Coco de Mer – Seychelles Family Recipe

Since my last collaboration with Once Upon A Table Melbourne for the Lost in Jerusalem dinner event, I’ve been anxiously waiting for the OUAT team to contact me again for future collaborations and one day they did! Hallelujah.

This time it is called Coco de Mer – Seychelles Family Recipe.

On Sat 18 Oct 2014, Once Upon A Table Melbourne event transported their guests to the exotic sights, smells and tastes of the Seychelles Islands. The hosts Alain, Eva and their parents Christine and Serge generously opened their home and shared their family memories and recipes alongside with the talented Once Upon A Table team Vittoria, Bridget, Sophie, Sarah N, Sarah L and family. Big thanks to our sponsors The Collection Fine Wine, Pino Fine Produce, Royal Hamam Crockery, Kwencher Premium Beer.

Seychelles is an island nation, located in the indian ocean close to Madagascar. To fit the theme, OUAT team hung fishing nets, shells and scattered coconuts, surfboards, orchids and sand to create the island atmosphere.

Upon arrivals, the guests were served with Coco De Mer colada with fresh pineapple and grapefruit cocktail. The entree was fragrant seafood bisque with lobster and tarragon, followed by mouth-watering main dishes of Tender silverside and eggplant curry & whole bbq-ed red snapper with ginger, garlic and chilli wrapped in banana leaf.

Dessert was the coconut, lime and lemongrass pudding with biscuit crumb, passionfruit curd, white chocolate mousse, ginger crisp and dehydrated pineapple.

The night was simply perfect.

 

Lost in Jerusalem – Secret Supper Dinner in Melbourne

My first ever collaboration with the talented team of Once Upon A Table for their Lost In Jerusalem secret dinner in Melbourne. It was such a fun and enjoyable collaboration, and I can tell you that there were A LOT of delicious food that night.

The secret home location for the secret supper dinner was the modern apartment of Ahmad and Jen in South Yarra. Ahmed is Palestinean and his father was born in Jerusalem which made them the perfect host for this event. Stylists Bridget and Aurora worked their magic to transform Ahmad and Jen’s modern 2 bed apartment into an exotic Jerusalem tea house and awesome feasting rooftop terrace. Below are some of the film photos that I took and you can head onto Once Upon A Table’s Blog for more photos.

I would like to thank Ahmed, Jen, Angie Ma, Vittoria Chiarilli, Sophie, Bridget and the rest of OUAT’s team, including Vitti’s young daughters for the awesome event and delicious food.

Orpheus

This blogpost is long overdue. A couple of months ago, I collaborated with K is for Kani for a quick photoshoot to showcase one of her favorite designer’s dress. I’ve been slacking and never had a chance to show these photos on here.

Photos are shot with a mix of Portra 400 and Fuji 400H. More photos can be found here at K is for Kani’s Blog.

For those who are interested, Connie is wearing Alice McCall Maxi Dress: Orpheus.

The Adriani Family

Christina and I acquainted when we both attended a food photography workshop, but we found out we actually had some mutual friends.

Her parents and sister were visiting Melbourne at the time so she asked if I could do a casual family portraits for them. She mentioned it’s a rare occasion that her whole families were at the same place at the same period of time, so I hope these photos captured those happy moments that hopefully someday they’ll treasure with nostalgia.

Winter Photowalk in the CBD

I’ve been really swamped with work and some personal stuff, so the blog has been abandoned for a while now.

I shot through a roll of Fuji400H one weekend and I finally get the scans back. This is not scanned by my usual lab, but by a mate from Sydney who owns an amazing film scanner. Man, everytime I shoot film I always feel so impressed how the colours and tones just come out perfectly.

Anyway, the photos were about some kinda protests that happened that weekend in front of the Melbourne State Library. Hope you guys like them.

Engagement – Azelia and Edwin

This is the first engagement shoot I ever did with almost 100% film. All of the photos below are taken with Fuji 400H except one photo. Let’s see if anyone can identify it.

It was so much fun to photograph these two lovebirds. I wish them both all the happiness in the world. They’re getting married in a few months.

The MUA is Dlover Makeup, based in Melbourne CBD.

Winter is here

The weather was wet and cold for the last few days here in Melbourne. Luckily it’s been sunny today and it will be sunny tomorrow too.

I finally got my scans back from my local photo lab. It’s been a while since I took my Yashica TLR out to play with, so about two weeks ago after the usual weekend brunch at the new cafe Tall Timber, I took a drive down to Eltham to visit Montsalvat with the Yashica. For those who aren’t familiar with Montsalvat, it is Australia’s oldest artists’ colony and home to practising artists.

All are shot with Fuji 400H, both in 35mm and medium format.

Wong Family

When I was asked by Kenneth if I’d be interested to photograph his family, I immediately responded yes. Kenneth is a friend I know way back to the uni days. He got married a few years ao and he and his wife were the first couple that I ever took engagement photograph for. These two lovebirds had been the starting point of my couple/wedding/engagement photography.

Despite being tired & jetlagged by a 1-hout red-eye flight from Kuala Lumpur, their parents and families still managed to keep happy and smiley faces throughout the photoshoot. This is something I truly admired.

Just as me with my photography, Kenneth has his own pet project of his own. He’s the co-founder of the website called Bolboland. If you ever need a bolster, now you know where you can find one here in Australia.

New Zealand – Part Tres

Before leaving for Melbourne, we actually stopped over for one day in Christchurch, South Island of New Zealand. This city reminded me a lot of Melbourne.

Sadly the disastrous earthquake back in 2011 has caused some serious damage to the buildings and infrastructure, especially in the  central city and the eastern suburbs. The city is still recovering from this incident. We took a day tour around the city and were shown the remains of some of the buildings and infrastructure that were severely affected by the quake. Some of the people left their home and never came back, some still stayed to rebuild their home.

I’m looking forward to going back to visit this city again in a couple of years to see the development.

 

New Zealand – Part Dos

So, y’all knew there was gonna be a part two, didn’t ya?

I also travelled to Waiheke Island during our stay in Auckland. This island is popular as a tourist attraction and also known for its winery. The island was very clean and the scenery was amazing, though I wasn’t a fan of its narrow and winding roads.

 

And of course, my trip to NZ wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t visit their sheep and animal farm, would it?