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Grace Tan
In Family + Children Portraits, Life, Musings, Portraits, Relationships

My heart overflows

When they laugh, I laugh with them. When they are sick, my heart goes out to them. How can one human love another so much? I guess God had to show the extent of His love for us through little children… I never fully understood it until I became a mother. Just the past one week, my kids have been really ill. It breaks my heart to see them suffer, yet I am so humoured when I experience little scenarios like these…

At 3am, when my daughter has high fever, she can still consume her orange Paracetamol, give a thumbs up and say…”NICE!”

When my son cries his heart out because he doesn’t want to take his medicine, his sister cheers him on by saying “You can DO IT, you can DO IT!”

They are so funny. While my children mean the world to me, it is my aim to be balanced in all my relationships.

I choose not to neglect my husband since it is so easy to do so after the children come. I remind myself that he needs to be shown love too, so I need to make an intentional effort to fill his emotional tank.

I choose to maintain my friendships with other people… friends who were very close in the past (before we had kids). If I end up living in my own island (where the world revolves around my family) and lose all other friendships, then I only have myself to blame.

I choose to care for my extended family and be grateful for all the things they have done for my family.

My heart is full.

20150925_FAMILY_PORTRAITS_ALEX_GRACE_013Thank you Jamie for these wonderful photos. Love how you have immortalised so many moments for our family.

20150925_FAMILY_PORTRAITS_ALEX_GRACE_020 20150925_FAMILY_PORTRAITS_ALEX_GRACE_021 Continue Reading

Grace Tan
In For Photographers, International, Life, Musings, Wedding Films & Videos, Weddings

Two Middle-Eastern Weddings

libyan-wedding01Traditional Libyan wedding outfit

A few months ago, I was approached to photograph two very interesting weddings. Both were Middle Eastern weddings and required an all-female photography and videography team here in Kuala Lumpur. Since I love a challenge (despite not speaking Arabic) and have always been fascinated with Middle Eastern culture (I’ve read lots of biographies especially of women living in this region), I decided it would be wonderful if I could photograph these weddings! Somehow, I gained favour in the eyes of the couples, and my team was engaged to cover their events.

The first couple was from Yemen. They were originally meant to be wed in their home country, but because of the civil war that is still ongoing, they had to move their wedding to Malaysia. Up to one week before the wedding, they weren’t sure if their family could come for the wedding as the Yemen airport was closed due to unrest. Thankfully, the couple had already left Yemen by then, and were sure that at least they would be there to attend their own wedding! This couple have known each other for a few months before getting married.

yemeni-wedding03The second couple was from Libya. I really had a tough time communicating in English for this wedding but thankfully, even though I couldn’t understand their verbal language, I understood universal body language! I found out that this couple have only known each other for 2 months and that the groom worked with the bride’s father.

One common theme during the two weddings were the separation of gender during the parties. I knew that it would happen, but I never understood how it would unfold on the wedding day. Interestingly, both cultures had different standings on how strict they were on allowing men to view them unveiled. I am not sure if it was specific to these families, or it was a cultural thing. The Yemeni family I photographed was particularly strict about this, so there were two grand entrances (one with the bride only to a roomful of unveiled women), and then the bride and groom to the same room of women who covered themselves again before the groom entered the room. There was a lot of cheering, clapping and singing as the couple made their entrance. Many of the women who were at the Yemeni party specifically told us not to photograph or film them, so it felt a little strange for me to mainly focus on the couple during the wedding. Naturally, I had to respect their wishes but it was not possible to completely ignore all guests! (one lady specifically made me delete her photo from my camera when she saw that I had photographed her). I found it challenging knowing who I could photograph and who I couldn’t.

However, at the Libyan wedding, the guests kept on asking for photos (repeatedly and in many different poses)! It was quite entertaining, really! Continue Reading

Grace Tan
In For Photographers, Life, Musings

To Diet with Photoshop or Not, that is the question…

whattheduck-photoshop

This issue has come up every now and then in our conversations with clients. It usually goes like this…

“My arms are huge. I want to hide it… or maybe you can Photoshop it smaller after our shoot…”
“Can you make my face look less round with Photoshop?”
“I don’t like my tummy. It’s very easy to Photoshop, right?”

(Random info: By the way, Photoshop shouldn’t be used as a verb, meaning, all those ways of describing Photoshop at the top is not the correct usage of the word. Read more here)

So, back to our conversation. While I understand that not everyone loves EVERY part of themselves equally (hey, I have a tummy too, after two kids!) and hope their photographer is a magician, I think editing an image too much in Photoshop is a distortion of reality. We would much rather use the right choice of angles & lenses, lighting and cropping to make you appear slimmer, rather than relying on Photoshop to solve all these ‘problems’. Naturally, in an event like a wedding where everything moves so quickly, it’s not possible to make sure every angle is a ‘perfect’ one for you. (By the way, we did have a request once by a bride to only shoot her from the right side during the entire wedding. Uhm… not possible!?)

