© 2011 Wazari Wazir | The Photojournalist During UMNO General Assembly 2011 at Putra World Trade Centre PWTC | Kuala Lumpur

It is always interesting to read a debate or discussion about whether it is the camera or is it the person behind the camera that make a difference, some people say, the camera doesn’t matter but the photographers and vice versa. You will get a different answer depending who you ask. I don’t want to wasting my time discussing about that in depth but just wanted to share something with you that maybe will gives you a better understanding about the camera equipment that we photojournalist use.

The photographs above were taken during UMNO General Assembly 2011 last year at Putra World Trade Centre, there were politician on the stage delivering their speech and there is a VVIP sitting on the front row facing the stage, meaning that we can’t easily move there. Some people who have no ideas about photography might tend to ask, why we need to use such a big long lens for this event, some people only think that this kind of lens usually found its place in wildlife photography, sports photography and birds photography and not something like this but time and time again we will use this lens covering this event and nothing will gonna change that.

The reason is simple, for one thing we wanted to minimize our movement and not to be a distractions to this event by moving here and there, by using this lens we can get a tight shot of the politician on the stage without being too close with them and yes before the event start we take a lot of wide angle shot, wide view shot, to show the crowds and after that most photojournalist will concentrate on getting a tight shot of the politicians.

Our task is to captured a politician expressions while delivering their speech, it’s the moment that we are after, whether they are smiling, their body gesture, their expression does make a lot of difference here and just imagine  if we use wide angle lens to take the shot, we will never have the same impact like what we can have with telephoto lens. Just for your information, basically photojournalist will use 300mm – 600mm for this event and to be honest with you we don’t use this lens to show off but to help us get the shot better.

Other than having the right lens, we also need to have a camera with High ISO capability without too much digital noise (grainy). The reason is that, using flash for this event will be a distractions, even though from the picture above you can see some photographers attached flash on their camera body, but most of the time they are switch off.

The light on this hall is quite dim, for the shot above I use ISO 1600 and it’s normal to use ISO1000 – 2000 here with f/2.8 lens. Actually the point of this article is not so much about camera equipment but the right equipment for a any given task. Every photographers need the right camera equipment to do their job effectively. Luckily nowadays most professional DSLR camera are very good at High ISO with less noise, yes sometimes it is still visible but to photojournalist, the noise will be a second factor compared to the moment captured but off-course it will be better if it was noise free and I think todays camera are very good at it.

You can’t be wildlife photographer or sports photographer if all you have is just a kit lens like 18-70mm lens, but you can be a photojournalist even if all you have is a compact camera but like I said again, it’s all depend on your task, if you wanted to take natural disaster picture like floods, tsunami or car accident on the highway, any decent compact camera will do that, because most of the times, you can get close to the scene and normally it’s about the subject and the environment and having a compact camera with a wide angle lens like what most compact camera have will do the job and I know also that some of the images taken with a compact camera has made into the front page of our local newspaper and some of them also made it into the wire.

Since this is not an in depth writing about photographer and camera equipment, hopefully by now you will know that as a photographer we just need the right equipment, for those of you who take photography as a hobby, they can buy the most expensive camera to satisfy themselves because they don’t have any client to worry about but for working photographers, be it photojournalist, wedding photographer, food photographer or whoever makes photography as their career to support their family, we just need the right camera and its equipment and most of the times we don’t really need the most expensive camera but just the right camera and talking about “the right camera”, it will depend on the assignment given.

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | An elephant leads the procession of the arrival of Malaysia’s outgoing king Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin and queen Nur Zahirah (unseen) before departing for their home state of Terengganu, at an airport in Sepang outside Kuala Lumpur on December 12, 2011. Sultan Mizan, Malaysia’s 13 king, proclaimed in 2006, completed his reign on Monday (Dec 12, 2011) after a five-year rotation period. Sultan Mizan is the sultan for the northeastern state of Terengganu.

