Meet Qiya Ng, the visionary founder of Kompactfaen, a wedding documentation company like no other. With a passion for storytelling and a keen eye for capturing the essence of love, Qiya embarked on a mission to redefine the way we perceive wedding photography and videography.
Armed with creativity, empathy, and a penchant for delving deeper into the emotional intricacies of relationships, Qiya and her team at Kompactfaen have been crafting unforgettable moments that transcend the traditional boundaries of wedding documentation.
Join us as we delve into Qiya’s journey, where every click of the camera and frame of the video tells a story of love, authenticity, and the beauty found in the unscripted moments of life’s most cherished celebrations…
What inspired you to found Kompactfaen, and how does its philosophy differ from traditional wedding documentation companies?
There’s a magic about low-key lighting, about the way it showcases details and highlights emotions. It is probably also the reason why we’ve been obsessed with the cinemas (films), and paintings in the Renaissance and Baroque period, where low-key lighting is often used and emulated. We were wondering why something like wedding documentation doesn’t adopt the use of low-key lighting.
Relationships are something so multifaceted, so complicated, with layers and layers of emotions to unveil. Somehow wedding documentation seems largely focused on just the one aspect of love with joy magnified. Nothing wrong with that as love is a wonderful thing and happiness does come from love, but it felt like something in the narrative of wedding documentation was missing.
We wanted to bridge this gap—making wedding documentation creative, non-conventional, raw, and real at the same time. This is where “delving deeper” came about. With the style of low-key lighting and its ability to represent layers of narratives, we wanted to dive deeper into the more complicated parts of a wedding and of a relationship.
Instead of having your wedding works just showcasing the happy, sometimes staged, part of the day, what if they could also represent the relief, the triumph feeling of being through obstacles before the wedding day, and the mixed feelings one actually feels through the day itself.
What if your wedding works could actually encapsulate your real thoughts and feelings at that time, serving as a time capsule in years to come when you need a reminder of what your choice and your relationship were all about?
What if wedding works are not just an immortalisation of a moment, but a portal to promote understanding in your relationship? With “delving deeper,” the wedding works will not just be a recap but an opened door into something deeper that couples can revisit and relive. Wedding works become timeless and way more personal in that sense—a couple’s thoughts and vibe contribute greatly to the wedding works instead of just standard “typical” wedding photos and videos.
Can you share a memorable moment from a wedding shoot that perfectly encapsulates Kompactfaen’s approach to capturing emotions and connections?
It’s difficult to pinpoint one moment as every couple is different and we genuinely do enjoy every shoot that we have. We love seeing people in love, we love documenting love and honesty. Couples that come to us usually want to dig deeper into their marriages, into their relationships, and their weddings.
So, every shoot gives us different insights into different relationships, and we learn so much from all the couples we’ve shot. One of our personal favorites is the first wedding we shot in Hong Kong. It was held in the high school where the couple first met.
Friends and families flew in from different parts of the world for a reunion, for the celebration of the couple. The day wasn’t packed with events after events, but instead, lots of time for friends and families to mingle, to have conversations, to talk about and with the couple, and to simply be present to bask in the love for the pair. Instead of putting thoughts into how the wedding should look, the bride took note to ensure that everything at the wedding meant something to them; jotter books, flowers they love, name tags, old school photobooths etc.
Even the emcee of the wedding was their receptionist back when they were still in high school. During the wedding reception, speeches were given by many of their friends and families to talk about the struggles they overcame and how everyone loves them as a team. Performances were done not by vendors, but by their friends and families.
With a setup that’s simple but so organic and intimate, there were many tears shed and laughter shared that night. Everyone was comfortable enough to showcase their emotions abundantly and poured out their love to the couple. It was truly a celebration of love from deep within, and we felt like we got to know about years of the couple over the span of a few hours.
It was truly delving deeper into how love is not just about two persons, but the people around them. How love is not just good moments, but struggles, support, and triumphs.
How do you ensure that your team maintains sensitivity and empathy while documenting such intimate moments during weddings?
We have two lovely ladies working with us for years, and it’s been such a wonderful journey with them. Before starting to shoot for us officially, we had many chats with the team on the ethos of the company—we’d never want to interrupt or repeat any moments just because we didn’t capture it.
As much as possible, we’d educate ourselves on the proceedings of the wedding, understand the rationale behind every event plan through meeting with the couple, understanding their emotions and objectives of the wedding, and take it upon ourselves to anticipate the moments to come.
Couples should be focusing on each other, on their guests, and on celebrating their love during their big day, not on voices of the photographer and videographer. Being aligned in this manner within the team and with our clients, it helps us observe more, document more, and be more attentive to the littlest moments. We maintain sensitivity and empathy in this manner.
What role do darker and moodier tones play in your visual storytelling, and how do they enhance the portrayal of emotions in your work?
We can always use light to draw focus to a particular scene within a photo. This gives us a little more creative freedom in trying to highlight emotions and/or details we want people to focus on. Darker and moodier photos leave room for imagination. The use of neutral colors also adds elegance and sets the unspoken mood without overwhelming the audience. Interestingly, we’re hence more reflective when looking at darker and moodier images.
