Zhang Tingjun and the women of the The Chain Reaction Project (TCRP) get some well-deserved love in this month's Reader's Digest (Asia).

Rightfully so, these catalysts for change are named "Heroes" by Reader's Digest; indeed their passion, tenacity and dedication to helping others is valiant.

I feel privileged to have met these women and documented their philanthropic endeavours to Timor-Leste in both 2009 and 2010, including their recent participation in the Dili "City of Peace" Marathon -- as profiled in Reader's Digest -- where they delivered a SGD$28,000 Playpoint playground and more than SGD$10,000 to the children of HIAM-Health.

Next stop for these wonder women: competing in the KILI[Man] in Tanzania from 19-27 February 2011.  This entails summitting the highest peak in Africa over a period of six days, biking 250km around the mountain over two days and running a full marathon on the final day.  All funds that TCRP raises will benefit AmaniKids, a home for Tanzania’s street children and AIDS orphans.

Heroic, indeed.

I am extremely excited to be profiled in the 'Portfolio' section of this month's National Geographic Magazine (China).

The editor and photo editor at NGM (China) in Beijing and I went back and forth over the course of a few months on this feature -- selecting the portfolio of photographs, conducting the interview via email and then getting it translated from English into Mandarin for publication -- and they have done a wonderful job.

As expected, NGM (China) had some great questions for me, ranging from my thoughts on making engaging portrait photography and my use of backlight as a creative device to the story ideas that most interest me in China, how I view “travel photography" vs. "cultural photography" and my thoughts on photojournalism vs. fine art photography.

My amazing friend Sarah Gulston, who is fluent in Mandarin, translated this entire article back into English for me (so I knew what was written, how it was edited and what was cut from the original interview conducted in English).  Sarah's translation stretched to more than seven pages of single-spaced A4; far more than can fit here. And far more than anyone, except perhaps my mother, would care to read.  So here are a few highlights...

For you, what makes a good portrait?

"A few years ago, I received an invaluable piece of advice from a photo editor at the international edition of National Geographic Magazine in Washington, D.C.  At the time, she told me that my portraiture was too confrontational and posed -- that it needed to be more observational and candid.  I took this constructive criticism on-board, began adopting it into my photographic style and will always carry it with me.

"For me, what makes a portrait truly memorable is an intangible factor: the ability to create an intimacy between my subject and me. Ironically, this often means giving the subject permission to ignore me, to act naturally and go about his business without worrying about where my camera is.  When my subject forgets that my lens is pointed at him, he is free to be himself, and then the most natural and engaging portraits are made.

"I like think of myself a visual storyteller, and people feature prominently across much of my work.  But in many of my portraits you will notice that my subject is not even looking at my lens.  Learning from that NGM photo editor, the key for me has been shooting the moment that happens between the moments; capturing my subjects’ subtle expressions, throwaway glances, and real laughter.

"This is when a subject’s true personality shines through, and these are the instances that I seek when photographing beautiful, natural portraiture."

It is evident from looking at your portfolio that you like shooting into the sun and using backlight as a photographic technique.  Can you talk about this?

"Shooting into the sun, and using backlight as a visual effect, is a compositional and lighting technique that I have been experimenting with for the past couple of years.  It goes against one of the most fundamental “rules” of photography -- to always have the sun behind/beside the photographer -- but I love the softness of the subject created by the sun's flare.  It's this ethereal, nostalgic effect that moves me to keep practicing and working with this photographic style.

"Although I pride myself on making many different types of photography, I also recognize that I need to take my individual style and consistently sharpen and improve it, establishing a unique photographic voice for myself.  This is one of my ongoing goals, as my eye is always maturing and my inspirations are ever changing.  Creating a portfolio of images that uses backlight as a creative device is an attempt to develop a simple, yet memorable, personal photographic signature for myself."

What do you think the differences are between 'travel photographers' and 'cultural photographers'?

"By their very nature, both travel photographers and cultural photographers share much in common.  Both need an innate curiosity about others. They both must demonstrate deference for foreign cultures.  They both must be sensitive to the interconnectedness of the world, and how their presence and actions impact the foreign culture they are documenting.  And they both require the intellect and willingness to challenge their own cultural assumptions and stereotypes about what’s 'normal'.

"However, a cultural photographer is first and foremost a visual storyteller, able to weave together a series of still images into a captivating narrative.  To do this effectively, he must be able to demonstrate other, more advanced, cross-cultural acumen that a travel photographer won’t necessarily always possess.