What is point of view? Basically it is the position, direction, heigh of the camera that will define the point of view of a picture. If you asked me what is the best point of view? My answer is, it depends, it depends on your intention, how do you wanted to tell the story. In this historical event above, my intention is to tell a story about how grand this procession is and for me the best vantage point is from a higher angle. I wish  there is a much higher angle for me but unfortunately, there were no other higher angle for me other than to share my position with live camera TV platform. It is not that hight as you can see from the result of the picture above but this is the highest that I can go.

I chose to use telephoto lens 70-200mm to get the picture, I just want to pull the background together to have more impact. I’ve to carefully chose my angle because I just can’t stop the elephant on track and chose another angle, so I’ve to decide which is the best angle to tell the story in it’s grandeur. For this type of assignment, our photography department sent few photographers covering this event, actually there were five of us. Each photographers were assign to different position and the reason to do so is to make sure each angle is covered since this event does not happen everyday and we don’t want to leave anything slip away.

Choosing the best or the right point of view will either make or break your photograph and for this kind of event it is crucial to decide what is the best point of view to tell the story the way you wanted it to be told or the way your news agency wanted t to be told. Unlike taking architectural or landscape picture where the subject does not run away, you can freely change your position as you wish but for this event where the subject is moving and where it is not easily for me to move around because of the crowds, the security an et cetera, it is crucial to just pick one position and wait. I stay in this position until the official car of the king pass by which is rightly behind the dancers carrying the yellow umbrella procession.

Next time when you wanted to photograph something grand like this procession, always keep in mind about the point of view, which is the best or the right point of view to tell the story, the way you wanted it to be, your intention or the way your news agency or your department required it to be told.

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Malaysia Prime Minister (L) Najib Razak and his Qatar’s  counterpart Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani talk during the state welcoming ceremony in Putrajaya, outside Kuala Lumpur, December 5, 2011.

My schedule is a little bit pack recently, lots of assignment going on here and there and I hardly can keep up with my blog. Some of them are with sharing here while others I just posted on my flickr. Feel free to visit there in case I haven’t posted it here just yet. This is part of my job but don’t worry though, I will not flooded my blog with all this political pictures, I know some of you might hated it but it depends on which angle you look at. Whether it is from photography perspective or political perspective.

I’m just doing my job, you may like or don’t like the subject but let’s be professional and hopefully you can appreciate the moment captured because whatever it is, this is part of Malaysian history and I’m here to do my job the best as humanly as possible, “insyaAllah,” God Willing.

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | The Photojournalist at Parliament Square | Kuala Lumpur

The photograph above were taken during welcoming ceremony of the State Visit of His Excellency The Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada to Malaysia on 14th November 2011 at Parliament Square here in Kuala Lumpur.

I took this picture behind a group of a photojournalist so that I can share with you what the behind the scene look like, we we were position during this ceremony. Normally we will arrive here an hour earlier before the ceremony began. Just to make sure everything was in order and even though most of the photographers here have some experience covering this ceremony but we just wanted to make sure that nothing is changes, I mean the flow of the event and furthermore we must get here before all the delegates, ambassador and all the ministers arrive, otherwise we will get trapped in the traffic jammed, so better be safe than sorry.

This ceremony normally will took normally about twenty minutes, and it start the moment the Governor arrive, and later on the Governor will walk and inspect the guard of honour and then he will be introduced to the all cabinet ministers attending the ceremony and also he will be introduced to all the ambassador from different country  attending the event. After that the Governor and The King of Malaysia will proceed with the State Drive (Governor and The King sit on the same car) towards the Hotel where the Governor stay.

Taking about the equipment, most of the times, the photojournalist will have two camera body at hand with different lens, usually one with 70-200mm or 300 to 400mm lens. Why need two lens? As you can see when the Governor began to walk, he was too far away from the Photographer and if we are using 70-200mm lens, the subject will look too small in the frame and very hard to identify him in prints, unless the photographers intention is to show everything, I mean to include the Kuala Lumpur skyline where you can see the Kuala Lumpur Tower at the back and also malaysia famous landmark, the Petronas Twin Tower there.

