I was again somewhat influenced by my BFF and quickly settled to shooting people and portraits. It seemed like the logical thing to do, as I'd take family event photos and similar. One day circa Sept 2011, my BFF said he'd never seen an amazing portfolio of portraits and not from an internationally acclaimed photographer but a Malaysia! Checkout his FB page and photos he told me, which I did. It was amazing, so much so that I took the courage to message him and asked if I could just talk to him about his photography.
So, it ended that my BFF and me visiting this Malaysian photographer during a day in the month of Syawal (the Muslim calendar month after Ramadan) who had his studio built as an annex to his house on the top floor. It was amazing and he was very warm and friendly and at that time he'd just bought a Hasselblad, which I took a profile photo holding it.
I asked him if he would teach us the finer points in portraiture and also photography. Unfortunately, he said no to that request and said that he doesn't teach well enough and recommended another Malaysian photographer - Amri Ginang. It was the first time I heard of this name and thanked him for it. So my search for Amri Ginang to learn about portraiture began. It finally culminated in May 2013, when he replied saying that he will be conducting a 2 days workshop. I managed to attend it and learned a lot from him. With that, I'd approached Amri Ginang as the first photographer of my project to interview and document Malaysian photographers.
Actually started in 2010 with my wife and best friends or what is popularly coined as the three letter abbreviation BFF. During one of the teh tarik sessions at a cafe in Bangsar, I would sit with my BFF and tune out when the talked about cameras and photography geek speak like aperture, shutter speed and f-stops. One day, my wife wanted to rekindle her childhood hobby of photography and asked me what would be a good camera to get. Of course, who's help do I seek but my BFF who immediately decided for me - get a Canon! (that's why I wasn't a Nikon user).
So, moving forward I bought a Canon 550D DSLR for my wife and thought okay, I've bought her the DSLR, end of story. Not realizing then that she wasn't taking photos of family events etc, as she found it complicated. So it was yours truly, who had to read the user guide from end to end and watch countless of YouTube videos and other material so I could teach her. Fast forward (and getting a prime lens of 50mm/f1.8 really opened my aperture, oopss I mean eyes) and it ended up that I took over the use of the DSLR from her.
My Journey Into Photography...
AZMANKARIB PHOTOGRAHY
Portrait by: AMRI GINANG