Late last year, I was commissioned by The Financial Times to photograph a series of portraits of "entrepreneur, linguist, dandy dresser, petrol head, cycling fanatic, part-time soldier and thoroughly nice bloke: Wei Koh."

Wei Koh is the founder of Revolution Press and the editorial director of luxury horological title, Revolution and men's style and artisanal luxury publication, The Rake.

I had met Wei in passing at his Singapore office a couple of years prior -- when I photographed Oliver Stone for his magazine, The Rake -- so when I arrived at his home on the day of the shoot, we immediately had something in common.

My creative brief was to make a collection of photographs of Wei in his personal environment, and I was immediately attracted to the modern art adorning the walls of his home. I proposed integrating Wei's art collection into our portraits, and he happily obliged.

It was a relaxed and enjoyable photo shoot, with Wei's lovely wife, Jocelyn on-hand to help with his personal styling.

The result of our time together that morning spanned six pages in the FT's December 2012 horology magazine, "Watch This Space".

I am extremely fortunate to have a long-standing relationship with Travel + Leisure magazine, one of the world's preeminent luxury travel and lifestyle publications. I have worked with the Southeast Asian edition a number of times over the years, contributing travel and luxury lifestyle features; however, I have never had the privilege of photographing a cover fashion spread for them.  Until now.

Travel + Leisure SEA's Art Director contacted me, commending this fashion feature I recently shot for Dusit's Ei8ht magazine.  He mentioned that T+L SEA would soon be celebrating it's 5th anniversary, and he was interested in having me shoot a similarly-conceived cover and fashion feature at the brand new W Hotel in Singapore for the magazine's upcoming celebration issue.

In late-October, my team and I descended upon the beautiful W Hotel at Sentosa Cove for the all-day photography session.  Creatively, I love these types of assignments for the opportunity to integrate the property into my imagery, making the location a character alongside the model.  And there were so many remarkable locations to shoot around this contemporary luxury resort hotel -- avant-garde architecture, innovative furnishings and vibrant colours -- that we were spoiled for choice.

Our stylist kept the fashion and accessories luxe, chic, bold and bright: Michael Kors, Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Miu Miu, Dolce & Gabbana and Christian Louboutin are among the labels showcased in our imagery.

The result is a collection of photography that graces the cover and eight pages in the December 2012 issue, the biggest T+L SEA issue ever published.

Happy 5th Anniversary, Travel + Leisure.

Browse more of my fashion photography here.

Credits

Client: Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia

Location: W Singapore - Sentosa Cove

Art Direction: James Unkong

Model: Tanja V.

Styling: Vernon Sim

Hair & Make-up: Andrea Claire

Photographer's Assistant: Zam

Digital Imaging: Agnes Teo

In the words of writer Rod Mackenzie, "Singapore is undergoing a creative revolution."

I wholeheartedly agree.

Rod asserts, "This isn’t a country normally associated with sudden spontaneity or letting rip.  Efficient, safe, clean, somewhat maiden-auntish and rule-bound -- these are the words people tend to use when describing this little diamond-shaped island."

However, in the three years Rod has lived here -- and most certainly in the 15+ years I have called it home -- Singapore has "undergone some significant changes.  Glitzy Vegas-style casinos, groundbreaking modern architecture, Formula One races, cutting-edge arts festivals, pleasure gardens filled with 50-metre-tall neon-lit 'Supertrees' -- it’s all getting louder, brighter and much more interesting."

Land Rover recently commissioned Rod, myself and my friend and frequent creative collaborator, Mike Rogers, to document Singapore's transformation for their multi-award-winning travel and lifestyle magazine, OneLife.

So, for four days this past August, we traversed our tiny island home in a beautiful, brand new Range Rover Sport,

meeting a handful of entrepreneurs who are "rewriting the rulebook and fueling the economic future" of Singapore.