Some photographers do that if they have the time but very rarely they do it because this event is quite critical, you have to decide what type of a picture that you want to get and normally those who work with international news agency like Reuters, AF and AFP will go for a tight shot of the Governor and the static guard of honor. Sometimes they include full length body and sometimes they just include from the upper hip and up.

You may say that it is better to take full length body and then cropped it later in Photoshop but for Photojournalist, times is very crucial, we don’t have much time to play around with the editing, it is very-very important to get it tight or to get it right in the camera so that we can just send the picture to the agency or those who need the picture immediately and we have to keep in mind also, the time different among country, in Malaysia it is still early in the morning and somewhere in Canada it might be almost midnight, so the photographers who work with the international agency always have this on ther  mind.

They must send the picture complete with the captions as fast as possible before the dateline, if possible they want their pictures to be used in prints for their respective country for tomorrow morning newspaper. In another words they want to be among the first to report this news as fast as possible and as accurately as possible, especially for the online media. In short words, getting it right in the camera is crucial and very-very important.

Back to why the photographers use two set of camera body with different focal length of lens, it is because, once the Governor began his guard of honor inspection, he will be too small in the viewfinder and that’s why  we need the 300 0r 400mm and when he get closer to the end of the static guard of honour, the 300mm is not suitable because it was getting nearer and by that time, the photographers will quickly switch another camera body equipped with 70-200mm to get a proper shots. We also need the 70-200mm when the Governor and The King walking towards the photographer to be introduced to the ministers on the left side of this picture. 70-200mm will give the photographers more flexibility, they can zoom in and out as the subject approaching the end of the red carpet, in front of the photographers.

Just to let you know also, our position is static, we can’t move here and there, our movement is restricted and among the reason why we must arrives as early as possible is to secure our position for better angle than those who came in late.

I don’t need to take this shot actually but I think, I should take this shot to better illustrate the flow of the event, since  you rarely  see this point of view in newspaper or any online media.

Even though I have taken this assignment for more than I can remember but each time I was assign to cover this event, my adrenaline build up and my heart beat increased because this is very important assignment, I can’t make any mistake, I must get it right because I know that I will never get a second chance, if I miss it, I will miss it forever. The act of taking pictures and merely pushing shutter the button may look easy to someone but the process of getting the picture is not as easy as you might imagine. There are a lot of thinkings on the photojournalist mind.

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | The Photojournalist at Work | Parliament & Indoor Stadium

Some photographer will say that gear doesn’t matter, it’s the person behind the camera that matters. To the certain extend, we can say that but we must be realistic when using those words. Photographers are not create equal, unless you shoot for fun, just for a hobby, a weekend photographers, your gear might not be so important because your life does not depend on photography, but for those who make a living through photography, gear does matters, in this post I will write about Photojournalist.

As a photojournalist we are required to cover many things, there are photographers that are specialize in sports and there are photojournalist that are specialize in war photography but basically most Photojournalist have to cover many things, from boring political meetings to maybe nature photography or wedding photography when the subject is “Public Figure”. In order to cover this things we need the right gear and having the right talent alone is not enough if you are not equipped with the right set of equipment. Off-course even without the best or the right equipment you still will get the job done but if your friends have a better equipment than you, then definitely your friends have an advantage.

Let’s talk about sports photography especially indoor sports photography. As you know photographers are prohibited to use flash during any sports event except during prize giving ceremony, we don’t want to disrupted the games with our flash, so no flash photography during sports event. In order to get a great shot during indoor sports photography we need to have a camera that have High ISO sensitivity and it will be great if the “noise” is low even at High ISO. If your camera are limited to a certain ISO, let’s say you camera ISO can only be push up to ISO 1600 while your friends sitting next to you have a camera with a capability of reaching ISO 6400 or more like ISO 51,200 (Latest Canon EOS – 1 DX), you will know which one will get the best picture.

