Further to the post I wrote earlier this week, here is another series of outtakes that I came across today from my Sands Style magazine shoot with Vinnie Quek & Co. at Marina Sands' Ku De Ta restaurant and lounge.

As I mentioned previously, the fellas from Ku De Ta were a pleasure to work with; we had a lot of fun shooting that afternoon, and I believe the photographs attest to that.

See more of my portrait photography on my website.

Marina Bay Sands is less than one year old, but already it is a Singapore icon, dominating the skyline and offering some of the best views of the city from the Sands SkyPark 56 stories up in the air.  Perched atop the SkyPark is Ku De Ta restaurant and lounge, already one of Singapore's most popular dining and night spots.

I was recently commissioned by Marina Bay Sands' lifestyle magazine, Sands Style, to photograph a series of portraits of Dan Segall and Vinnie Quek, Ku De Ta's Executive Chef and Director of Entertainment.

Portraiture is among my favourite types of photography; creating imagery that captures a person's true personality is what I love most.  However, when shooting portraits for magazines, I am often given only a few moments with my subjects.  Thus, getting them to relax and feel comfortable in this limited amount of time is the most significant challenge I face as a photographer.  Suffice to say, Dan and Vinnie were not my typical subjects; nor was this a typical shoot.

The energy these two had on set was infectious.  They were not the least bit self-conscious in front of the camera.  And above all, they wanted to have fun.  This made my job as the photographer very easy.

These photographs of Dan and Vinnie were made on the outdoor terrace at Ku De Ta, overlooking Marina Bay Sands' famous 150 meter long infinity pool.

Although this series of images won't be appearing in the Spring 2011 edition of Sands Style (another portrait was selected for the magazine feature), these are among my favourite frames we made together that afternoon.

See more of my portrait photography on my website.

As anyone who's shot with me already knows, Lightroom is easily the most important piece of software in my digital photography workflow.

So, as I have written before, it was a great privilege when last year I was approached by Adobe, the makers of Lightroom, with opportunities for creative partnership and collaboration.

It started with an interest from Adobe in licencing the rights to use a selection of my photography on their Photoshop.com website, and it then progressed into working with Adobe's digital marketing agency, to be profiled in the "Spotlight" section of Photoshop.com.

I am extremely proud of my association with Adobe, which is why I am so pleased to share "Believe". Alongside talented and accomplished photographers Kelly Castro and Emily Ibarra (both of whom have also been profiled on Photoshop.com here and here respectively), "Believe" is an electronic direct marketing initiative by Adobe to promote Lightroom 3 and demonstrate how photographers like Kelly, Emily and I use it in professional photography environments.

Download Lightroom presets: "1970's Nostalgia" by me; "Polar Cream" by Kelly; and "Contrast & Vignette" by Emily.

As mentioned in a previous post, in January I was commissioned by SilkAir's inflight magazine Silkwinds to create a series of behind-the-scenes reportage at Resorts World Sentosa's (RWS) Voyage de la Vie theatrical circus in Singapore.

Accompanied by writer Lisa-Ann Lee, my assistant and I spent a few hours backstage with the actors, dancers, acrobats, singers, stylists, directors, technicians and stage managers in the show's custom-built theatre at RWS.  It was a fascinating glimpse into the last-minute rehearsals and frantic preparations that take place before the curtain goes up every night.

As Lisa writes, Voyage de la Vie "is just one example of how Singapore’s first ever theatrical circus is pushing the entertainment envelope.  Almost three years in the making, Voyage de la Vie has performed in front of more than 200,000 people since it premiered in July last year... The show is charting new boundaries by weaving theatre, dance, music, acrobatic feats and magic together" to tell a unique coming-of-age story.

Here are a few of my favourite images from backstage that evening; see more of my photography from backstage in the March/April 2010 Silkwinds magazine.  And visit here to browse more of my photo reportage.

Last Thursday night, I attended the premier of filmmaker Grant Knisely's documentary The Chain Reaction Project at The Arts House in Singapore.

In August 2009 Grant and I traveled to Timor-Leste with the women of The Chain Reaction Project (TCRP) as they competed in the inaugural Tour de Timor, a five day, 450km adventure mountain bike race across nine of Timor's 13 districts.  Coined "The Ride For Peace", the mountain bike race presented the ladies with a grueling challenge on their way to raising USD$35,000 for HIAM-Health, a clinic dedicated to the rehabilitation of malnourished children in the capital city of Dili.

Grant's uses Timor-Leste's historical suffering as a backdrop for his film -- a result of a brutal 1975 Indonesian military invasion and a subsequent 24-year occupation that left over 100,000 Timorese dead -- while documenting the athletic achievements and selfless philanthropic work of the women of TCRP as well as the passion and dedication of the employees of HIAM-Health to help make a better life for the people of Timor-Leste.

As with many small, independent films, funding is often difficult to come by.  But The Chain Reaction Project was a labour of love for Grant and his small Code Red Films

production company, and he persevered in raising the human interest and the monetary capital necessary to complete his movie.