"First and foremost, I feel that a cultural photographer should have an awareness of, and experience documenting, his own culture.  Many travel photographers rarely take their cameras out while in their own environs, never showing an intellectual curiosity for their own culture or a willingness to explore it deeply photographically or otherwise.  To me, one doesn’t need

to travel abroad to create cultural photography; there are fascinating stories and engaging characters everywhere, even in a photographer’s own backyard.  And until one truly understands and respects his own culture, I feel it will be difficult for him to understand and respect someone else’s.

"A cultural photographer should be more interested in the 'why' than he is with the 'what' when capturing a scene.  He should have a deeper understanding of the cultural significance of a place or person or event, and the corresponding historical, social and emotional importance attached to it.  This will doubtless help him make deeper and more meaningful imagery."

The full article is printed in the December 2010 edition published in China this month.  It is truly honour to be associated with anything National Geographic produces, and I am humbled to have my photography and my words published in the pages of the Chinese edition of their magazine.

Running my own photography business has taught me so much.  I have learned about entrepreneurship.  I have learned that passion is a strong motivator, as is the fear of failure.  I have learned how to open myself up to people and to take chances on ideas.  And I have learned about the power of partnership and creative collaboration.

Three years ago I had a chance encounter with documentary filmmaker Mike Rogers.  During that first meeting we talked about our respective businesses and experiences, and we quickly learned that we shared a lot in common, both creatively and philosophically.  We became fast friends, and shortly thereafter Mike invited me to accompany him on a documentary film shoot to Bhutan.

For as long as I can remember, I’d fantasized about visiting the remote and enigmatic Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan.  It was certain to be a dream photographic adventure for me.  There was a catch though: it was a small, independent documentary production with only minimal funding, so there would be no money to pay me; if I wanted to go to Bhutan, I’d have to agree to work for free.

I decided to just go for it, clear my calendar and join Mike on what I imagined would be the shoot of a lifetime.

Accompanied by our small Bhutanese crew, my role was to shoot still photography to appear in, and advertise, the film, as well as provide a visual record of the creation of the documentary for Mike's production company.

Exploring and shooting Bhutan was indeed my dream assignment come true, and the result was the most amazing travel and photography experience of my life.

Ironically, the photography I made in Bhutan “for free” has also been the most commercially successful collection of imagery I have ever created.

Photography from the Bhutan shoot has appeared in National Geographic Magazine, The New York Times and Adobe’s Photoshop.com website.  In 2009 I was awarded an honourable mention for "Excellence in Feature Photography" by the Society of Publishers in Asia for my Bhutan imagery published by Reader’s Digest (Asia).  And earlier this year the prestigious Luerzer’s Archive selected me as one of the “200 Best Advertising Photographers Worldwide” (2010/11) for the photography I made in Bhutan to promote Mike’s documentary film.

This month, some of my Bhutan photography will also

appear in the "Himalayan" issue of Germany's GEOspecial, a bi-monthly monothematic travel magazine in Germany.

My image of the joyous novice monks careening down the hill at their monastic school will feature on the cover of the December 2010 / January 2011 GEOspecial, as well as across a double-page spread inside, while one of my Tiger's Nest photographs will run across another (nearly) double-page spread.

Mike’s film, Shooting For Democracy: The Emerging Lens Initiative, was completed earlier this year and has been screened at a number of independent film festivals across the United States.

It’s amazing to imagine where I would be if I’d not met Mike or taken the chance on our friendship or the offer of adventure in Bhutan.

My father has a great expression: You never know if you never go.

Well, I went.  And I am so glad I did.

In late September I spent a week shooting a commission in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, Vietnam for the UK edition of American Express' Centurion Magazine.

Although I've recently written a handful of posts about this trip, as well as uploaded a series of images I made during this assignment, the Winter 2010 edition of Centurion Magazine UK is published this week, and I wanted to share the completed feature "A Tale of Two Cities" written by Anthony Dennis and photographed by me.

As Anthony writes in the article, "Hanoi and Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh City, as it's officially though not popularly called) are members of the unofficial club of the world's great rival metropolises.

"Hanoi, the capital in the north, is a city of tree-fringed lakes, wide boulevardsand petite, Paris-style parks tucked away in neighbourhoods full of faded, mustard-coloured French-style mansions and elegant Belle Epoque public buildings which have somehow survived Vietnam’s turbulent times.