We interviewed and photographed a total of five independent business people who have chosen not only to make Singapore their personal home, but also the place where they chase their professional dreams: Ryan Lee, CEO of X-mini capsule speakers for mobile phones, Mp3 players, tablets and laptops; Lisa Crosswhite, founder of Gnossem, an online retailed dedicated to independent Asian fashion designers; Lawrence Koh, founder of iFly Singapore, Asia's only indoor skydiving wind tunnel; Violet Lim, chief executive of Lunch Actually, a dating agency that connects busy professionals in over lunch; and Loh Lik Peng, the hotelier behind Singapore's boutique properties New Majestic Hotel, Hotel 1929 and Wanderlust.

It was a unique way to observe Singapore -- through the windscreen of a Land Rover.  It was also an interesting way to learn more about Singapore -- through the eyes of these successful, creative entrepreneurs.

Watch Mike's short film about "Singapore's Creative Revolutionaries" here.

Browse more of my travel and lifestyle photography here.

There are many wonderful technological benefits to being a photographer in the Twenty-first Century, but none greater than the ability to easily connect and communicate with clients, both existing and potential, all around the world.  Developing these relationships, however, still requires personal effort, a little luck and some human kindness.

Last year I was contacted by the Photo Editor at Condé Nast Traveller (Russia) and we ended up working together to illustrate a Cambodia story, 'АнГкор, еще анГкор!' (translated as 'Angkor, More Angkor') for the February 2012 issue of her magazine.  Following this collaboration, and despite having never met in person or even spoken on the phone, we have developed a long-distance, electronic friendship.

So when she reached out again recently -- this time seeking photography for an upcoming CNT (Russia) feature about Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam -- I was only too happy to oblige.

I used to live in Saigon in the late 1990s and have returned to Vietnam's commercial capital numerous times over the past dozen years to witness and document the hyper-frenetic, ever-changing city.  I, therefore, have a deep reservoir of imagery from Vietnam to draw upon.

The result of my most recent collaboration with Condé Nast Traveller (Russia) is the feature 'НА СУП ФО к дядюшке Хо' (roughly translated as 'Go To Uncle Ho for Pho') which appears across a dozen pages in the November 2012 issue.

Recalling from our previous work together that I had a large library of stock imagery from Cambodia -- and in the spirit of both friendship and partnership -- my CNT (Russia) contact kindly introduced me to the Photo Editor at GQ (Russia) whom she knew to be searching for photographs to illustrate a story about Cambodia's capital city, Phnom Penh, for her magazine.

'БУДДА-БАР' (meaning 'Buddha Bar'), featuring a handful of my Phnom Penh photographs, appeared in the October 2012 edition of GQ (Russia).

Neither of these connections would ever have been made without modern technology.  But I am also acutely aware that neither of these relationships would ever have flourished without both a personal touch and a kind gesture.  And isn't that what partnership is all about?

See more of my work with Condé Nast's international magazines, VOGUE (China) and Condé Nast Traveller (India).

I have been extremely privileged to meet and photograph a number of notable and high-profile personalities over the course of my career.  Photographing people like Oscar-winning film director Oliver Stone and PGA golfer Tiger Woods have been among my most memorable assignments.

And over the past year, while on assignment for various editorial clients, I have had the opportunity to make portraits of three interesting and engaging individuals: fiction author Alexander McCall Smith; scholar, columnist and television personality Niall Ferguson; and art historian Charles Saumarez Smith.

I spent a couple of hours with Alexander McCall Smith, author of the best-selling The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, at Singapore's iconic Raffles Hotel last year while shooting a profile about him for Reader's Digest.  Mr. McCall Smith was a patient and thoughtful subject and, as it was the first (and only) time I've been permitted to shoot inside Raffles Hotel, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of integrating the historical Victorian-era property and decor into my photographs.

Earlier this year I met Niall Ferguson very briefly when I was commissioned by the Financial Times to photograph him at

a finance conference at Singapore's Mandarin Oriental Hotel.  My assistant and I were set up and waiting for Mr. Ferguson, who was delayed, for more than ninety minutes. So when he arrived, we had just a few minutes to shoot his portrait, which gave me time to make only a handful of photographs.  But he was a fantastic subject -- he was extremely comfortable in front of my lens, required little direction and was full of expression -- so a few moments was all that we needed to get the shot.

