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Grace Tan
In Musings, Tips + Ideas

Canvas Clusters

Canvas-13I believe canvases are a great way to brighten up a home – especially if it is filled with lovely images of your family. At Stories, we have designed canvas clusters for our clients through the years. All you need to do is to tell us the dimensions of your wall in inches and we will design it for you, free of charge. Here are some tips on how to plan for a beautiful canvas wall at your home:

  1. Find a wall that is a feature in your home – meaning, the wall should be in a prominent location that is eye-catching. This could be above the couch in your living room or next to your dining table.
  2. Avoid having too much clutter at the bottom of your feature wall. If the wall is next to a cabinet that is filled with children’s toys, your eyes will be drawn to the clutter and not the images.
  3. Install spotlights that direct your attention towards the images on the wall. This is especially good for night events!
  4. When choosing images to include on the wall, think about some form of continuity – for example, are all the images taken in a nice outdoor environment but one is not? Do the images complement or distract each other? Is there a theme to the images selected? Do also include a series of candid and posed shots for best effect.
  5. Communicate with your designer if you prefer to have designs that are neat (for example, all canvases fit into a perfect square) or if you prefer a more organic design that doesn’t have to align perfectly with each other.

Canvas-10What do you think of the sample walls at our office?

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

Reminiscing: Portraits in Kelantan

A year ago, the Stories team headed to a small village in Kelantan to photograph portraits for the families affected by the devastating 2014 flood. We were just so blessed to be able to meet these families and to replace precious family photos that were lost in the flood. We braved the Hari Raya jam and drove up north, to a place we had never visited before and ate Raya kuih with families who welcomed us with open arms. Have a look at the behind the scenes video that describes more about what took place over the few days we were there. It was a one of a kind experience for all of us. Wishing a great time of family bonding for everyone celebrating Raya!

20150718_Kelantan_Hari_Raya-01 20150718_Kelantan_Hari_Raya-02 20150718_Kelantan_Hari_Raya-03 Continue Reading

Grace Tan
In Musings, Parties & Events, Portraits, Tips + Ideas

Ways to personalise your wedding bands

I recently had the pleasure of visiting Rings and Bands, a concept store based in the elite neighbourhood of Valencia. Li Dong, the owner of this exclusive wedding ring fine jewellery store, shared some of her experience in the jewellery business. The rings were just exquisite – you could choose from rings made of platinum or gold, or even rhodium. You can also custom design your own rings at the store, overlooking golfers on the lawn next door.

ringsnbandsPhoto courtesy of Rings and Bands

I was also excited to hear about some interesting ways you can personalise your wedding bands, other than just engraving your name. You can sign your promise, inscribe your love story, write a personal note on the surface of the rings… and wait for this… even put your fingerprint on it!

What a great idea! Not only is it totally unique, you can even use it as a security feature if your wedding band ever got stolen! Just compare fingerprints and you’re done. :) Obviously, the band is not really able to fit your entire fingerprint, but just a small portion of it.

I was also invited to give a short talk to some of the residents at Valencia about the art of people photography. It was nice to be able to collaborate in such a manner. Do visit their concept store or check out their website to see their collection of finest engagement rings and wedding bands.

20160626-RINGSNBANDS_TALK-04 20160626-RINGSNBANDS_TALK-05 Continue Reading

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

Happy 4th Father’s Day

This morning, I woke up in bed, 73km away from home at a town called Port Dickson, body still sore from last night’s wedding shoot. I thought of my kids at home, being cared for by my Indonesian helper the night before as my husband is away in New Zealand, setting up the Integricity NZ office. I drove home, packed my kids to church single handedly and was reminded about how much Alex is missed this Father’s day.

I cannot imagine life as a working single parent, and I take my hats off to those moms who had to fill the role of a mother and father to their kids because of various circumstances, or vice versa. Having a father figure is so important to every child. I am so glad that Alex is the kind of man who takes time to do simple things with our children, whether it is baking a cake, painting some eggshells, reading books to my son so that he can potty train him at the same time or carrying them on his shoulders when they are tired.

He is the kind of man who would gladly step up and help a friend in need, one who is generous and a person who truly cares. I hope our children will catch these traits from their dad as they grow up. We miss you, dad this Father’s day. Come home soon.

20150404_KRYSTA_KYLE_313Baking a cake

20150405_KRYSTA_KYLE_345Creating a mural on the wall for Krysta’s room

Alex_swimming-kids220151229-FAMILYHOLIDAY_AVILION-74Enjoying father-son time in Port Dickson

20160507-HOLIDAY_JAPAN-066Planning the Kyoto itinerary with Kyle

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

Reflections: Photography as a Lifestyle and Business

It’s 2am and I lie awake in bed, one of those nights where my thoughts lead me to my work, life and my general state of happiness as a person. It’s been 10 years since I started this journey as a photographer, and in these past 10 years, I’ve explored many areas of photography – from travel to documentary, posed portraits vs candid photography, learnt about studio and natural light, thought about diversifying my work to get various sources of income, and then thought about finding my niche so that I can get the type of clients that I really like.. Lately, I’ve been thinking about how to grow my team, spending more time with my family yet running this business that I love and thinking about my retirement plan when my body is too weak to shoot.

These past 10 years, I’ve also felt insecurities as a photographer – not knowing if I am on the right path, feeling envy when others are successful, worried about how to move forward in this business.

How I wish there was a blueprint in running a successful photography business.

Many of the lessons I learnt while running this business was built on trial and error. I have swayed to the left and to the right over the years, and now, I think it’s time to go back to the start.

What drew me to photography in the first place?

I just love capturing life. 

People intrigue me. Everyone is so different and yet, the human emotions of love, joy or sadness connect us. I love photographing human connections – that moment when a child looks trustingly at his mother, when the father of the bride cries as his little daughter is finally getting married, that laughter shared between life-long friends.

This thought comes through again and again – keep doing what you love and you’ll excel in it. But it also takes a lot of work. On days when I am not shooting, I am trying to learn something new – reading about ways to improve my business, looking at Pinterest to find new inspiration, signing up for workshops  and trying out different genres of photography just to upskill myself.

So 10 years on, I am still learning and doing what I love. It’s what keeps me going.

GT1_916120160501 - Steamboat Makan-21

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