If you have 70-300mm f/4-5.6 and your friend from different news agency have 300 or 400mm f/2.8 lens, then you know that your friend have more advantage than you. We all know that having fast aperture like f/2.8 will make it easy for the camera to focus because there is more light coming through the lens compared to the lens with f/4 and and f/5.6 lens. For those of you who are familiar with indoor sport event knows that the light are very dim hence having fast lens is a must in order for the photographers to work efficiently. Off-course if you have f4-5.6 lens, you can push the ISO but then you will have more noise and we all know that having a great picture with low noise is better than having the same great moment but with lot’s of noise. Undeniably you will be able to get the same moment as your friends if you seat next right to him but noise free photograph will always look better, that’s why camera manufacture nowadays try to produce a camera with Super High ISO with less noise.

Some event or functions can only be covered from a distance, like a official welcoming ceremony of a President at Parliament Square (2nd Photograph), we the photojournalist are prohibited to go near to the guard of honour, in order to get the best shot, where we can see the President face clearly, we must have a telephoto lens, normally the best telephoto lens is from 300mm to 400mm, this will give you a tight shot of the President and the guard of honour, but then if you have two set of camera equipment, you can se one camera to get an establish shot where you want to show the whole area and then switch back to your telephoto lens to get a tight shot but if you only have one set of camera equipment, the you will have to concentrate on getting the tight shot. Having equipped  with only 50mm lens will never get the job done even though you have the talent.

I can write a long post about this topics, but basically if our life depend on photography, we need the right set of camera equipment in order for us to do our job effectively. I’m talking about the “Needs” rather than “Wants”. A need is something we must have in order to survive and want is something someone would like to have. We need the right equipment in order for us to “Survive” while some hobbyist “wants” to have professional camera equipment for personal satisfaction.

Sometimes talent alone is not enough, you need the right gear and not to forget, the “Black Suit”…

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© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Blurry Vision | Royal Malay Regiment at Parliament Square | 18-70mm | f/16 | 1/40 | ISO 200

While waiting for the events to begin I like to play around to keep me busy. This photograph were taken during welcoming ceremony of the visited Vietnam’s President Truong Tan Sang to Malaysia. The subject here is the Guard of Honour from Royal Malay Regiment. Usually for this kind of event, we the media members arrive at the location one hour before the event start, just to get to know the flow of the event, but actually the flow of the event is almost the same but we just wanted to be here as early as possible in case there is some changes.

Anyway, I just wanted to talk about slow shutter speed here,for this photograph I think if I just use fast shutter speed and freeze the movement of the army, the photograph will have less impact compared to if I use slow shutter speed. I want to create a sense of motion here. I did not only use slow shutter speed here but I also panning a little bit to get this shot. Actually they were really close to me, I’m using wide angle lens for this slow shutter speeds shot which is not an ideal lens for panning but I just wanna have some fun. This photograph will not going to end up in the album for sure.

What I’m trying to say here is that, try to be creatives if you have the time and not in a hurry, even if you are at an official function, you still can have some “fun” if the time permit. Do not get stuck with fast shutter speed all the time, vary your shot, you may not end up with a perfect image but it is good to have some variation. You can use slow shutter speeds in two ways, static slow shutter speed like taking a photograph of a waterfall or light trail where you mounted your tripod and the second way is to use slow shutter speeds and at the same time pan with the subject, I mean “panning shot” like taking a photograph of a moving vehicle, use slow shutter speed and follow with the movement of the car to get a sense of motion.

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Guard of Honor | Parliament Square | Kuala Lumpur

If you want your photograph to have more visual impact to the viewers, “Filling the Frame” is the answer. Great photographers knows what to include and what to exclude in their photograph, off course you should not fills your frame all the time but you must take into consideration what should goes into the frame. If by including the background or the environment will make your photograph have more impact, then by all mean, please do so but if you think the background only make your photograph look messy or cluttered then exclude them.

