The Assignment | Malaysia’s King Tuanku Abdul Halim Mu’adzam Shah, State Visit To The Republic of Singapore
© 2014 Wazari Wazir | One For The album : From Left, Raja Permaisuri Agong Tuanku Hajah Haminah, Malaysia’s King, Yang di-Pertuan Agong Tuanku Abdul Halim Mu’adzam Shah, Singapore’s President Tony Tan and his wife, Mary Tan, May 19, 2014.
© 2014 Wazari Wazir | Malaysia’s King Abdul Halim Mu’adzam Shah (L) and Singapore’s President Tony Tan Keng Yam (R) during the King’s State Visit in Singapore on June 19, 2014.
These photograph may look easy to take, but trust me, it will never be easy. We will never have a second chance if we make a mistake, normally for a photo opportunity like this one, we, the group of photojournalist only have around one minute for each session, normally just thirty seconds only. At first the photo session was held just outside the door of the meeting room and after that another photo opportunity during four eyes meeting between Malaysia’s King and Singapore’s President.
Yes, for both of the photograph I use direct flash approach, even though I know that by bouncing it off the ceiling might produce a better lighting or exposure. But I don’t want to take a risk here, from my experience this kind of photo opportunity is unpredictable, depending on the mood of the person being photograph, if they are rushing or the security is a bit tight, I may have just less than five to ten seconds photo opportunity for each session, and it will take quite a second or two until my flash fully charged if I use bounce flash approach.
Another approach is to use HIGH ISO but in this situation the lighting inside here is too dim, I might need to use ISO 3200 to 4000 to get the right exposure but let’s say my department wanted to blow this picture for a poster size, the I might have a problem, the gran will start to show off, that’s why even though most photojournalist use high end camera that can push the ISO up to ISO 100 000, most of photojournalist still carry a portable flash with them for a good reason.
Sometimes the photo opportunity looks so easy but when capturing a historical events like this one, it is a big responsibility that cannot be taken lightly. There is no time for me to “Selfie”.