The end result is a short film that Grant should be very proud of.  Indeed, I am proud to have my photographs featured throughout his documentary, as well as gracing the film's DVD cases and movie posters that were on display Thursday night at The Arts House.

Click here to see a slideshow of my Tour de Timor photography.  More of my imagery of the ruggedly beautiful nation of Timor-Leste and her people can be found here and here.

Friend, filmmaker and longtime collaborator Mike Rogers and I just returned from an amazing adventure assignment to Indonesia.  We spent two days with the World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) Elephant Flying Squad, living in their camp at Lubuk Kembang Bunga Village on the outskirts of Sumatra's Tesso Nilo National Park while shooting an editorial print and digital video feature for SilkAir's inflight magazine, Silkwinds.

According to the WWF website, "In 2004, [the] WWF introduced the first Elephant Flying Squad to Riau Province in central Sumatra, to a village near the newly established Tesso Nilo National Park.  It was a way to bring short-term relief to the intense conflict between people and elephants there and to create support for elephant conservation among hard-hit communities.  Because the region around Tesso Nilo is being logged so rapidly and the forest converted into agricultural plantations, elephants with no place to go are forced to wander in search of food, making farms and commercial plantations an irresistible temptation for elephant-sized appetites."

The mission of the Elephant Flying Squad -- consisting of 11 mahouts and seven trained elephants (four adults, two youngsters and a one-month old baby) -- is to "drive wild elephants back into the forest whenever they threaten to

enter villages.  It has proven to be very effective in reducing losses suffered by local communities near Tesso Nilo" as well as successfully reduced the number of wild elephants killed by angry farmers or scared villagers.

Perched high on the backs of the giant pachyderms, and holding tight to a bare rope that wrapped around the elephants' bodies, Mike and I were fortunate enough to accompany the squad on a typical patrol through the Sumatran rainforest.  It was a magnificent experience to trudge through the jungle on the back of these majestic creatures and document how the Elephant Flying Squad helps preserve the wild elephant population in Riau.

At the end of the assignment -- after my cameras were put away and while Mike wrapped-up his video interviews -- I sat with the 11 mahouts and their leader outside their small cabin in Tesso Nilo.  As we joked and laughed I pulled out my iPhone (which, amazingly, nobody seemed to have ever seen before) and, using the LomoLomo app, started to shoot a few portraits of the Elephant Flying Squad members.  It was a hit, and before long everyone wanted their photos taken.  This is the series we made.

See more of my iPhoneography elsewhere on my blog or on Flickr.

In June of last year, I shot an advertising campaign in Shanghai for Bonsey Design Partnership and their client Karma Life Yoga.

The campaign's launch advertisements were introduced last September as part of the yoga education and fitness centre's sixth anniversary.  Since then, Karma Life Yoga has rolled out more visuals, two of which are shown here.

The idea for the campaign was "Your sanctuary in the heart of frenetic Shanghai", while the visual execution of the concept was inspired by the "Wonderland" mixed media series that I produced in 2009 in collaboration with young Singaporean visual artist, Allison Low.

All the yoga models were Karma Life Yoga instructors, which I photographed in a studio over one day.

I then made the outdoor street images over two more days at a variety of iconic locations around Shanghai.

Karma Life's talented in-house designer and art director, Trasson Doon, then brought the two collections of photographs together into the campaign you see here.

See more of my advertising photography portfolio here.

From dusk 'till dawn, I've spent the past week traipsing around Singapore shooting dozens of locations and personalities for two separate editorial feature commissions.  My photographic briefs are pretty standard for luxury lifestyle and travel publications: shoot a collection of stylish and sophisticated hotels, eateries and bars as well as the people who run them.

It is always a pleasure for me to work on these types of assignments, but especially when they're in my own backyard.  I enjoy exploring and experiencing places in Singapore that I've never been before, and I love meeting the people behind them: chefs, sommeliers, managers, artists, designers and architects.

As always, my iPhone is in my pocket throughout all these shoots.  And I love to pull it out and shoot with it alongside my "real" 35mm DSLR cameras whenever I see anything interesting or inspiring.

My latest iPhoneographic obsession is Instagram, the popular iPhone app that allows users to add interesting retro-inspired filters to photographs and then share the pictures on Instagram's own social network, as well as on other social websites like Twitter, Facebook and Flickr.

I like the way the square format of Instagram forces me to compose images differently than when using my Nikons and their standard 3:2 aspect ratios.  I love the variety of filters and how they can transform the mood of my photographs.  And I really enjoy the simplicity and ease of the Instagram photo feed and how I can see the images my friends around the world are making on their iPhones.

These 20 photographs were all made in Singapore this past week using Instagram.  See more of my iPhoneography elsewhere on my blog or on Flickr.

To supplement an editorial commission that I'll be photographing next week, I spent the better part of this afternoon trolling my archives for relevant, recent Singapore stock imagery.