To fill the frame, you  can either move closer to your subject or simply use telephoto lens and fills the frame, if getting close to your subject physically is not possible, like the photograph of the guard of honor here. I use 300mm lens to fills the frame since I can’t get closer to the subject because photographers covering this event were prohibited to get closed to the guard of honor because there were a lot of honorable guest attending this event and the “protocol” people wants to keep the guard of honor surrounding area from any distractions, they don’t want to see any photographers walking or running here and there. We have to shoot this welcoming ceremony event at a designated area.

The point of this article is to fills the frame, nowadays  a lot of people like to share their photographs on the net, either on their facebook wall, flickr or blog and you know that  most of them will published picture in a small size and if your picture have too many “unwanted space” or the subject is too small, your photograph will loose it’s impact. Yes you can also fills the frame by cropping your photograph tight in the Photoshop but you will loose some details, so it is always best to get it tight or get it right in the camera.

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | The King of Malaysia (Black Dress) and Sultan of Selangor  | Istana Alam Shah | Klang Selangor

“The decisive moment, it is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression.”

- Henri Cartier-Bresson -

There is a lot of talk debating about this “the decisive moment” definition, but I like this definition “A candid photograph taken at the precise moment which defines or illustrates the entire story or action.” Personally I think it is a photograph taken at it’s peak moment or when the moment is at it’s best. Let say if I just take this photograph of The King and The Sultan of Selangor walking towards the stair without that hands gestures, it is still a moment but not at it’s best and I personally think that when they show a hand gesture like what you have seen here make it the best moment and personally I think this is a “decisive moment”.

The decisive moment is not about action photography alone but it is an action at it’s peak or at its best. take for an example if you take a photograph of a politician speaks at the rostrum, for me the peak or the decisive moment is when the politician makes a hand gesture and it’s perfectly match with his expression, that’s a decisive moment, that’s why if you are alert when watching the News on the TV when a politician make a hand gesture, suddenly you saw a bright light shining on their face non stop, it is a sign  that the photographers wait for that gesture to take the shot. That’s the moment that they have been waiting for.

You may agree or disagree with me, you are entitled to your own opinion but for me “The Decisive Moment” is a moment where the actions happens at it’s best or at it’s peak. Even if you take a sports photography where each frame is an action shot, it doesn’t mean that every single frame can be considered as the decisive moment, there must be few frames that qualify to be called as the decisive moments, for an example when sprinter reach the finishing line and he or she touch the finishing ribbon and at the same time raise his or her hands and shows happiness with his or her expression, that’s a great decisive moment.

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© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak waves his hand towards the crowd, during the double celebrations Malaysia Day and Independence Day in Kuala Lumpur September 16, 2011. Malaysia celebrated the 48th anniversary of the union of Malaysia as well as the 54 years of the countrys independence. On the background is the clock tower of historical Sultan Abdul Samad building, among Kuala Lumpur famous landmark other than Petronas Twin Tower

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak ( standing second from left on the platform ) raise his hand and shout “Merdeka” during the double celebrations Malaysia Day and Independence Day in Kuala Lumpur September 16, 2011. Malaysia celebrated the 48th anniversary of the union of Malaysia as well as the 54 years of the countrys independence. On the background is the clock tower of historical Sultan Abdul Samad building, among Kuala Lumpur famous landmark other than Petronas Twin Tower…

This is for the first time that Malaysia Day and Independence Day were celebrated together, Malaysia Day happened on September 16 and our Independence Day is on 31st of August but because on that day, the 31st of August 2011 is the second day of Eid al-Fitr, the government decided to celebrated this historical event on Malaysia Day which falls on September 16.