Finally, I was hired by Billionaire to photograph portraits of Charles Saumarez Smith, former Director of the National Portrait Gallery (UK) and the National Gallery (UK), and the current Secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Arts (UK).  Our shoot took place this past March at the historic Eden Hall, the private residence of the British High Commissioner to Singapore.  I had about one hour with Mr. Saumarez Smith, and although my idea of photographing him on the grounds outside was scuttled by an afternoon thunder shower, I feel I was still able to make some compelling pictures of him.  It was an honour to photograph a subject whose image, captured by the great Mario Testino, currently resides in his former place of employment, London's National Portrait Gallery.

See more of my portraiture on my website.

"It’s the perennial, as it were, dilemma of urban landscape architects everywhere.  How to create a grand, public park, with immediate impact, when the essential star attractions, the tall trees, can take decades or even longer to mature," states Sydney-based writer and friend, Anthony Dennis, in our most recent collaboration, 'The Ultimate Tree Change' published in The Australian's July 2012 issue of WISH Magazine.

Anthony continues, "It was this problem that confronted an impatient city-state with ambitions to cement itself as the pre-eminent tourism and investment destination in southeast Asia -- not in the future, but now.  Singapore, which in recent years has embraced architecture and design as drivers of its national goals, devised a unique solution to the slow-growing tree problem for its new Gardens by the Bay development.  It has built 'Supertrees' that form a sculptural garden, an amalgam of the architectural and the organic."

I had the privilege of visiting Gardens by the Bay for an exclusive private tour and photoshoot this past May, a number of weeks prior to the park's grand opening in late-June.  In Singapore's typical fashion of 'Go Big or Go Home', it was simply awe-inspiring.  The 18 'Supertrees' towered between 25m and 50m overhead, and

their branches extended "like oversized spiderwebs", the primary focal point being a 128m-long aerial walkway, which connects the giant man-made structures in 'Supertree Grove'.

As Anthony goes on to explain, urban design "has evolved to fully embrace a multitude of disciplines, not just the horticultural but also architecture and landscape design and, in the Singapore example, structural and environmental engineering.  Gardens by the Bay -- and, indeed, Singapore's entire Marina Bay development, including Marina Bay Sands, the Esplanade, Singapore Flyer, ArtScience Museum and Marina Bay Financial Centre -- certainly exemplifies this forward-looking philosophy.

See Anthony and my other recent WISH Magazine collaboration, 'Penang's Time Capsule', published in the The Australian's May 2012 issue.  And browse more of my luxury lifestyle and travel photography on my website.

There is no Asian destination more in vogue right now than Cambodia.  "The Kingdom of Wonder" is on everyone's lips, and every major luxury travel and lifestyle magazine is bestowing the country's virtues upon their readership.

I have traveled to Cambodia on various photography assignments six times in as many months.  It is an extremely dynamic and exciting destination; an adventurer's paradise and a true photographer's delight.

And, as author Rodney Bolt writes in "A Homage to the Resurgent Phnom Penh" -- my most recent photography commission for the Summer 2012 issue of American Express' Centurion Magazine (UK) -- "[a]fter barely a decade of political stability, Cambodia's capital of cool bustles with an energy all its own; [a] heady mix of of youthful ambition, glorious architecture and bewitching cuisine."

For this specific feature I spent five wonderful days in Phnom Penh, visiting and photographing the city's most storied and luxurious hotels (Raffles Hotel Le Royal), new urban boutique resorts (The Plantation), popular eateries (Tepui), fashionable designer shops (Eric Raisina's Haute Texture) and magnetic personalities (celebrity Chef Luu Meng).

This type of editorial travel assignment is among my favourite to shoot since it allows me the time to truly experience a city, and the opportunity to creatively document whatever and whomever I encounter along the way.

Phnom Penh was a beautiful and eager subject for me -- a city steeped in colonial heritage but maturing in real time, the landscape and it's residents stylishly and visibly evolving from one day to the next.

Browse more of my recent work for American Express' luxury lifestyle and travel magazines: "Sleepless in Singapore" in Selects (Germany) and "A Tale of Two Cities" in Centurion (UK).

Last year I was commissioned by Condé Nast Traveller (India) to photograph a feature about "sexy, stylish, sophisticated Singapore".

