Grace Tan

Grace Tan In Family + Children Portraits, Portraits

A day at the park: Family Portraits of Clement & Yoke Lin

I first met Clement at one of the Bloom Workshops I had conducted in the past. He is an avid photographer himself, and like many parents who love photography, are often not in the photos themselves! He told me that every 2 years, they will do a professional photo shoot with their family. I think it’s a great idea to capture moments with the children as they grow through the years. The other thing that is special too is that his relationship with his wife started when they were just teenagers since they got to know each other when they were 15.

Here are some of my favourite moments from our 1 hour shoot together recently.

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Grace Tan In Outdoor Weddings, Weddings

Garden Wedding at Saujana: Si Howe & Joanne

20141220_WEDDING_SIHOWE_JOANNE_322 I must say, Si Howe and Joanne’s description of each other beats anything I have ever read before!

Si Howe:
Si Howe is loud, Joanne is quiet.
We are both from Ipoh. Yeay!
Si Howe loves to eat, Joanne eats mainly to survive. She is learning to enjoy a larger variety of food.
Joanne loves sleepy weekends spent in the house.
Joanne shops for therapy.
Both father’s are known as KH. So KH’s son married KH’s daughter.
Si Howe always the youngest suddenly has 3 younger siblings (in law).
Joanne always the eldest suddenly has 2 older siblings and one niece. (in law).

Joanne:

Si Howe is gregarious and loves being at the centre of attention. Joanne likes watching by the sidelines.
Si Howe enjoys watching sports on TV and Joanne like reality TV shows (erm.. like the Kardashians. Hehe)
Si Howe has good motor skills and loves competitive sports. Joanne has very bad hand eye coordination and cannot play a sport to save her life. Hence, she does yoga.
Si Howe observes the details. Joanne is a daydreamer and gets lost in her own thoughts…
Si Howe loves cars! Joanne just needs a working air con and a radio.
Si Howe is a tech geek and has a 3G watch, Bluetooth headset, Microsoft surface, etc. Joanne has never downloaded an MP3 in her life. (though Si Howe claims that he is not ENTIRELY a tech geek – he does listen to LP’s on a record player!)

20141220_WEDDING_SIHOWE_JOANNE_002 You might have seen Si Howe and Joanne’s Ipoh wedding photos before, so here’s the promised blog post about their other wedding ceremony – the garden exchange of vows at Saujana. This time, the event was photographed by Nigel and Ben. It was very much an emotional ceremony for all. Continue Reading

Grace Tan In Musings, News, Running a Business

GST Information please!

For the past few weeks, there has been a flurry of activity… businesses sorting out their accounts, repricing services or goods, consumers mass purchasing groceries… all because of the GST that will be implemented by the Malaysian government this 1st April. I must say, I too was caught up in this whole hype (or dread, to some!)… I bought some new dining chairs for my home, after procrastinating for years!

What is GST?

As explained on the official Malaysian GST website…GST (Goods & Services Tax), which is also known as VAT or the value added tax in many countries is a multi-stage consumption tax on goods and services.

In Malaysia, we are now charged 6% GST on top of the services rendered or goods purchased. To put things into perspective, there are many countries all over the world who have been charging GST for years. Let’s see… Singapore (7%), Australia (10%), Indonesia (10%), UK (20%!!!).
Source: http://www.vatlive.com/vat-rates/international-vat-and-gst-rates/

How does GST affect my booking with Stories?

The mother company that runs Stories, Integricity Visuals Sdn Bhd is a GST registered company. If you are interested to find out GST information about our company, please click here.

So, to keep it simple, if you make a booking with us at Stories, you will be charged GST if:
1. You are residing in Malaysia, and the shoot is done within Malaysia or overseas.
2. You are residing overseas, but the shoot is done within Malaysia.

GST will not be charged to you if:
1. You are residing overseas, and the shoot is done overseas.

Hope that clarifies! As a note, we did not raise the price for any of our services. We look forward to having a good year with you!

Angpow

Grace Tan In Casual Portraits, Life, Musings, Portraits, Studio

Dignity for Children’s Visit

Last week, we had 12 very special visitors to the Stories studio. It was an unusual day for us as we never had a group of teenagers visit us in this manner before. These teenagers were chatty, fun, cheeky and ambitious. You wouldn’t have thought that they came from underprivileged backgrounds or hold a refugee status here in Malaysia.

But thank God for amazing individuals who have volunteered their time and energy in order to give back to society. And especially so for the people behind Dignity for Children, a one stop community learning centre for the urban poor and underprivileged children. Their vision is to empower these children to break the cycle of poverty through quality education, which leads to a positive life transformation.

We were pleased to share our journey as photographers / videographers and to encourage these students to see that this is a viable career path. It was a good exposure for most of them and they even got to have their portraits photographed by our team! It was really worth it to see their smiles knowing that we made a small impact in their lives, even if it was only for 2 hours. We really pray for the best for these kids, and hope that they will lead successful lives as they make carve their path into adulthood.

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Grace Tan In Chinese Weddings, Weddings

Chinese Ancestral Home Ipoh Wedding: Si Howe & Joanne

Some time back, I photographed some portraits of Joanne for her 30th birthday and it was on that shoot that I met Si Howe. He struck me as a really fun loving, supportive guy who was ever willing to give Joanne a hoist to entertain her ideas of climbing trees for pictures. As we got to know each other more later, it struck me that they were two opposite personalities totally in love with each other. Si Howe, an obvious extrovert, was telling me all about his Ipoh wedding at his family courtyard home (where EVERYONE in their family holds a wedding!) and enticing Nigel and I with stories about giant Tanjung Tualang prawns served during the luncheon.

Needless to say, we were definitely looking forward to this wedding!

We were really smitten with the wonderful classic family home that we had the privilege of shooting in. Since Si Howe’s family was a large one, the tea ceremony took quite a while, serving approximately 180 people! One of the biggest challenges we had was doing a huge family photo that could accommodate everyone. At the entrance of the home (image below), it was hot in the midday sun, so to get everyone to stand / sit there even for 15 minutes would be really challenging. But the worst thing is that everyone would be squinting as they had to look towards the direction of the sun. So we moved everyone to the back of the house instead for the photos. Though it was very warm still, at least people weren’t squinting as much!

20141213_WEDDING_SIHOWE_JOANNE_0743 I love this marital bed that symbolises their union. Si Howe told me how he and another cousin had to painstakingly take the bed apart from another cousin’s home and transport it to this place. And then he had to put it together again, pretty much like a jigsaw puzzle. If you look carefully, you will see his yellow sticker notes on the bed frame which we ‘conveniently’ left in the shot. Tells a story!

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