It’s a Monday morning, but it’s worth celebrating cuz …..

… it’s Family Day in Alberta!!

Yes Wilma: it’s an honest to goodness holiday here in good ol Alberta Canada    GO CANADA!!

In celebration, I’ll be chilling offline with the Cheung-Boyz today thanks to a great reminder from an amazing friend:

“Love fiercely and fearlessly and let those you love know now and not tomorrow.”

~ Joy Chan

You can read more on Joy’s journey and how she and Vince lives her advice out loud here.

Also a quick reminder that we’re broadcasting our first-ever free Webinar tomorrow at noon!  Due to greater demand than expected, we’ve upgraded our license to allow more people to attend.  If you couldn’t sign up cuz the webinar class said it was full, you can  try again to get your geek on with a great group of peeps and me.

Here’s to loving fiercely and fearlessly from this Family Day onwards ….

The news continues to come in and quake-ravaged Haiti needs our help.  I’m not skilled as a doctor or rescue specialist, but if you’re like me, you’re wanting to make a difference.

Next Wednesday, join us for fwforum’s Mentor Marathon for Haiti. Give to Haiti and spend time online with some amazing photographers:

7 am – 10 am : Sergio + Critsey Rowe
10 am – NOON : DQ Studios
NOON – 2 pm : David Murray
2 pm – 4 pm : Tyler Wirken
4 pm – 6pm : Ben Chrisman + Anna Kuperberg
6 pm – 8 pm : JVS
8 pm – 10 pm : Brooks Whittington

100% of proceeds go to your choice of charity, and you’ll be able to request critique or ask any questions of the photographers above.

If you’re wanting a critique of your work during our allotted time, just comment below and we’ll connect to get things moving. First come first serve.

Special thanks to Huy for creating the community that is fwforum and for spearheading this a community-driven effort.

Details and info on getting codes for the online webinar can be found here.

See you Wednesday!

Sawatdee from Thailand!!!

Chuay-duay-chan-jom-num: “Help! I’m drowning”, a phrase to keep in mind for our adventure to Phi-Phi Islands (pronounced “Pee-Pee”, you can guess what kind of jokes my boys came up with).

Early morning we popped some gravol and hopped on a speedboat to our first island stop.

Feeding the fish…

They look all cute and innocent until they get into a feeding frenzy!

Floating around at Monkey Island.

Wonder why they call this Camel Island…. hm?

Found this critter while having lunch. All of a sudden wished I hadn’t left my flip-flops on the boat!

Our last stop was Maya Bay where they filmed the movie “The Beach”. It’s one of those places you can honestly call heavenly with pure fine white sand beach anchored by enormous tree-lined cliffs and surrounded by crystal-clear blue water. What could possibly go wrong in heaven?

On our boat ride home, one of the engines broke. Nothing like being stuck in the middle of the ocean in paradise!

Stay posted for more updates from Thailand. Goodnight for now!

]]> http://blog.quikeys.com/speedboats-fish-and-island-hopping/feed/ 0 http://blog.quikeys.com/jettin-it-across-the-world/ http://blog.quikeys.com/jettin-it-across-the-world/#comments Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:51:31 +0000 Quin http://blog.quikeys.com/?p=402

As of right now, we’re hopping on a jet plane to travel 12,056 Km across the world to Thailand, Malaysia and Bali. It’s an exciting trip for many reasons, the obvious one being we’re going to take as many incredible images as our little fingers can possibly take. Another reason close to my heart is to bring my family to my country of birth, Malaysia. It has been over 15 years since I’ve been back and I’m excited to share the culture, people, and especially the FOOD with those closest to me. )

We’ll try to blog as much as possible throughout the trip, so please enjoy the journey with us.

See you on the other side!

Photoshop Geek’s like me are most probably fellow fans of Photoshop User TV.  Color me happy to be asked by Dave Cross, the Canadian Photoshop Guru of the Universe, to “Finish the Sentence …” on his blog!

You can checkout our feature and learn a LOT more about Photoshop on his blog here.

From one DC to another, Thank you!

What a week!!  Still catching up from the crazy last-minute trip to New York and still missing our good friend, Jason Groupp.

Thanks to all those who came out to his Manhattan studio for the QuiKeys demo night!  With standing-room only, it was great to see so many old friends, surprise visits from across the continent, and friendly new faces   Already glad to know several of you as new twitter buddies  and facebook friends too!

It was great to get a chance to go back to the city we fell in love with last fall, and to bring the Cheungitos with us!  The food … ambiance … food … friends (yo Ken!!) …  food … shopping and great food were as amazing as we had remembered.  Did I mention the food?