The assignment had me criss-crossing Singapore, shooting more than two dozen locations for the story, from the tiny independent boutiques lining Haji Lane to the mega Marina Bay Sands resort and casino towering over the city's skyline.

It was a fantastic opportunity for me to explore further my own city and experience many of Singapore's best and brightest bars, restaurants and hotels.  It also gave me an opportunity to meet and photograph some of our city's more interesting finance, society, hospitality and culinary personalities.  It was a fantastic assignment, and one that I thoroughly enjoyed shooting.

The feature, titled "Singapore Grows Up", appeared in the August/September 2011 issue of CN Traveller (India).

Then a few months ago SELF (China) -- another title in the Condé Nast family of magazines -- reprinted the feature in their magazine (December 2011).

And very excitingly, just this month another Condé Nast title -- this time Vogue (China) -- reprinted the feature in their magazine (May 2012).  This is the Vogue (China) layout.

As the feature's writer, Puja Disha Bharwani, writes in the article, "Singapore is now becoming a sexy, sophisticated destination."  Clearly the Chinese agree.

It is always a pleasure to receive positive feedback on the work that I create, but none more than a situation where the client reuses my photography repeatedly across a variety of their titles.  And what bigger compliment than to have my photography appear in the prestigious Vogue magazine?

See more of my lifestyle and travel photography on my website.

Sydney-based writer Anthony Dennis and I have been friends for years, often partnering on features for various luxury travel and lifestyle magazines.  'Penang's Time Capsule', published in the The Australian's May 2012 issue of WISH Magazine, is our latest collaboration.

As Anthony details, in 2008 George Town "was awarded UNESCO World Heritage listing, granting it membership to an elite South-East Asian club that includes once forgotten but now fashionable old town treasures such as Hoi An in Vietnam and Luang Prabang."  Thus, in the past few years, "George Town has been undergoing a renaissance."

Indeed, it is an exciting time to visit Penang, as this renaissance lends itself to a rapid and real-time "rise from obscurity, recognition, revival, restoration and then a kind of gentrification.  The latter is driven by the arrival of enterprising Westerners, and then locals, to establish tourism businesses."

It was this hunt for George Town's flourishing dining, retail café and art scene, as well as its "sensitively designed boutique accommodation in traditional shop-houses" -- and the enterprising individuals behind these initiatives -- that lured us to Penang for this story.

"Typically low-rise old towns...lend themselves well to small-scale, boutique-style hotel developments", and Penang is no exception.  The old town is filled with "extraordinary and distinctive colonial architecture, street after street replete with rows of dilapidated but intact shop-houses", some of which notable conservationist entrepreneurs like Christopher Ong and Narelle McMurtrie have lovingly and beautifully renovated and restored.

Over the course of three days this past January, I visited with Christopher and Narelle, documenting Christopher's Muntri Mews guesthouse, a former stable and carriageworks, and Narelle's Straits Collection and China House, an eclectic mixture of retail spaces, restaurants, galleries and guest residences.  I also photographed Clove Hall, an Edwardian Anglo-Malay bungalow converted into a beautiful boutique hotel, and the century-old Eastern & Oriental Hotel.  In my spare time, I wandered the narrow streets, capturing images of "Technicolor shop-houses with multiple shuttered-windows and weathered terracotta rooftops."

UNESCO declares that George Town is among “the most complete surviving historic city centres on the Straits of Malacca with a multicultural living heritage originating from the trade routes from Great Britain and Europe through

the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and the Malay archipelago to China...[constituting] a unique architectural and cultural townscape without parallel anywhere in east and southeast Asia."

But don't just take UNESCO's word for it.  Visit Penang and experience this glorious and colourful time capsule for yourself.

See more of my luxury lifestyle and travel photography on my website.

Not long ago, I received an email from the editor of Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia; he was looking for a photograph to appear on the final page of his March 2012 edition, in a section called "Last Look".

The editor had seen a collection of pictures that I made at Bambu Indah, a small boutique hotel in central Bali, and he was interested in one of them as he felt the imagery would fit the March issue's "style and design" theme.

