Musings

Diane In Family + Children Portraits, Musings, Portraits, Tips + Ideas

Family Portraits: Edwin, Priscilla, Joseph, Joy-Anne and Isabel

After having done some outdoor family portraits, I realised that it’s not hard to make a photo session enjoyable for the whole family. Here’s some tips to make your family photo session truly a pleasure:

Let us know of the timing when your child is at his/her best mood. That way we’ll be able to work around the baby’s timing. Some babies are happier in the morning after a good night’s rest, while some are better in the evenings.

Bring sufficient drinking water & snacks. Since our Malaysian weather is hot and humid, staying hydrated is crucial! A thirsty/hungry child (or adult, for that matter) can get whiny. ;)

Be on time for shoots. This is important for outdoor shoots especially as we don’t want to miss the best lighting during the day. The best time in terms of lighting are between 7.30 – 9.30am and 5 – 7pm. It tends to get warmer after 9.30am, which might mean a cranky kid! It’ll also be a shame to miss out on good lighting for your shoot!

Talk to us! Communicate the ideas that you might have for your shoot with us. Some parents might like to have a picnic, while others just want a casual day in the park. Share with us the list of props that you have.

With all the above, I present you… Edwin, Priscilla, Joseph, Joy-Anne and Isabel.

Grace Tan In For Photographers, Life, Musings

A Capoeira Experience: The Panasonic GH3 launch

Since our last Bloom Workshops with Panasonic as our main sponsor, we’ve been doing a few things together. I’ve conducted a portrait photography workshop for their Lumix users, and yesterday, I was involved in the launch of 5 of their latest Lumix cameras. Together with host Julie Woon and fellow photographer Szetoo Weiwen, we shared with the press our experience using their cameras, and for me specifically, it was the GH3. I had heard the GH series is great for videography, so I had to put it to the test. I contacted Johan one day, and asked him to arrange for a small capoeira outing. We had a blast that morning with Mia and San, who were awesome in front of the camera.

I shot the video mostly in full HD at 50p and did the slow motion in post production by tweaking the frame rate to 25 frames per second. It was shot on the Panasonic Lumix GH3 with only 2 lenses – the 7-14mm f4.0 and the new 35-100mm f2.8. I love the effect of the telephoto lens… very sharp with creamy bokeh (photographers would know what I mean!).

Julie was impressed when she found out that I shot this video while I was pregnant (I think I was into my 7th month then?), squatting on the ground etc…and all within 1.5 hours. My hope is that I’ll have an easy delivery, cause everyone tells me that you’ll have a good labour if you’ve been active through out your pregnancy! (fingers crossed)

Hope you’ll like the video (by the way, I was told that it’s never too late to learn capoeira! As for me, that’s one activity I think I’ll skip)

Music credits:

Song name : ‘Focas da Aguas’
Artist : Mestre Acordeon
Album : Capoeira Voices Vol.III

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

We’re Hiring!

We’re looking to expand our Stories family yet again! This time, we’re looking for a contract / full time videographer & editor to join our team. You do not need to have years and years of experience, but we do require someone who is familiar shooting with a Canon DSLR, has video editing skills on a mac platform, and a willing heart to learn. If you are able to create basic 2D animation using software like After Effects, that’s a plus point for us! You must obviously love the wedding industry and have a personable attitude.

Do send your resume and portfolio to me at grace.tan[at]stories.my stating why you’d be a great contribution to the team. We look forward to hearing from you!

Just because every post looks better with an image, I’ll put this one up – of our 2 fun-loving photographers, Johan and Weiming! Yup, we’re multi-talented people! (and no, you don’t need to know how to do a handstand before you can join us!)

Diane In For Photographers, Musings, Tips + Ideas

Composing Your Photos Like a Pro!

I don’t know about you, but I have a love-hate relationship with camera-gear talk. As much as I love gathering information about lenses and camera bodies, I also detest the thought that my gear is not good enough, even after spending a whole lot of money. It makes me and my bank account very sad. :(

While good camera gear helps add magic to photos, it only represents half the challenge (I mean, you don’t see us bringing little point-and-shoot cameras to our clients’ events!). Having an idea on how to compose a good image is key to a great shot, no matter the gear.