"While not without some Gallic flavour, Saigon...more reflects the American era, with an aggressive capitalist spirit still less evident in Hanoi.  Paradoxically, it’s the

nation’s turbulent history...that renders Vietnam such an alluring destination, particularly as seen through the prism of its two principal cities."

Although I am pretty certain which of the cities is my favourite, as Anthony notes, "experiencing Hanoi and Saigon, and deciding upon which one you favour, remains one of the joys of a trip to Vietnam.  It is a country, after all, where, when it comes to cities, it takes two to tango."

Visit my website to see a larger collection of photographs I made while in Vietnam, including imagery that doesn't appear in the Centurion Magazine feature.

I was recently interviewed by a journalist from Asian Photography Magazine for the "Pro-Profile" section of their October 2010 edition.  The magazine is on newsstands now, so I thought I'd share a bit of the article here.

The journalist had some very good questions for me, and it was enjoyable to speak with her about photography.  We covered many topics during the hour we chatted at my studio in September, such as...

How I got my start in photography: "Scott learnt photography from his father when he was very young.  He grew up in a house full of photography.  His dad taught him how to compose [an image] and how to interpret light."

How I began taking photography more seriously in the mid-to-late 1990s: "'[W]hen I came to Asia, I had a film camera with me and this whole new world opened up to me'.  He fell in love with the colours, the foods, the rituals, the religion and everything that was a part of Asia... He started capturing everything on film."

And the catalyst that pushed me from the corporate marketing world to establishing my own creative photography business in 2004/05: "[His] plunge into

photography started in 2004.  'On my [30th] birthday, I was having a kind of mid-life crisis… and I felt like my 20s had just slipped by, I didn’t know where they had gone.  I went to this dinner and there were all these people who I didn’t know and... somebody asked a question... if you had enough money that you never had to get out of bed to go to work, what would you do then?  And my answer was [that I would] travel around the world and take pictures.  And I had never said that out loud.  I had thought of it, but I had never verbalised it.  That was my answer to what I should be doing with my life.'"

The writer goes on to explain more about my transition from working for a multinational company to working for myself: "Scott has no regrets of working in the corporate world for eight years before his photography career hit-off.  He treasures [that] experience... and the relationships that he made.  It gave him an opportunity [to learn] how to build a brand."

She explains how I first started commercializing my photography, and eventually was able to monetize my hobby: "His philosophy when he started off was, no job is too small... and you never know if you'll like doing a certain kind of photography until you try it."  This approach actually ended-up landing me my early

commercial assignments.  As the author explains, when I first started my small business, I used to take a lot of family portraits, to practice photographing people and earn some money. "Shooting families and kids actually got him one of his first advertising jobs, which was for Johnson & Johnson.  He mentions that, 'I had a certain style that they liked; it was a sensitive, intimate approach to that type of work"'.

The author touches briefly on how my style and approach to my work differs depending on my various assignments, from editorial reportage: "Choose your own adventure... just me and my camera".

...to fashion: "Cinematic... what I want to do is tell stories... separately, [they are] beautiful pictures, but if you look at them together, you will find a bit of narrative, a bit of a story".

...to advertising: "Extremely collaborative... [but] the creative process is not meant to be easy.  It is filled with conflict.  It is push 'n' pull.  I like someone pushing me to get better at this".

Finally, the writer wraps-up with some of my advice to aspiring photographers: “Keep practicing, because there

is nothing that is perfect. ‘This keeps me going: the desire to make the perfect photograph.  But you never can.  There is always something when you look back at it, you feel, I wish that was different’.  So he [recommends] practice and to find a genre of photography that you like and create a style [for yourself].  Have a signature.  Try not to get discouraged.  It’s a competitive market.  Look at the works of people you admire and try to emulate [them], and then develop your own personal style.  At the end of the day, you have to be passionate about what you do, because if you don’t have passion for your work, nobody else will.’”

In a word, I guess that's what photography is all about: passion.

It's why I left my comfortable corporate life to chase my dream.

It's why I struggle with the uncertainty and challenges (big and small) of running my own business.

It's why I push myself to be more creative, to try and make better and more compelling imagery.

And it's why I love every minute of it.

Way back in January of this year, Oliver Stone was in town to lecture at the Singapore campus of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, as well as screen Commandante -- his controversial documentary about Fidel Castro -- at the Next Reel International Film Festival.  During his few days in Singapore, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to meet this Hollywood legend and photograph him exclusively for The Rake magazine.