For me, this process of combing through my hard drives of old images involves looking beyond just the photographs that I selected or "flagged" during my initial edit.  Instead, I take the time to look holistically at the entire shoot and all my raw captures, regardless of how mundane they might be.  It might seem like a waste of time to some people, but I enjoy it because it allows me an opportunity to see my work with fresh eyes, showing me how my own photographic style has changed over time.  I also love it for the one or two images that I always seem to stumble upon that make me wonder why I didn't do anything with them the first time around.

I consider myself more of a "people photographer" than a "landscape photographer".  But this panorama -- made a couple of years ago from high in a Housing Development Board (HBD) flat looking out across a sea of apartments in Singapore's Ang Mo Kio neighbourhood whilst shooting a feature for the UK edition of GQ Magazine -- is one of those photographs that I "found" today.

I am struck by how small everything appears below, but even more by the homogeneity in the picture; it makes me feel like I am looking out across a Singapore Legoland.

Last month I was commissioned by Silkwinds, SilkAir's inflight magazine, to shoot behind-the-scenes photography at Resorts World Sentosa's Voyage de la Vie theatrical circus.

It was a great brief and I thoroughly enjoyed going behind the curtain to visually document the cast and crew as they prepared for an evening performance.  I was able to tour the belly of the theatre at Resorts World Sentosa, which was custom-built for Voyage de la Vie, and get exclusive backstage peaks inside the hair and make-up studios and dressing rooms as the actors, dancers, singers, stylists and stage managers hustled to get ready for the show.

In full costume, and just moments before the performers were to appear on stage, I had a brief window of opportunity to make some portraits of a handful of the production's lead characters.  I found a small corner of a dressing room where a piece of black cloth hung and set-up a quick and dirty portrait studio, consisting of a single softbox main light (powered by my Hensel 1,200w porty kit) and a Nikon SB-800 speedlight (synched off-camera) for fill light.  These are the results.

A series of black & white photo reportage that I captured backstage during the show's preparations will appear in the March/April 2010 issue of Silkwinds.

See more of my portraiture and fashion photography here.

The past few weeks have been filled with commissioned editorial assignments and commercial advertising shoots, which is great for business, but has left me little time for personal creative photography.

Earlier this week, while on-set at the studio, there were a few moments of downtime as the crew and I waited for the stylist to finish prepping the model.  I was mindlessly fiddling with my iPhone and took a few shots of my illuminated laptop keyboard.

This gave me an (admittedly peculiar) idea, as well as posed a small challenge for me: could I construct the URL to my website www.scottawoodward.com entirely from iPhone photographs of random letters that I encountered in the course of my day?  Silly, I know.  But it was fun.

Well, it took me longer than one day; it took me three, actually (there are a lot of "W's" in there).  I didn't know what to do with it when I finished, so here is the fruit of my labour: my "iPhoneographic URL Ransom Letter".

For anyone who's interested, I tried to shoot each letter using a different iPhone app (although I lost track and don't think I actually succeeded).  Counted among the shots above are Hipstamatic, OldPhotoPRO, ClassicTOY, MoreLomo, Phototreats, BlendCam, Gorillacam, Polarize, Format126, LENSES, Vint B&W, Retro Camera, ShakeItPhoto and HDR Fusion.

Toward the end of last year, I photographed nearly a dozen portraits for Meritus Hotels & Resorts, a hotel chain with six properties spread across Singapore, Malaysia and China.

The portraits, shot in my studio, were of the Meritus Ambassadors wearing their iconic red cheongsams.  The photography brief was to capture "Asian grace, warmth and hospitality" for a series of advertising initiatives by Meritus in the year ahead.

The first of these initiatives rolled-out a couple of weeks ago with the printing and distribution of the Meritus Hotels & Resorts 2011 calendar.  My copy of the calendar arrived this week; here are a few of it's pages.

See more of my advertising photography portfolio here.

I spent a week over New Year's in Chiang Mai, Thailand, a city of 160,000 residents about 700km north of the nation's capital, Bangkok.  Chiang Mai is a laid back city full of colourful temples, quaint cafés, fantastic restaurants, used bookshops and roadside markets.  It was my third visit to Chiang Mai in the past seven or eight years, and I enjoyed it tremendously.

Having visited Chiang Mai before, I didn't feel compelled to lug my heavy 35mm DSLR camera and lenses everywhere I went, opting just to carry my iPhone in my pocket instead. One of the highlights of the visit was meeting a family from The Hague, Netherlands who were staying at our hotel.  Their two sons, Maarten and Sebastian, accompanied us to the Thapae Boxing Stadium for an evening of Thailand's very own Singha beer and Muay Thai.

I spent a good part of the evening wandering the stadium and shooting the action with the Hipstamatic app for my iPhone; this is a collection of some of my favourite photography from the night. Perhaps I should call this my "ChiangMaiPhoneography" series.

See more of my iPhoneography elsewhere on my blog or on Flickr.

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.

Happy New Year from Adobe and me.

Here's to a happy, healthy and photo-filled 2011, indeed.

Via Photoshop.com.