But one of the highlights of this trip was definitely being shot by Jason on our very own “I Heart New York” Family Session!  He graciously took time out of his busy schedule and created awesome images for us …

Even though we’re photographers, we so seldom have great family pictures of ALL of us together. The joy of seeing us all together in these pictures is overwhelming, and I HIGHLY recommend all of you to have professional images taken of your ENTIRE family.  Better yet: fly out to NY for your very own IHNY family session with Jason

Thanks again “Uncle” Jason!!  We’ll truly cherish them forever

hugs …. dq + the Cheungitos

It’s been a bit crazy around here keeping up with QuiKeys orders and updates, but it was great to be able to take some time to hang with our boyz.

We spent Easter Weekend being tourists in our own city and scoping out new shoot locations. Fun!

Nikon D700, 35mm (f2), 720ISO, f8, 1/3200

Nice to take some time to fly kites

Panasonic LX3, 80ISO, f8, 1/1300

Panasonic LX3, 80ISO, f5, 1/400

Had some requests to post the shoot data on the images, so I’ll try to accommodate … when I remember

All images were processed on my Macbook Pro in Adobe Lightroom … with QuiKeys of course Also used a teeny-tiny 2×3″ off-brand tablet which I’m testing for potential retouching on planes and travels.

For QuiKeys PC users: we haven’t forgotten you! We’re continuing to work on the PC update and will be posting news soon.

Hope y’all find time to live life with the ones you love …..

Happy Thursday!

d (for q too)

If you already follow me on twitter, you already know of my adventurous travels to Boston. Four planes, four hours spent sitting on planes sitting on tarmacs, runs through airports to *just* make connecting flights, and chocolate bar suppers …. I’m glad to be going home for more than a few reasons

That being said, I’m going to miss Boston! From the amazing day spent with Kate and Mike, to the great live music with wonderful photographers at the Beehive, it was filled with good food and great people

Here’s some random images from Boston and PSW made with my trusty Panny LX-3 …

Our favorite breakfast digs: Trident Booksellers & Cafe. Who would guess a bookstore could served such a tasty all-day breakfast?

Being a former musician and all-round music-lover, it was awesome to see the many Berklee buildings dotted all around us.

Got to crash the Wacom Intuos 4 party and ran into Adobe Evangelist Russell Brown.

No: the dreads aren’t real. Yes: he bears an uncanny resemblance to our very own MikeD ….

Loved walking the streets of Boston. Such an eclectic mix of old and new with gorgeous historic churches embedded within the urban terrain.

Special thanks to the Hoodman gang who were great neighbors at the PSW tradeshow. Love their cool LCD loupe which totally helps when reviewing outdoor flash images.

I want to truly thank so many great great friends who took time out of their lives to hang and help me out. Special shout out to Melissa and Rene. Rene: it gave me so much joy to have you threaten my life not once, but TWICE in the same night! I haven’t felt that special in a loooong time Thank you guys for being you … you’re such great friends So glad to be able to bug and stalk you on twitter now too (heh heh)

It was great to see great old friends Robert Mirani and Bill Holland!

Here’s a self-portrait made at the Wacom party:

Bill: nice to be carded with you and thanks especially for not leaving your laptop bomb in the restaurant

And super-duper special props to my buddy MikeD. What can I say that I haven’t already? It was awesome exploring the streets of Boston, sharing meals and talking late into the night about world domination and life …. Thanks Mikey …. you’re a rock star … in your own mind LOL!

Best part about traveling? Going home to my Babe and boyz …..

THANK YOU BOSTON!!

First indulgence: finding some good cappucino. I admit it: I researched Boston to find a good shot, and was sooo happy to find Espresso Royale Caffe was only 2 blocks from our hotel.

I mistakenly ordered a double-shot espresso, but really wanted a cappuccino, but the guy pulling my shot was so nice, he gave me both!! Double-fisting java? Why not

After getting my fix, we had the pleasure of walking the streets of Boston. Below are some pics from my trusty Panasonic LX-3.

We had the pleasure of meeting up for supper with Rene & Melissa. Great photographers and even greater friends

Goodnight y’all

It was an easy 1-plane trip to London with gorgeous skies … at least from above

It was cool to run into Ben Chrisman upon arriving who just arrived as well. We’d never met before, but felt like old friends from the start

I wonder if that camera ever leaves his face …

Jason was kind enough to come out to greet us with Ross at the airport after only arriving a few hours before us himself.

Too bad we weren’t staying HERE

And so began a day of trains, walking, more trains and more walking adventures around London.

From the looks of it, Ben had a camera surgically implanted to his face at an early age.

Got lost a bunch of time, but it was fun finding this quintessentially English pub to hang in.

This pretty much sums up how we all felt after no sleep and a day out in London.

Had a lot of fun taking our new Panny LX-3 point & shoot out on the streets of London. All shots in this post were taken with it in RAW, and processed in LR … with QuiKeys of course

Looking forward to the start of FloShops tomorrow!