We usually edit our images to enhance the colour and contrast, and when we create an album, we work on making skin a bit more flawless (but not plastic fake). So if a request such as the above comes to us, we will work on it for the album or print, but it will be done minimally and realistically. We really do not believe in creating a false representation of someone through editing.

After all, what kind of satisfaction would it get if you looked at your photos and saw ‘perfection’ but when you look in the mirror, you feel sad and upset?

BOUDOIRInterestingly, I wrote this post some time ago but hesitated to share it, until I read another photographer’s post that came out recently about a similar topic. Victoria Caroline who photographs boudoirs wrote in her Facebook post:

“Hi Victoria,
I am (blank)’s husband, ********. I am writing to you because I recently received an album containing images you took of my wife. I don’t want you to think that I am in any way upset with you….but I have some food for thought that I would like to pass on to you. I have been with my wife since we were 18 years old, and we have two beautiful children together. We have had many ups and downs over the years, and I think…well, actually I KNOW that my wife did these pictures for me to “spice things up”. She sometimes complains that I must not find her attractive, that she wouldn’t blame me if I ever found someone younger. When I opened the album that she gave to me, my heart sank. These pictures…while they are beautiful and you are clearly a very talented photographer….they are not my wife. You made every one of her “flaws” disappear…and while I’m sure this is exactly what she asked you to do, it took away everything that makes up our life. When you took away her stretch marks, you took away the documentation of my children. When you took away her wrinkles, you took away over two decades of our laughter, and our worries. When you took away her cellulite, you took away her love of baking and all the goodies we have eaten over the years. I am not telling you all of this to make you feel horrible, you’re just doing your job and I get that. I am actually writing you to thank you. Seeing these images made me realize that I honestly do not tell my wife enough how much I LOVE her and adore her just as she is. She hears it so seldom, that she actually thought these photoshopped images are what I wanted and needed her to look like. I have to do better, and for the rest of my days I am going to celebrate her in all her imperfectness. Thanks for the reminder.

Regards”

It was a real reminder to her about altering the reality of life through her images.

I believe everyone is beautiful, and confidence comes from how you carry yourself in front of the camera. Practice looking at yourself in the mirror daily, and reminding yourself of the traits that make you a beautiful person on the inside. Even if you started with hesitation, I guarantee, over time, your face will naturally glow from this confidence.

And then, trust your photographer to create the best possible portrait of you, that is true to yourself.

Grace Tan
In Life, Musings, Relationships, Running a Business

Monday Blues

There are days when you just get home from work, and all you want to do is continue working because the tasks never end. And yet you feel tired and a split second later, tell yourself, that work can wait till tomorrow. It feels like an almost vicious cycle…. even if this whole entrepreneurship journey started as a passion because you love your job. It has been a little like that lately… I even notice myself looking a little more grumpy in the mirror with more wrinkles.

Strangely enough, I come alive when it’s time to photograph a family or a couple. Adrenaline kicks in and I am in my ‘zone’… all energetic once again. Perhaps it’s the curse of the artistic entrepreneur – you get excited doing all these creative work, but the daily routine ‘business’ tasks bog you down. I feel stressed and worry about a lot of things. I feel sorry for my staff who sometimes sees a really serious, grouchy and stressed personality at the office! (Love you all, keep being your cheerful selves!).

Guess it’s not easy writing something like this, being authentic to yourself and others. But in order to be true to my soul, I have to be honest about everything. So this is my way of speaking to myself and saying, that maybe, I just need to look up and lighten up a bit.

I must say that coming home to two small smiley (one very drooly) beings makes me really really happy. Their hugs makes the world a lot better again. So tonight, the hubby and I decided to bring them out for a weekday ice-cream treat (ok, only one can truly enjoy that, since the other is too young to eat ice-cream). Simple pleasures in life of just being in the moment.

And since every post is better with photos, here’s a few images that we took from a day out with the kids at the local fire station visit last week.

20150815_IBU_FIRE_STATION_VISIT_10 20150815_IBU_FIRE_STATION_VISIT_50 20150815_IBU_FIRE_STATION_VISIT_54

 

Diane
In Family + Children Portraits, Life, Musings, Portraits, Studio

Family Portraits: Rayson, Yee See & Lisa

I blew the candles on the cake of my 28th birthday last 10th June, and commemorated 4 years working in Stories on 14th June. As I took some time off on my birthday week to contemplate on the intricacies of life- my experiences and journey thus far, needless to say, I can’t help feeling overwhelmed with gratefulness. Having grown these past 4 years photographing weddings and then family portraits, I see our clients move on with life as well- from their wedding day to having a child. Truly, time passes by really quickly, even more so in this fast-paced life where everything is somewhat instant. If we don’t stop and savour the moments, it’ll all be gone.

Rayson & Yee See‘s family has grown, with Lisa as their latest addition. Here’s Lisa’s first few wobbly steps, which I have had the honour to photograph.

20150131_Family_Portraits_Rayson_YeeSee_Lisa_074It is moments like these I live to capture as a photographer. Seriously.

20150131_Family_Portraits_Rayson_YeeSee_Lisa_059 Continue Reading