First Things First
July 21st, 2010 by Aziel Azhar | 1 Comment

It has been quite a while, again. Ola, all our beloved readers. I have not been able to share new posts on a number of assignments that we have carried out for the past few months, simply because I think being me, I need to be in super-calm mode in order to accompany the photos with write-ups that can really make the readers feel like they were actually there when the events happened. If I were to just share photos and skip the writing part, I could just do that using our web galleries or Flickr, that should be enough. To me, blogging about these photos is not merely blogging, it’s about sharing the whole experience through writing and that requires me to be in a very, very, calm state of mind. Bukanlah maknanya I have not been able to rest for the past few months at all, but I’d rather say I prefer to put first things first.
So long as we completely deliver our service to the client as scheduled, the blog post can follow later as it’s not part of the deal and merely a way of sharing our experience with our readers. Nevertheless, all are welcomed to view the web galleries that we have prepared for them, at least you will get to see the photos and enjoy them while listening to the accompanying tracks. For that matter, here’s a few web galleries that you can check out if you would like to :
Apart from that, what have we been up to lately? Yes, we have just started an ‘online store’. Kecil-kecilan je. We are selling designed camera straps at BELAJAR KAMERA and currently there are still a few stocks left, while some has already started making pre-orders for out-of-stock models. Go check it out before it’s too late, coz the pre-order period will end by July 27th, 2010, that’s not too far away from now. Why do we start selling camera straps? I gotta tell you, if only I couldn’t be bothered by extra attention received while shooting due to the fancy-ness of the camera strap, I could use one for my camera when I’m working. Instead , I use this fancy strap with my 2 other cameras, which I do not use for work purpose. I would love to share a photo of those 2 cameras with my choice of straps, but currently I don’t think I should get up from this chair to get a few snaps because I must, must, must finish this post as fast as I could.
What’s the hurry? Well, we’re in the midst of adding new contents to the website now. And I can tell you, there’s a lot of works to be done apart from our daily works - replying to RFQs (request for quotations, if you’re wondering), handling customers purchases (camera straps), meeting clients, planning/prepping for upcoming shoots,….err what else, Facebooking? :p. We only started on last Sunday, and expecting to complete everything by Friday so that we can have Saturday all to ourself and focus on another assignment on the coming Sunday. We know we’re gonna be tied up with another batch of post-processing works henceforth, so this new content thingy has to be done by this week, by hook or by crook.
Recently, we’ve been receiving a lot of positive energy from Tess & Amir (if I may, you guys are like Godsent, and may Allah always bless the two of you with His love) and that’s just about when we thought we should do whatever it takes to sort of refresh our online presence within this very limited time. Well, we are not talking about changing the overall look of the site, it’s more about the tiny things that we used to take for granted despite the fact that it can make huge difference. While we are working at it, I thought I’d let all of you catch a glimpse at what we are actually doing. Nothing bizarre, though. But it’ll definitely make a difference fromwhat we currently have on the site. Note that the following screen captures are work-in-progress so you might find some of it barely completed/finished (and I purposely used small size, low-resolution images, don’t wanna spoil too much fun for now):

This section will replace the current ABOUT US section on the site (Owh, it’s written ‘Private’ on the title because the page is privately published for time being. Mind the phrase *Lorem ipsum sum sum tulang kalsum* that you could have easily notice from the tiny screen capture; I was trying to have fun at work :p ). The current About Us section will soon have 2 sub-sections: 1-The Photographers, 2-The Personal Affair. As CHERITA PICTURES™ is a very personal matter to both Fadhil and I, we decided that this section should be able to make people connect with us, personally. We want this section to tell you ‘what we are like’, instead of telling you what our style of photography is like, because obviously you would’ve ‘identify’ our style through the photos that we shared on the blog and the galleries. So let’s not waste time by telling you what you already know, and move on to what you don’t know and should know of the photographers before you decide on which one you should choose to work for you.We wont tell you what we promise to do for you if you hire us, instead we’ll let you judge us by telling you about our personality.
And then, The Personal Affair subsection will show you some ‘behind-the-scene’ shots. I’ll skip the screep-cap for this one coz I don’t want to spoil the surprise :p .

Next is the SERVICES section. As the person who is always seeing the website from the back-end most of the time, I admit that we have totally neglected this section for sooooooo long. Ever since the site started running 3 years ago, from the days when I barely know much about developing a website using a CMS (google that, will ya?), this section has been pretty much the same - static and definitely not informative at all. After considering some opinions given by one of our client, at first, we thought this was the only section that needed a ‘face-lift’ so badly, but as we started working on it, we knew immediately that a few other sections needed the same treatment as well. So, that’s how the sindrom-tak-cukup-tidur started for the last 3 days, but for the sake of CHERITA PICTURES™, I promised myself that we will have a great karaoke session this weekend to ‘celebrate’ the end of the sindrom-tak-cukup-tidur for now :p.

OK, moving on to the GALLERY section. Currently we listed out selected web gallery that we have done for our clients. Problem is, bukan semua klien ada web galeri! I know some might tend to judge that we hardly secure jobs/assignment based on the number of gallery that we listed. Truth is, when you always in the run of meeting deadline, what’s most important is you got all your list of things to deliver to the client checked, and then it’s temporarily ‘merdeka’ before another batch comes in. At least that happens to me all the time, and chances are, at the end of the day I totally forgot to update the list. Plus, we only showed selected web gallery on the list because those were the ones with the latest layout - previously we used boring, boring kind of gallery, with only pictures and nothing else. So if you are thinking “Laa, ni je klien yang dia ada?” Eeekkkk. Wrong. Sorry. Wahahh..bunyi macam sangat vain :p
Anyway, screen-cap above showing a new sub-section to the gallery section, which is named ‘Albums & Prints’. We received a lot of request to produce albums/books for photos that has been laying in drawers for quite some time ( I’ve done one for my dad as his birthday present few months ago, mostly gambar-gambar masa dia muda. I tell you, it’s awesome. Good photos really make comfortable cushion for old age, you know? Now you don’t know lah, later when it’s already too let, then you’ll know). Since most people prefer to save time doing their scouting online before finally meeting and discussing about their intention of buying a service, we decided that we should at least let you have a virtual experience of flipping through our sample of books/albums. Hence, the new sub-section as above. Yes, you can actually flip through the books, like the actual ones. So if you wanna know the difference between our storyboard album (also known as flush-mount album or compressed album) and coffee-table book, make sure you check out this section when it’s ready.

Hmmm…now how do I describe this section - PROMOTIONS ? Frankly speaking, after hundreds (perhaps thousands) of words above, I’m now out of words. As I’m writing this, my thoughts have slowly crawled into thinking about picking up where I have left my works. See? I hope now y’all understand why it’s hard for me to always update the blog section of this site- my mind wont just let me do it at ease (in denial :p ). Anyway, the above is showing the new structure of our Promotions page. Instead of showing you the past promotions that we had (we’ve once received a call asking about the discount voucher promotion that we had on this section. Little did the caller knows at that point, that the promotion ended a year before she called), we will only show you the promotions that we have on-going. Aaahh…How could I not see this before?

And last but not least, we changed our CONTACT US section. Screen-cap above showing the old version of our Contact Us section. What a waste of space, huh? Well, worry no more, we’ve toss it away. Check out our new CONTACT US section and quickly send us an inquiry from right within! Ok, you can check it out now lah, because I’m done here. Other sections that I mentioned earlier are still pending, so gotta get back to work now. Ciao!