I subsequently learned that part of "Last Look" includes an interview with the photographer.  My recollection of that morning, which appears underneath my photograph, reads as follows:

I took this photograph at Bambu Indah (which means “beautiful bamboo” in Balinese) in Ubud.  The resort consists of four 150-year-old teak houses -- each, apparently, the former residence of a Javanese nobleman -- relocated to the site on the Sayan Ridge, surrounded by rice paddies that line the edge of the Ayung River.  I shot it just before 8 a.m. as the bright Balinese sun crested the horizon and burst through the palm trees behind Minangkabau (the Minang House), a common area for yoga, dining and celebration, constructed from black bamboo from the forests of Java.  The angle of the sun significantly affects

the warmth, contrast and texture in a photograph, so I am always looking to shoot in the warm ‘golden hours’ of early morning and late afternoon when the sun is low in the sky. In this case, I was waiting for the sun to rise and filter through the swaying palm trees, straight into my camera.  I like the effect of shooting directly into the sun and allowing the light to flare in my lens.

As I mentioned in a post a couple of years ago, I am drawn to the ethereal effect that is created by pointing my lens straight into the sun; it's a technique I employ often, integrating this photographic style into much of my travel and fashion editorial work.

Browse more of my luxury lifestyle photography on my website.

I am often asked what I believe is my best photograph. Without hesitation, I always answer that it is my image of the Bhutanese novice monks joyously careening down a hill at their Thimphu monastic school.  I love the spontaneity, emotion and movement captured in this single frame: a true moment frozen in time, and my favourite picture I've ever taken.

What was originally created nearly four years ago -- as a promotional still image for Persistent Productions' documentary film, Shooting For Democracy -- has become the most popular and commercially successful photo reportage I've ever made.

This image has been printed in the pages of the iconic National Geographic Magazine (USA), as part of a feature profile in National Geographic Magazine (China), and on the cover of GEOspecial Magazine (Germany).  It also appears on Adobe’s Photoshop.com website and was one of three photos from my "Thunder Dragon" collection that was selected by Luerzer’s Archive when I was honoured as one of the “200 Best Advertising Photographers Worldwide” a couple of years ago.

This month, my favourite young monks grace the cover of British Airways' inflight magazine High Life for a cover story on the enigmatic Kingdom of Bhutan.

Visiting Bhutan had long been a dream of mine.  And when that dream finally came true, exploring and documenting the ruggedly beautiful country exceeded even my highest hopes.  Truly, my time spent in Bhutan was the most amazing travel and photography experience of my entire life.  And I find it exciting and rewarding that imagery I created during that remarkable experience also -- and still -- resonates with others.

A fun post script to this photograph: one of the very next frames I snapped after this image was of friend and filmmaker, Mike Rogers, surrounded by the gaggle of young monks who had just run down the hill, as they raptly watched themselves come to life on the screen of Mike's video camera.  This picture actually appeared in The New York Times.  Indeed, the photography gods were smiling down upon us that afternoon.

This past December I was commissioned by The Daily Telegraph to photograph 'Homage to the New Cambodia' , a glimpse at Indochina's newest rising star, for the Spring 2012 edition of Ultratravel magazine.

I joined Johnny Morris, Ultratravel's creative director, at the beautiful Villa Romonea in the seaside town of Kep.  As Johnny describes, "[d]esigned by Lu Ban Happ, a key figure in the Le Corbusier-inspired New Khmer Architecture movement, [Villa Romonea] is one of the few intact private mansions of Kep’s golden era in the 1960s.  Fully renovated by its current owners, it is a shining example of how to mix Sixties interior design and contemporary furnishing within a striking modernist mansion.  Its bold white zigzags and organically curved atrium help make it surprisingly optimistic architecture."

We enjoyed ice cold Kingdom Beers by the villa's saltwater infinity pool as the sun set over the Bay of Kampot and then we ventured into town, accompanied by an American couple also staying at the villa, for cocktails at The Sailing Club by Knai Bang Chatt, followed by fresh crab and green Kampot pepper at Kimly's, "a classic example of the 'keep it local, keep it simple' destination restaurant that we all crave on our travels."