Since the year-end holidays are near and you will probably be traveling, I will show you some basic composition rules to help make your holiday shots better!

1. Rule of thirds

No, we’re not playing tic tac toe. :P

You’ve probably seen this grid in your smart-phone cameras. This is one of the most useful feature that you can have as it helps you align your horizon.

The other use for this is as a guide to place your subject at the points of interest, which are the points where the lines cross. Our eyes are drawn to these points, creating a pleasing photo.

Grace Tan In Musings, Relationships, Running a Business, Tips + Ideas

How to keep your photographers happy (& ultimately give you better photos)

How many times do you walk into a restaurant and think… “How can I make life better for this waiter?” If most of us are honest, we rarely, if ever think about those thoughts. We expect to be served, to be treated well, and when things don’t go the way we expect, we rant and complain. It is probably true for a lot of people working in the service industry… hotels, hospitals, tour operators…

And even photographers.

When I first started working in this industry, I knew that it was the little things that differentiated a good service from a great one. The client and their needs are always top on my mind, and I made sure to communicate that to our entire team… from our communications to the photographers on the shoot, and up till delivery stage. Someone told me once, that if you show genuine care to your clients, they know it. It has always been our principle to make sure our clients get the best experience from us. So it does sadden us sometimes when we get the occasional client who doesn’t treat us the same way.

I do admit, most of our clients are amazing. They are thoughtful, kind, generous… even when there’s a million other things to think about on their wedding day. It makes us feel so appreciated. To know that we’re not just another ‘vendor’, but that we’re treated as friends. Ultimately, we just want to do even better and more for these clients!

* The Stories team at work (left to right, top to bottom): Johan, Diane, Ben, Weiming, Felicia and Mark

Here are some simple ways that can keep your photographers happy throughout the wedding day:

1. Do remember to feed us – Being on our feet for 10 hours on your wedding day, carrying kgs of equipment is not an easy task. Most Malaysians are really hospitable and make sure that we are well fed during lunch and dinner. We do not expect to be seated at the table with your guests since we’ll be moving around a lot during dinner anyway. It’s always best to just order a vendor’s meal like fried rice or a burger from the hotel for the team. Sometimes though, there were days when all we got for dinner were soggy McDonald’s that were bought hours ago, or a pack of egg tarts for dinner. A hungry photographer can sometimes turn a little grumpy. Sometimes.

2. Please prepare a room at the hotel for us – This is relevant if you require a same day slideshow to be created by us. Our base is in Petaling Jaya, so sometimes it may not be feasible for us to travel 30 minutes from your home in Klang to PJ, work tirelessly without a break to create a slideshow and then drive another 30 minutes to a hotel in KL, all within 4 hours. Photographers hardly get any rest. It would make our life a lot easier if we didn’t have to spend so much time traveling, but can go to a dedicated hotel room just for the team to work, take a nap if necessary, and have a shower to freshen up.

This room should not be shared with other guests because it’s really difficult to work comfortably when we have people looking over our shoulder, expecting to see images or wanting to talk to us when we really have a deadline to meet. Sometimes, we are given function rooms to use, but that is not really ideal. Most of these rooms do not have shower facilities, nor proper seats to rest comfortably. I find it sad when a client or wedding planner expects us to shower in the public toilet at the hotel, or not freshen up at all prior to dinner. Even sadder when we are placed in a store room somewhere to prepare the same day slideshow (thank God this only happened once).

3. Do give us sufficient time for portraits – We know time is precious on your wedding day, but we want to do the best for you too. Do allocate at least 30-45 minutes sometime during the day for a portrait session for the both of you. We know that sometimes, this eats into your mingling time with guests, but we feel that it’s important to make time for it. Please be patient with us if it seems like the portrait sessions take a while, or overruns in terms of time.

4. Do tell us how you feel at the end of the day – We love to hear feedback! If you are happy with our service throughout the day, do let us know before we say goodbye. Those little words like thank you goes a loooong way! 10 hours (and sometimes more!) of exhaustion is worthwhile knowing that our clients appreciate our work and attentiveness.

*Mother hen – Grace