When a scene is slightly darker, we can have a peek at how a couple looks and how they are emoting but it’s not exactly shown directly in your face. This leaves room for interpretation, for us to understand an image via our understanding of the world, and that allows us to connect with the images a little more.
Could you walk us through your creative process when conceptualising and executing a wedding shoot?
It often starts with meeting the client. We’ll try to understand their story, observe their interactions, figure out and expand on their objectives for the pre-wedding and/or wedding shoot. With that, we’d roughly have a visualization of how they’d be during a shoot and/or a wedding day, and we work around that. The process is very personal.
Even though the wedding works are consistent in terms of the shooting and editing style, the content (the photos and videos themselves) are not. We’ll never know what we’re going to get with each couple. This makes every set of wedding work unique—we combine our artistic style with the values of each couple. This hence makes the wedding works at Kompactfaen relatable and unique. Every couple is different and has a unique dynamic, no two persons move the same way.
We sometimes get new ideas and/or poses just simply photographing a couple in their most natural state. The creative process becomes a collaborative effort and we’re glad we’ve been meeting great couples who understand that ethos, and work closely with us to make their wedding ideals come true.
In what ways do you strive to make each wedding documentation sincere, personal, and unique to the couple?
As much as possible, unless we’re doing artistic shots purely for visual purposes, we try our best not to pose couples too much. The entire planning process (mentioned in the previous question) is hence really important. We need to be sensitive in understanding the couple, knowing their boundaries and being in tune with their objectives for the union.
Instead of directing the couple on what to do in a straightforward manner, we’d think of activities that can prompt the couple to interact. From there, capture their interactions, conversations, and chemistry. This way, the photos and videos mean so much more to them as well.
How do you balance capturing authentic moments with respecting the privacy of the couples you work with?
When we do feel like a private moment is needed, we do leave the couple alone after notifying them gently. It’s a constant struggle between the need to stay when a moment is really intimate so that we can capture everything, and letting them really own the moment that they’re having.
However, we realized that photos are nothing without having the experience of really being in that moment—that instance when a couple is alone and exchanging intimate thoughts is what makes the photos from the particular hour precious. After shooting weddings for 6 years, we’ve learned to balance our thoughts and stand in couples’ shoes through the day, feeling what they feel, hence knowing what they need; if it’s us being there, or us being away from them for a bit.
It’s about the sensitivity and being in sync with the couple’s thought processes. This is why we do a lot of inner work and prep work before each shoot—it is important to have our minds be clear, focused, and empathetic during a wedding shoot. It is also important to understand the couple’s objective for their wedding, and have the team be on the same page as that.
Can you share any challenges you’ve faced in conveying emotions through imagery, and how you’ve overcome them?
There are times when a couple isn’t as emotive and/or their love language for each other doesn’t compromise physical touch. It can get tough trying to capture their emotions for each other, or to capture interactions between them. We try to give them some space, and figure out a set of activities for them (based on their personalities) to be engaged in while we step away with the cameras so that they feel a little more at ease, and open up to each other a little bit more through the activities, before we slowly step back in with the cameras.
What advice would you give to couples looking to make their wedding documentation more genuine and meaningful?
Don’t overthink it. Be confident in yourself that you, your partner, and your relationship will have an interesting story to tell. Focus on that, and the celebration of that for your wedding, while you find a photographer and/or videographer who understands that. It’s your wedding for yourself, just once in this lifetime, so don’t focus on how it’d look on camera. Leave the job to us while you focus on yourself, and focus on enjoying the whole wedding process.
How do you incorporate storytelling techniques into your visual work to create a cohesive narrative of a couple’s special day?
As how a film has a plot, characters, setting, highlight and resolution, we try to replicate such elements in our wedding works. While taking photos and videos of the day, we always keep in mind these details that we need so that we don’t just shoot the day like any other event. Instead of just a recap, the wedding works instead piece together to form a narrative of the wedding day.
What trends do you foresee in wedding documentation in the coming years, and how is Kompactfaen adapting to these changes?
To be very honest, we don’t really look at trends that much as the way we document weddings are really personal and focused on the craft. It’s hard to create such intimate works if we were to follow trends so this is quite a difficult question to answer! We do notice more and more wedding photographers exploring low-key lighting so we’re super glad to see that! It’s something we really love.
Could you share an example of a project where you’ve pushed the boundaries of traditional wedding documentation to create something truly unique?
More often than not, wedding shoots are very constricted to the locations they’re being shot at. In a city as small as Singapore, everyone ends up going to the same places. However, we always believed that wedding photos and videos shouldn’t be location-based, but the focus should be on the couple themselves. Location does matter to a certain extent, but it’s not everything.
We hence did shoots in the void decks of public housing in Singapore, and unpopular opinion, we really love it. These are areas that the couple walk past every single day—so many conversations and things happened in that space. It may seem unassuming but, the results of shooting in a void deck always surprises us.
How do you approach client collaboration and ensure that their vision is accurately reflected in the final product?
