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Grace Tan
In Life, Musings, Relationships

The Day After

The past 2 days have been a little stressful and tiring for me. Doing 2 wedding shoots back to back is something that I don’t do often, but when I do, my whole body aches like it has been through an entire marathon. Plus the emotional stress of doing my first ever official royalty group photo (which had its set of protocol and challenges); I think I need today to recuperate.

After a long day of shoot, I just want to spend the day doing nothing much but just chill with my hubby. In fact, he’s making me breakfast right now as I type this. :) Aaah… now what would make it even better if I had a pool like this in my backyard…

Happy Sunday everyone! Hope it’s a restful one for you!

Grace Tan
In For Photographers, Life, Musings, Running a Business

Stolen: Our photography images

UPDATED AS OF: 17 May 2011, 1:05am

They say that copying is the best form of flattery. But not in this case.

Thanks to one of our Stories’ readers (Cecilia Loh), I discovered today that a fair bit of our work has been copied by another photographer in Indonesia and claimed as his/her own. Our watermarks were removed, replaced with this photographer’s logo, and fake blog posts were written about the shoot experience… The amazing thing is that it’s not just one image, but a whole series of images from multiple clients of ours.

I am a little sad to see things like this happening. It has happened to other photographers I know, but I never thought the day would come when it would happen to me. Enraged? Violated? Of course, but at the end of the day, how am I do react to such a situation? What do I do to bring justice?

It’s interesting to see how many photographers have banded together to help support me and make it known that plagiarism has happened. While I am somewhat thankful, I would also like to hear what Yuda Photography has to say first. Everyone makes mistakes, and the key is to learn from them. I’m sure this serves as a shock to them, knowing they can be found out.

Should they reply to my email and apologise, I am more than willing to forgive, as life is too short to hold grudges. I always recall the words from the bible that say…

You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.

Matthew 5:43-47 (The Message)

I have yet to hear a response from Yuda, but rather, I see their blog posts and Facebook pages disappearing quickly, as if it is more important to cover their tracks first, before responding to me. To all our clients who are affected, I am truly sorry this had to happen. I am taking measures to make sure this is rectified.

I feel sorry for the clients that have booked this photographer, with the assumption that these images are theirs. I wonder what kind of images they got in the end. Here are just some of the screenshots I’ve saved based on the plagiarism.

All of these thumbnails below are our images.

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Alex Lam
In Life, Musings

Recounting Istanbul: a land of culture & smiles

A mere 8 weeks ago, Grace and I were stepping off a plane in Istanbul, throughly amazed by the architecture and people. We were there on assignment for a shoot with Edwin & Dawn, a lovely Malaysian couple with a passion for Turkey.

Over the 2 week period we were there, I documented faces, activities and locations, then stitched the footage together into a video. Here’s my mini-documentary from the first week’s footage (perhaps I’ll do another edit, if time permits).

Grace Tan
In Life, Musings, Relationships

My return to Brisbane

It’s been 11 years since I graduated and left Australia. Brisbane holds many fond memories for me… 3 years is a considerable amount of time to spend in a country. Today, I landed in Coolangatta airport and traveled by train to Brisbane city. Proudly, I showed Alex where one place relates to another, where my university was, and related stories about how I used to travel around by bus and car, and even driving to Sydney and back from Brisbane in my old 1985 Honda Civic. Yup, my friends and I made it without the car breaking down.

Seeing my old room in my uncle’s home where I used to stay for 3 years made me a little sentimental. It’s funny, I think I recognize the 3 plastic gerberas that are sitting in a vase in that room. I am sure those were the flowers I left behind 11 years ago. Gerberas were my favourite flower then.

After our first meal in Australia (dim sum at a Chinese restaurant, haha!), we went to visit Jeta Gardens, a retirement and aged care resort that is based on eastern values and philosophies. My uncle sits on the board of directors and ever since we heard about it, we knew we wanted to visit the place.

In Malaysia, if you talk about going to a retirement home, there is a stigma involved. Most people would feel guilty about ‘abandoning’ their parents at an old folks home. No one wants to be left behind at a place where they sit, stare at the 4 walls and await their ‘time’. At Jeta Gardens, there is a completely different mindset. People who come here are at various stages of their life. They see this place as a resort, a place where their needs can be met, a place to socialize and make new friends, and to be independent. Some of the elderly who live here are really able-bodied. They can drive, are fit and full of life. Then there are those that need 24 hour care.

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Grace Tan
In Life, Musings, Relationships

My sis and I

It’s quite a rare thing that I appear in magazines. Especially not when I am featured at ages 9, 11, 15 and 31. Some time back, I was contacted by a writer from Her World, asking my sis and I whether we’d be interested in a feature on sisters. We said yes… and this April issue, the article is out! Can you spot which childhood photos are mine on the first page?

Actually, I wish the article gave a more balanced perspective, since they interviewed both my sister and I. But it was written from one perspective only. Well, at least the photo of us together is nice! Secretly, I wish that features like these would highlight my skills as a photographer, not as a sister! Narcissistic? Of course not! *grin*

PS: I know the paper above is wrinkled! My father was a little enthusiastic when he saw the photo of my sis and I.

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