Christian Barker, editor-in-chief of The Rake, and I decided to photograph Mr. Stone at the beautiful Capella Hotel on Singapore's Sentosa Island, in one of their exclusive private villas and in their gorgeous Rolls-Royce Phantom limousine.  The backdrop was perfect.  Now all we needed was the man.

"Oliver arrived, a little late, and in person he was all you'd expect -- his air that of a heavy-hitting Hollywood auteur", writes Christian in The Rake article.  "I was rather in awe of the man I was about to interview," he continues, "and our photographer Scott was understandably nervy that he'd soon be tasked with 'directing' one of the world's top directors."

Indeed, I was intimidated photographing Oliver Stone.

But this feeling was more because of the pressure I put on myself.  In fact, the three-time Oscar winner and four-time Golden Globe winner was not an intimidating person at all.  I actually found him to be quite the opposite: he was an extremely willing subject, very patient and happy to take direction.  Oliver was generous with his time, and he repeatedly ensured that I had the perfect shot before moving on.

Even the next evening, when I saw Oliver at the film festival, his first question when he greeted me was how the photographs looked and whether I was pleased with them.

I am pleased with them.

And, to coincide with the release of Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps, the article has been published in the latest issue of The Rake (Volume 5, 2010).  I am very excited to finally be able to share this work.

See more photographs I made of Oliver Stone here.

Jasmine Wong, one of the founding members of The Chain Reaction Project (TCRP), wrote this article for September 2010 issue of Singapore's Shape Magazine about her experience running the Dili Marathon and TCRP's support of HIAM-Health in Timor-Leste.

A handful of the photographs that I made during TCRP's race, as well as at HIAM-Health, illustrate Jasmine's editorial.

It is fantastic to see the TCRP initiative -- as well as its founders and supporters -- getting this deserving recognition.

And, on a personal note, it is very rewarding to see my photography supporting TCRP's efforts.  My work with The Chain Reaction Project is a wonderful by-product of running my own photography business: meeting and working with inspiring people, having the ability and means to travel and explore the corners of the world, meet new and interesting people and being given the creative freedom to make photographs that tell a story.

See more photography from the ruggedly beautiful nation of Timor-Leste captured on my documentary shoots with TCRP in 2009 and 2010.

Bridal isn't something that I typically photograph.  But narrative and cinematic fashion is.  So when the very lovely Faz -- who styled many of my favourite shoots, including Sin Palace and Golden Age -- offered me a chance to shoot with her for Singapore Brides, I had to say yes.

The shoot idea that Faz and I came up with was suburban-housewife-doing-mundane-tasks-around-town-in-a-wedding-dress; a simple idea with a slight social commentary on marriage and managing the day-to-day tasks of a household.

Assisted by Zam (Photographer's Assistant), Iggy (Stylist's Assistant) Dewi Mahoney (Make-up) and Ash Loi (Hair), we photographed the series in Singapore's Bedok neighbourhood.

It was a lot of fun to shoot this spread in such a public sphere, and (for once) not be concerned about people standing in the frame, staring at the camera or generally being part of the photograph.

Here are three images that didn't make the final cut for the spread (but I like a lot, anyway).  See the whole feature online at Singapore Brides.

At more than 4,200 kilometres in length, the Mekong River is just the 12th largest river on the planet.  Yet it’s importance in Asia is indisputable: twisting and turning its way through an incredible six countries -- China, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos -- the mighty Mekong ebbs and flows, like the lives of tens of millions of people who rely on it every day.

A slow-boat journey along the winding waterway is a true cinematic experience, rich in long, picturesque expanses of quiet reflection as traditional life on the river steadily passes by like a Technicolor silent movie.  Life on the meandering Mekong seems suspended in a warp somewhere between past and present, steadily drifting to an enchanting rhythm, much like the muddy waters that envelop it.

I was fortunate enough to shoot an assignment along this splendid river early last year.  From wooden bumboats to luxury cruisers to speedboats, I spent nearly four weeks drifting on the Mekong River.  I started in southern Vietnam and floated through Cambodia and Laos before eventually ending in Thailand.  It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience, enjoy and photograph traditional river life on this magnificent waterway.

The July/August 2010 issue of Fah Thai, Bangkok Airways' inflight magazine, features this short photo essay of imagery I captured during my time on the Mekong in Laos.

Visit here to see more photographs I made during my month-long journey on the Mekong River in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.