We’d always have a chat either over coffee or a call to see if we can find a common ground in wedding documentation. It’s important that we’re able to chat, and have a conversation with one another so that it becomes a collaborative effort where the couple is the story while we tell it. We also try to understand their thought processes to see what their values and objectives are—this really helps us in accurately reflecting them in the final product.
What role do technology and digital media play in shaping the perception of wedding documentation, and how do you leverage them to enhance your work?
With the usage of social media, and short-form content, it’s definitely easier for us to reach out to the mass in showcasing our works, and our ethos in wedding documentation. It sometimes also gives us ideas on how we can better our storytelling skills.
Instead of just the old school storytelling techniques, which we still love very much and follow thoroughly, it’s good to explore new ways of representing a day (e.g. with an introduction with a hook) to see how we can better our wedding photos and wedding films.
Can you tell us about a particularly challenging or emotionally charged wedding shoot you’ve experienced, and how it impacted you and your team?
There really isn’t a shoot that was challenging per se. The thorough pre-planning gives us a good foundation to anticipate things on the day of, and to maneuver around any possible difficulties. Personally, I’m a very emotional person and I often tear up and/or cry when I see someone being emotional, whether I know them personally or not. It’s hard to keep still while shooting a video, or capturing a moment, while trying to wipe tears off my face.
It’s also slightly embarrassing as guests will see me being all emotional (as I’m standing up and they’re seated down) while trying to be professional and pull a straight face while working. However, this does help me in remembering the moments that I felt the most, and pull these images and/or footages out when I’m editing after the wedding.
How do you maintain authenticity and avoid clichés in your storytelling, especially in an industry saturated with traditional tropes?
Personally, I don’t really look at the works of others or Pinterest. Instead, I visit museums, watch a lot of films and try to draw inspiration from everything else that’s not related to photography and wedding.
What motivates you and your team to continue pushing the boundaries of wedding documentation despite the challenges you may face?
As creatives, it’s always satisfying to know that you’ve created something, and not copied something. Though the process of coming up with new things is difficult, and to be very fair, it takes time for people to accept and to get used to something that’s different.
The process is often tedious with a result that’s seemingly unsatisfying at first. Not everything we create is going to be popular during the first try either. But when you see a new work taking off, that satisfaction is really something we love. When couples come to us, telling how the works are still great after years of looking at them, sometimes even telling us how looking at their wedding works resolved certain problems in their marriage as they remembered a moment and/or a conversation during the shoot, it keeps us going because we know that the work we do matter, and is timeless.
How do you ensure diversity and inclusivity in your portrayal of weddings and couples in your work?
We don’t say no to anyone, unless what they’re looking for in wedding documentation is completely different from how we see and do wedding shoots. To us, love has no boundaries, love is genderless and love is simply, a choice of commitment.
Love is just love.
With this belief, we celebrate every couple as they are and we celebrate love with them. It is evident in the things we post and write on our website and our social media platforms. Couples come to us hoping to get their emotions immortalized and their stories told, we hence have shoots for couple of all kinds and we’re so blessed to have lived through so many love stories as their photographer and/or videographer.
Can you share any upcoming projects or collaborations that you’re particularly excited about?
We’re currently doing a brand refresh, after 6 years! This is to better communicate our ethos to new couples who’ve found us, and also to change the idea that couple shoots can only be done with the event of a wedding. We hope to better communicate the love lessons we’ve learned from each couple we shot, and spread more love to everyone around through our digital presence. We’re really excited about that!
Our readers love to travel, what destination is at the top of your bucket list?
It’s hard to name one country as there are just so many places to travel to. But I’d definitely love to visit the Middle Eastern countries, and even do shoots there if possible. I’m lucky enough to be pretty well traveled, but that’s a part of the world that I’ve not visited.
Where can people follow you and find out more?
They can find us via @kompactfaen on most social platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Also, you can view more of our works at http://www.kompactfaen.com/.
Finally, what do you hope couples take away from their experience with Kompactfaen, beyond just the photographs and videos?
We hope that they find out more about themselves and their relationship through the entire process with us, and always remember how their photos and videos are representation of their promise to each other in their own ways. For us, we always learn new life and love lessons from each of the couple we shoot, and from their friends and families whom we’d meet during the wedding day.
We bask so much in the best parts of humanity during our work and it’s something we truly value. Thus, “delving deeper” became the guiding light of the company—we want to explore more about love, and have couples understand each other’s’ thoughts better through doing shoots with us. We hope each couple end their shoots with us feeling more in love with one another than before the shoot.
As Qiya continues to push the boundaries of wedding documentation, her dedication to authenticity and meaningful storytelling remains unwavering and you can follow her via her personal Instagram too. Through Kompactfaen, she has not only captured countless love stories but has also touched the hearts of couples around the world, leaving a lasting impact that extends far beyond the lens.
If Qiya’s story has inspired you to seek out more tales of passion, creativity, and innovation, look no further than House of Coco. Explore our magazine to discover a treasure trove of inspiring stories from visionary individuals like Qiya, who are reshaping industries and leaving their mark on the world.
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