So, what is this no preference thing? Can we live in this goal driven world filled with demands without preference? How can you make a decision or even get things done with no preferences? The concept of no preference does not mean to do nothing; it actually requires us to be more in tune with our own thoughts and emotions, to be more aware of the presence.

We have to make many decisions in our life daily, obviously we have preference; making a left or a right turn can get you to the right place or away from it. The preference we talk about are the emotional ones; the ones that shape our beliefs and our character – it’s our absolute. It’s the way things should be or life should be. Since we are individuals with different backgrounds, we have different belief systems. So which one is the right system

That’s when we get into trouble because we prefer our own system of beliefs or thinking. And when our system becomes the absolute system, the rest of the world is wrong. It’s ego. Let go and step back. The world does not have to be wrong for you to be right. Shakespeare once wrote, “There’s no right or wrong, but thinking makes it so.”Now what does this have to do with photography? Well, are you a human being? Then there are situations we have no control of. I can give you a few from my own wedding experience. Here’s a partial list:

1. It rains on the wedding day.
2. The sun is blasting on the wedding day.
3. The priest comes over and curses you out right before the ceremony.
4. The eager friends of the bride and groom push you aside or get right in front of you just as the bride is coming down the isle.
5. The caterer refuses to serve you water or food at the reception after you have already been working for 8 hours.
6. Your car broke down on the highway.
7. You have a tooth ache the size of Manhattan on the wedding day.
8. The bride is late for two hours because the hair dresser is trying to fix one strand of hair from her forehead.

You get the idea. Things happen outside of our control and challenge our belief system. On a wedding day when I am photographing one of the most important days of a bride and a groom’s life I try to use the concept of no preference for things outside of my control. For me there is no absolute how someone should act towards me or how the weather should be. My only absolute is that I am entrusted with the mission to document one of the most important days of two people’s life and I will do that with no preference to what’s outside of my control.

It has helped me relaxed and keeps me focus on my most important goal of the day without aggravation. Our expectation of how people, things, or situations should be stops us from seeing things the way they are, and we miss the opportunity of capturing the most natural and candid moment. Photographing children are the best training for our ego. If we try to control the situation and force our will on children, the photos will come out unnatural. Only when we let go of our ego and let things flow then the images come out beautifully.

By practicing the no preference attitude, I am also getting a better sleep at night in the increasingly loud neighborhood of Lower East Side.

I am only human and I lose my cool once in a while, but it’s easy for me to forgive myself. I just use the no preference technique to forgive myself. Right, I wish it is that easy, but if we do not expect people or things to fit our rules we will be more relaxed and able to capture images naturally.

-the Storyteller

After all the major details of your wedding have been set, ordered, hired and fitted, the focus now turns to the details of the ceremony and reception and especially music. Music is an important factor, because it will help set the mood and tone of the ceremony and reception.

Finding the right first dance song may be a difficult task for some brides and grooms to be. When we decided to have music on our website we had to face the same difficulties.

I tackled the task as if I was planning for my own wedding. I wanted it to reflect my style as well as my culture. We ended up with a mix of pop, jazz and classical; with songs in English, French and Mandarin.

My favorite song so far is “In Love With You” a duet by Jacky Cheung Hok-Yau and Regine Velasque. It is a pop song in English sung by two very well known Asian singers; Jacky Cheung is a Hong Kong singer and is one of the Four Heavenly Kings of Cantopop and Regine Velasquez is a Filipino singer and actress.

The final broadcast email announcing the new website was sent out yesterday. We have been overwhelmed by your email responses and praises.

We apologize if we are taking longer than usual to respond to your inquiries.

We know how some of you do not like to receive “spam” mail, therefore we’ll limit our mass emails and use theBlog to post our future announcements, therefore you should visit theBlog for news, updates and contests where you can win a free portrait session.

Thank you for all your feedback and continuing support.

Finally!  After almost six months of hard work Willi’s new and improved website is live today.

It’s BIGGER and BETTER.  You will no longer need a magnifying glass to see all the photographs.

There’s a juke box that you can turn on & off.  You can even adjust the volume and skip a song.   Instead of reading all about it from here, why don’t you just go there now and see for yourself.  http://www.williwongphotography.com/

We would like to thank our family and friends for all their support, suggestions and patience.  Hope it is up to your expectations.  And please don’t be shy to let us know how we can improve it further.

This is will be an ongoing project.  We will continue to improve the website, so be sure to visit frequently to catch all of our changes.

LivingAction [at] yahoo [dot] com - - - I would think Willi would’ve used WilliWongPhotography@yahoo.com or WilliWong@yahoo.com or something to that extent as his email address. Nowadays, emails are the preferred way of communication and the wrong email address can be costly.

I was surprised when his email address was made known to me. Before meeting Willi and before I knew about theknot.com; it was impossible to do any research on him. Who would’ve thought he would use the German spelling of Willi - - - without the “E” and an “I” instead of a “Y”.

Before becoming Willi’s assistant, I was an assistant to a videographers. When friends asked me about Willi Wong, I had to remain silent. Sure I had heard of him, but I have yet to meet him. I couldn’t even Google him. Was he even a photographer?

At first I was too embarrassed to ask Willi about his email address. How does it relate to WilliWongPhotography.com? Then one day during an engagement session it hit me. His pictures are not two dimensional or flat; with every picture he tries to capture not just the image, but also the action and emotions of his subjects. Thus, his pictures represent action on print and nothing like your ordinary still life. It was in that instant that it become clear to me why Willi uses LivingAction [at] yahoo [dot] com. How appropriate!

Willi have received numerous emails and phone calls when WilliWongPortraits.com went live. Thank you for all of your support and feed-backs.

Some of you have asked if it is possible to turn the music off and enjoy the photographs in silence. Yes, it can be easily done. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.

To turn off the music: Click on the “Record” (see picture below)

It has been almost 2 months since his last blog. What’s keeping Willi from blogging?

On the top of the list is his new Modern Lifestyle Weddings website. Willi has heard and will finally take action. Hopefully, by the end of this month the updated website will go live.

Willi is also busy with the launch of his new albums. He’s sure working hard to get the beautiful samples ready to show you.

And last but not least are the weddings and portrait sessions. All this happening over the holiday season may be a little overwhelming, especially with Chinese New Year just a few days away, but he has promised to do his best be on schedule.

The wisest thing he did was delegating theBlog duties to me. Let me now briefly introduce myself: My name is Yim and this is my third season as Willi’s assistant. I’m sure you’ll get to know me more with each new Blog post.

The content of theBlog is still to be determined, but it will be photography related and connected with WilliWongPortraits.com and WilliWongPhotography.com.  Since this is a pro bono service, I made sure that I have full editorial privileges and will do my best to keep theBlog updated on a regular basis. 

Please free feel to contribute to theBlog and help me expand the services and viewer ship of theBlog.

Regards,

Yim, the Assistant