This is quite a rare moment, usually when the celebration ends, the Prime Minister and all the cabinet ministers will leave this place just after The Yang di-Pertuan Agong Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin King of Malaysia  and the Raja Permaisuri Agong Tuanku Nur Zahirah (Queen) of Malaysia, leave the stage but the Prime Minister decided to join the crowds and he leave the stage behind right under the Sultan Abdul Samad clock tower there and come forward to get close to the participants of the parade and take the opportunity to say a few words.

For this particular photographs I decided to use 24mm wide angle lens to include the background, which is the Sultan Abdul Samad building among the most famous landmark in Kuala Lumpur. At first I was shooting at the ground level and later on decided to step back and climb the platform where thousand of student perform their human graphics and took the shots. I think the impact of this photograph can only be felt if this particular picture especially the one with thousands of the crowds were printed big in wall size and with that in mind, I quickly change the settings of my camera from Jpeg to Jpeg+RAW and if somehow my department decided to print this picture wall size, then it should be no problem.

There are many ways to photograph this scene, some photographers like to get close, to get a tight shots, just the Prime Minister and the cabinet minister on the stage only and some photographers just wanted to photograph the Prime Minister and the human graphic only. There is no right and wrong about the choice of one photographer decision and the other, it’s up to their personal intention, for me I like to photograph the Prime Minister and the environment and I’m glad to know that the following day, some newspaper decided to use photograph (not mine) taken from this angle, from where I took this picture as their front page double spreads.

Usually when covering this huge event, newspaper or news agency will send few photographers to cover this event, my department alone send more than ten photographers to cover this event, everyone has been given their own task. One of the photographers were station at the top of Kuala Lumpur City Hall building to get a better shots of human graphics and the full view of Independence Square where this celebrations being held.

Other photographers were given the task to focus their lens on the VVIP on the centre stage only with 300mm prime lens and other photographers will take a general view of the events, candid shot of the people watching this events, the parade and all kind of things since this event is quite big and it was quite impossible for just one photographer to do his job well if they want to cover everything as a visual documentation of this historical events.

I know that some international news agency just send one photographer to cover this event because they only need certain type of picture or scope to highlight this particular event. For our photo department (Information Department of Malaysia), we need to cover a lot of things because a lot of government agency depend on our photographers to get their pictures, we need not only concentrate on the King and the Prime Minister but also other ministers as well and about the parade, we need to cover almost everything.

The main thing when covering this event is a teamwork, and usually few days before this celebrations took place, there will be a rehearsal, most photographers will come and see the flow of the event so they can have an idea where to position themselves but this one, I mean for this particular moment, is not part of the plan, and sometimes this kind of things, or something that is unexpected make covering this celebrations is something to be remembered and I’m happy that I was here to freeze this moment forever.

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Frame Within The Frame | Istana Alam Shah | Klang Selangor

In photography framing is the technique to bring focus to the subject, by properly framing our subject, it helps to draw viewers eyes to the subject. Anything can be use as a frame as long as it help to focus or direct the viewers eyes to the  main subject. Here in this photograph I use the platform or the stage and the yellow decoration clothes up there to frame my main subject, actually my “real main subject” here is The King of Malaysia, but the King has not arrive just yet, so in this particular photograph, my main subject here is  the royal guard-of-honour consisting of 107 officers and men from the first battalion of the Royal Malay Regiment, Sungai Besi Camp headed by Major Ahmad Muzaimi Mohd Ali.

Whenever you go out shooting, whether it is for fun or your official job, try to find something that can be used to frame your subject, the shape of the frame does not have to be rounded or in a perfect shape, it can be any shape as long  the frame manage to draw our eyes towards the subject. Among the most favorite subject that photographers use to frame their subject is the  windows, arches or doorways.

You can use framing technique for landscape, architecture or a portrait shot. Framing is a visual language where we tell the viewers where to look at, what is the subject matters here. Sometimes photographers use vignetting technique to frame the subject by making the edge of the pictures darker in photoshop but if you can use natural element in the scene to frame your subject, the better.

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