Official Photographer for FanimeCon's Black & White Ball 2012

This will be my third year as the photographer for the FanimeCon's Black & White Ball. The location for the event has moved from the Fairmount Hotel to the Parkside Hall for this year.

The theme this year is Sports, which coinsides with this year being an Olympic year. It will be interesting to see what kind of costumes fans will come up with.

www.fanime.com

2012 Bowlathon - Raising money for art programs

Hi all, please help me raise money for this amazing foundation! I will be participating at this event and would like to encourage everyone to help support the education of arts for kids. You may help by donating to the event using the link. If you would like to join me, I will be participating under TEAM CUPCAKE. Thanks and hope you can make a difference to a child's future!

- Alen

http://www.riafoundation.org/bowlathon2012/alenkwong

Nonette + Karl - Pavilion by the Bay - Treasure Island San Francisco, CA

Animoto - Nonette + Karl

EuroSunday - East Bay - October 2011

There is only one more month of EuroSunday East Bay for 2011, there has been some changes since the beginning of the year, EuroSunday Bay Area was split into East Bay and Silicon Valley. A load of new regulars have joined, however lost some as well. It's been difficult trying to find a nice balance of things to peak people's interest and to keep them coming back for more. I hope my renewal of Meetup.com can continue to generate more enthusiasts to join.

 http://www.meetup.com/EuroSunday-East-Bay/

Virtual Backgrounds Workshop with Trevon Baker Sept. 12-14th, 2011

I just came back from a trip to San Marcos, Texas, visiting Virtual Backgrounds headquarters and sitting in on a workshop trained by Trevon Baker. It's been awhile since I sat in a classroom setting. I found myself both enger to learn about the scene machine systems that Virtual Backgrounds make, and also enjoying the workshop sessions that went over the topics of lighting and posing.

Virtual Backgrounds has been around the photography industry for a long time, however I only heard about it during my trip to WPPI back in 2007. My first impression of the system was how dated I thought the system looked, and the type of imagery that was coming out of it. All of it seemed to be filmed based, which isn't bad. But I had a hard time seeing how it would work in the new digital workflow that many photographers were in.

Fast forward to this past week, my latest impression of this system has changed. VB had designed some new systems that were easier to use, and the evolution of digital has complimented the look and feel of the pictures coming out of the system.

Trevon Baker was also an excellent teacher, I forgotten how energetic I can get seeing a portrait session come alive with proper lighting and posing being done that's in the cookie cutter way that I train at my normal 9-5 job. Hearing about lighting ratios, seeing proper butterfly lighting, and getting involved with helping out other photographers at the workshop were all memories I was able to take out of this workshop. Katie, our fresh out of high school model, was such a great subject to photograph, everyone enjoyed how wonderful her posing was. She didn't offer any challenges when getting into the posing, and she couldn't help but smile throughout the entire 3 days.

The funny thing about the last 2 days there, I totally forgot about the VB system, which my boss ended up purchasing one for the business. He asked me to do some further testing of the system, which I will definitely take advantage of it.

http://www.virtualbackgrounds.net/

http://www.trevonbaker.com/home.html

Antioch High Graduation Class of 2011

At work, I get the chance to be creative. Here is a video I created for Antioch High School's graduation. Enjoy!

Animoto - Stacy & Ming Lau