travels | Karen Woo Fashion Videographer

The St Giles Hotel 360 Gear Campaign in Kuala Lumpur

July 26, 2016Karen Woo Leave a Comment

This week I jetsetted to Kuala Lumpur to be a part of the St Giles Hotels, Be Central Campaign for The Gardens – A St Giles Signature Hotel & Residences. I took my dear friend and colleague, Dee from AdaptTrend, to enjoy and document our journey via the very innovative Samsung Gear 360.

The Gear 360 is a 360-degree camera equipped with dual fish-eye lenses, both featuring 15 megapixel image sensors. So basically, what this means is that it will capture everything. Yes everything! Our double chins and probably even Pokemon *jokes*. We even got footage of another tourist running over my foot with his luggage. How’s that for being caught on camera.

The device attracted a lot of attention wherever we went. We marched through our hotel, streets and markets, proudly holding the Gear 360 like it was our Olympic torch. Locals and tourists alike stared with amusement at this futuristic looking alien. Many stopped us to discuss the device!

It paired easily with Dee’s Samsung Note 5 via the Gear 360 app. We snapped and it synced, a seamless process allowing us to then use the app and manipulate the pics to create interesting, quirky, and nothing-of-the-kind images. It was a fun little Virtual Reality Cam which made capturing tall buildings like the Petronas Tower easy. It had photos, video, video-looping and time lapse functionality.

If you get a chance, you should check it out. We had a blast and will keep you posted after all the campaign footage is released!

Thank you Synthia Kek from the The Gardens – A St Giles Signature Hotel & Residences for having us.

Stay tuned for my next post about my experience at the Hotel and places we explored around KL xxx

words // DEE DARWICHE
images // KAREN WOO

Finding rest in Penang

July 11, 2016Karen Woo Leave a Comment

“He that can take rest is greater than he that can take cities.” —Benjamin Franklin

I wasn’t expecting to go overseas with my family this holiday season, but Alan whisked me and JJ away for a week of family fun and soaking in the warm golden sun. We had a few destinations in mind: Hamilton Islands, Bangkok Thailand or Hong Kong, but we decided to go back to Penang, Malaysia; to the place we first had our overseas trip together when we started dating.

Our little family flew with Qantas and Jetstar Asia, and we checked into the Shangri-La’s Rasa Sayang Resort & Spa (Batu Feringgi Beach, 11100 Penang, Malaysia) for a 6 nights stay. Besides devouring bowls of Assam Laksa, sipping endless supplies of Mocktails and Teh Tarik, I spent a majority of my time braving the humidity and 37 degree heat exploring George Town. This little town was perfect in every way – a photographers and art lovers haven to say the least. There were plentiful of hidden gems to discover such as 3D interactive street art, textured walls, piles of ruins, and odd combination of coloured buildings which eventually grew on you. We were really lucky to come at a time of Hari Haya (Malaysian New Year) because the streets were quite deserted which made walking around town a breeze.

Here are some of our most favourite places spotted around George Town. Pictures of me taken by my love, Alan Woo, and the rest are from yours truly x

black jumpsuit // ALICE MCCALL purchased from Very Special Kids Sale
red dress // ZARA
rose gold sandals // BARED FOOTWEAR
clutch // OLGABERG

My Travel Feature with Mercedes-Benz to the Great Ocean Road

February 18, 2016Karen Woo Leave a Comment

It’s been go go go since the new year, that I haven’t had time to let down my hair or even share about my recent work and travels to the Apollo Bay with Mercedes-Benz. I recently went on a road trip with my dear friend Tiffany Newman (This Within) to the Great Ocean Road. I was actually quite surprised to even hear that Mercedes-Benz wanted to feature me, because I didn’t find anything special about myself other than, maybe my crazy pink hair. It all seemed surreal that I remembered calling Berlin to check if this enquiry was legit! Well that’s because they were asking me to cruise with my friend to the Great Ocean Road for 2 days with people whom I didn’t know.

Anyway, as it really turns out it was an adventure of a lifetime. Not only was it incredible to work with Mercedes-Benz, I was able to share this special experience with my good friend, Tiffany as I know she loves to travel and is up for any get away and basking in the sun.

I was the designated driver and I had to drive at precision speeds, between 80-100kms per hour. I cruised through the windy roads, often starting and stopping a few dozen times so we were steer clear of cars. Sometimes parallel driving, crossing over, driving bumper to bumper then repeat to make sure we got all the camera angles needed to make a good film feature. It was so much fun working with Arabella Bartsch and Toby (the duo film crew representing Fischer Appelt) that by the end of the trip, we all became awesome friends!

So here’s my film feature!

Here are behind the scene pics…(all taken on Iphone6)