Elaine Cheah. An internet idol. As a student in a quiet state north of Kuala lumpur, her reputation for being cute, beautiful, sexy didn’t take long to go viral. She found herself having over 400k fans in facebook and her new instagram account went over 20k. As an internet idol, she has a lot of offers from businesses and new ventures for advertisement posts for her huge base of fans.
Reputation comes with its price though. As her chosen photographer and friend, i personally witnesses how some random strangers would try to “get her” with baits of contracts and career. One such instance was just in April, 2015, after our shoot in Bangsar Village Shopping Centre a guy claiming to be of some management position gave us his card and took our numbers. He then personally msg just Elaine for “private invites” to some event which happened to have only “1” ticket availability and the promise of meeting prominent people.
Elaine rejected that event simply because she wasn’t free, the event turned out to be just some lineup launching of a bag brand in a public mall where anyone can just see. He followed up with msgs like “hook up for coffee” which is highly inappropriate usage of words. One can only wonder if its ignorance of english words used by new generation today is the reason for such construct or just another subtle way to reveal his purpose.
I met Nicole thru another friend from Kampar, Perak. This is the same place where Elaine study. Nicole is a tall, girl that occasionally model for her varsity. For asians 170cm is considered tall. Reminded me of Janice which i met in 2013 which is at 173cm and today is an active freelancer in decent catwalks and ushering, a friend that i often miss and yet happy for her new found success.
Now back to Nicole. She was just finishing her studies so her request for a photoshoot was greeted without resistance on my part since she would be in KL.
It was 1st January 2015, a public holiday where people go out and celebrate but we decided to shoot the whole day with 3 different makeover and location. I enjoyed myself much that day with all the laughs and awkward situations of her learning to pose for the camera. We met up with Danny for a cafe shootout and did a nightshoot outside a prominent KL shopping mall, Pavilion.
You can find her albums in this blog on January 2015.
Nicole has a more laid back attitude about her images and often taking up stronger moral stand on daily issues. One could easily see how happy and proud she is on her boyfriend, a handsome young man that is at least 180 cm. Looking at their images that they have done for the varsity and bridal houses in Kampar, i often joked about how they don’t need to get photoshoot on their actual wedding day. She has a dimple on her right side of her face, which made some images unique and that extra punch in character.
Stephy is another internet idol here in Malaysia with over 100k fans in Facebook, but an equivalent amount in Instagram. Instagram seems to be a much better platform for advertisement and Stephy found herself courted with many offers for advertisement. At a young age of only 19 now, i recalled my first photoshoot with her when she was just 15. It was one of the most challenging shoot i ever did simply because of the mounted pressure i had on myself for the quality of images to be delivered…and i was just starting out myself in photography back then.
Stephy Yiwen is a very friendly and comfortable person to be around with during photoshoot, she gave clear indication of her objectives what are some of the images she likes or don’t like and i often found myself forgetting that i was shooting someone with a huge fan count. She could play guitar by learning it from youtube and is currently taking up japanese language classes as her additional language. In Malaysia, most people know at least 3 languages, so adding japanese would mean knowing 4 languages.
Do pay their facebook a visit to know more about them or for advertisement opportunities. Keywords: Elaine Cheah, Stephy Yiwen.
M changing lives with images. 