The next day we traveled to Sihanoukville, the jumping-off point for Song Saa, a brand new private luxury island resort

nestled 15 miles off the coast in the Koh Rong Archipelago. Johnny and I lunched overlooking the Gulf of Thailand with the owner, Rory Hunter, and his senior team before being whisked away on a tour of the two beautiful islands and the exclusive all-villa resort.

The final stop on my adventure with Johnny was Cambodia's capital city, Phnom Penh, a few hours’ drive from Sihanoukville.  As Johnny poetically recounts in the article, "Phnom Penh is [a] full-on live show with plenty of swagger and edgy improvisation...[a] million stories and a stream of colour from tuk-tuk and scooter lights."

This December assignment with Johnny and Ultratravel was my third shoot in Cambodia in as many months.  And next week I'll be returning to Phnom Penh to shoot a feature for a German-based magazine, followed shortly thereafter by another assignment that will start in Siem Reap and take me more than 600km around Cambodia in the back of a tuk-tuk.  Indeed, it's a beautiful country whose future looks bright, and I am privileged to be able to witness and document so much of this growth and change.

Read the full 'Homage to the New Cambodia' article online, browse my earlier Ultratravel work, 'Singapore Swings' and see more of my lifestyle and travel photography on my website.

I have been fortunate enough to visit Cambodia on many occasions in recent years -- three times in the past three months alone -- and I have accumulated a large collection of stock photography while shooting these various assignments.

So, when the photo editor of Condé Nast Traveller (Russia) recently contacted me while searching for imagery to illustrate an upcoming article on the "Kingdom of Wonder", I had a large reserve of photography to share with her.

'АнГкор, еще анГкор!' -- which, literally translated, means 'Angkor, More Angkor!', but I have been told is a play on words in Russian, since it rhymes with the title of a popular film -- is published in the February 2012 issue of CNT (Russia).  Interestingly (and excitingly), this feature contains my landscape and travel photography that I captured on five separate visits to Cambodia.

To see more of my recent CNT work, browse 'Singapore Grows Up', an assignment I photographed for the August/September 2011 issue of Condé Nast Traveller (India).

See more of my lifestyle and travel photography on my website.

I first visited Singapore in 1996, and have called the small island city my home for 14 of the past 15 years.  During this time I've witnessed the city-state grow and mature into a thriving hub of international flare and renown.  In particular, the past five years have seen dramatic changes in Singapore: giant integrated resorts and casinos, international sporting events, a burgeoning arts scene and an exploding financial services and housing market.

Sometimes I find Singapore barely recognizable from the place I first visited a decade and a half ago; apparently I am not the only one.  Recently Singapore has received a remarkable amount of press celebrating it's meteoric rise to become one of "Asia's dazzling metropolises".  This article, "Schlaflos in Singapur" (Sleepless in Singapore), published in the latest issue of American Express Selects magazine in Germany, is no exception.

Much like the other recent Singapore features I've photographed for international magazines -- "Singapore Swings" for The Telegraphs's Ultratravel and "Singapore Grows Up" for Conde Nast Traveller (India) -- this article focused on Singapore's latest and greatest shopping, dining and leisure destinations.  I photographed more than 20 locations for this feature, and enjoyed every moment of exploring and experiencing all the "new Singapore" has to offer visitors and residents alike.

The Winter 2011/12 edition of The Daily Telegraph's Ultratravel magazine was published in the UK this past week end, including "Singapore Swings", an article exposing the new-and-improved city-state and featuring a selection of my photography made at various landmarks around my adopted home of Singapore.

Writer Michael Simkins expounds in detail on all that Singapore has to offer the overseas visitor, from "architectural show-stoppers" Marina Bay Sands Hotel & Casino, the National Library and the Esplanade Theatres on the Bay, to the "larger-than-life" Singapore Flyer, to the predominance of luxury branded retail and Michelin star dining experiences, to the annual Formula 1 Grand Prix night race that speeds through our fair city streets every September.

If you can't experience "sultry, swanky Singapore" in person, then click here, turn to Page 46, and let Ultratravel transport you here.

And if this isn't enough Singapore for you, then click here to see "Singapore Grows Up", a feature I photographed for Conde Nast Traveller (India) a few months ago.