging around with a 10kg plate overhead isn’t exactly childs play. My quads were screaming for release by the second round. Now that’s what I call a good workout yo!

50 reps of toes to bar, no time component.

Angeline’s family portrait session was supposed to be done back in May, at the time when her entire family were going to be in town for her wedding day. So imagine my surprise when I received a call from her (then) fiance Leslie informing me that she was hospitalised for pneumonia! Eeeks! I was so worried for her as I have never personally known anyone with pneumonia. Thankfully, Angeline recovered after being in the hospital for a couple of days and the session (as well as their wedding!) was postponed to September.

Having never met her and Leslie prior to the day of the portrait session, it was a pleasure to finally put the faces to the names in the emails that have been exchanged in the past couple of months. And it was an honour too to be able to meet the rest of Angeline’s family a day before the wedding ceremony as this meant that they wouldn’t be (too) shocked by the crazy photographer on the big day ;p

Angeline’s family was a blast to shoot as they were absolutely sporting about the whole session (including the ‘Bollywood’ moments! ;p). Thank you all for being such great sports and I hope you like the pictures as much as I’ve enjoyed shooting them!

Nestled in the lovely housing area of Kota Kemuning, Shirley’s family home provided a great backdrop for her portrait session on a day when the weather was uber erratic. When I arrived, the sun was out then 20 minutes after starting our session, it started drizzling, then it stopped after 15 minutes 0.o Despite the temperamental weather, the session went well and I found it absolutely cute that Shirley had bought matching t-shirts for her family members to wear during our session :)

Shirley, it was a pleasure to meet you and your family. Here’s some of my fave shots from the day.

Sept 24 (Thurs)
WOD24092009
100 Single Kettlebell Clean & Jerk @ 24kg(M)/16kg(W)
Results: 16:47 - 75 reps of 20kgs, no burpees (barbell)
Headed to Pushmore straightafter I arrived back in KL from Bali. Was ecstatic to find out that the new barbells had arrived so I did the workout with them instead of kettlebells. Wheee! The workout was a killer on my forearms and shoulders and I actually rested by clamping the barbell by squatting which Hans said was cheating -____-” Bleh. Ended up resting by putting it on my rear shoulders. Can diedotcomdotmy! But siok!

JT
21-15-9
HSPU
Ring Dips
Push Ups
Results: 11:57
Errr….even tho I was tired from the above workout, was in the mood for another one as I didn’t workout at all in Bali (unless you call wading around a pool working out >.<). By the second set of 15 reps, I realised JT should NOT be done after doing 75 clean and jerks! My shoulders were screaming for help by then!

21-15-9
Deadlift (50kg / 110lbs)
Pull Ups
Results: 12:52 (red band)
Despite scraping my inner left thumb from the barbells, I was tempted into this workout. Blame the new barbells yo.

Sept 27 (Sunday)
For time of:
Run 400m
50 Pull Ups
Run 400m
50 Push Ups
Run 400m
50 Sit Ups
Run 400m
50 Squats
Results: 28:28
Did half of the lower loop at the TTDI park. It’s further than a block of the building where Pushmore is so we’ll guesstimate it as 500 metres (felt like 600 tho -____-”). The pull ups took quite a while as I was aiming for chest to bar but the push ups, sit up and squats were ok. It was the running which slapped me and claimed me as its beeyotch. I was breathing heavily, or should I say panting like a dog, by the second round of 400m. Tiring but fun, fun, fun!

Been waking up earlier for morning workouts for the past couple of days and I notice it makes a difference in terms of productivity as I (feel that I) get more done throughout the day. In terms of quality of workout, there’s less mucking around for me with less people around as well :p Gonna attempt to make this a regular thing.
 
WOD091809
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 reps for time of:
Kettlebell Snatch @ 24kg(M)/16kg(W), R & L
Strict Pull Ups
Results: 16:12 (12kgs)
Went to the gym after my morning portrait session and hit the workout without warming up >.< Tried 16kgs but my form was way off as I couldn’t snatch properly at that weight. Decided to lighten the load to maintain form. This got me sweating like a beeyotch! Good workout, will attempt again with a heavier load for the snatches.

WOD091909
With a 15 minute time limit:
Run 1.6km
AMRAP Burpees
Results: 8mins plus for the run (need to dblcheck again) and 52 burpees
Got to the gym around 930 and hit the workout without warming up as I figured the run itself was already a warm up :p First 400m was steady, second one I slowed down, third and fourth was barely a jog -_____-” As usual, the burpees left me breathless and the whole time I was doing it, I just thought to myself “Cut down on smoking, cut down on smoking”. I know it’s a filthy habit, the detrimental consequences are so not worth it and yet I continue. Human nature.

I walked into the restaurant and with Leon by her side, saw their beaming smiles while they beckoned me towards them. From the first time I met Wendy and Leon during a consultation session a couple of months ago , I was already smitten. Their chirpy, friendly personalities and their evident love for each other made me feel so.

I was honoured to be part of the registration of marriage (ROM) at Putrajaya recently. The union was attended by their family members and Wendy’s god-parents as well as their matchmaker. Whilst for many its just a standard procedure and the ‘wedding day’ where the receptions and tea ceremony’s done is more grand, for me, an ROM is as meaningful for that’s when couples are legally wedded.

Wendy and Leon, thank you for sharing your ROM with me. And when I say that you’re both wonderful individuals and an excellent couple, I truly mean it. During our portrait session, your personalities and mutual love shined through and I love love the fact that you were both just laughing and having fun with each other throughout the session. It made me feel like I was witnessing something really personal, and I was. Here’s wishing you constant laughter and love for the years ahead.