Musings

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

Women: girls & International Women’s Day 2012

I’ve always believed in using your skills for a cause. Photography has always been a tool for me, something to express how I feel about a particular topic. When I travel, I use photography to show how awesome and diverse this world is. In weddings, my work becomes a record of someone’s life journey, and hopefully to remind them of that beautiful moment they said “I do”; years later when the eye bags and wrinkles appear. When I photograph families, I want them to cherish the most important people in their lives.

In conjunction with International Women’s Day (IWD), I collaborated with Capri Communications Sdn Bhd to bring forward yet another cause and purpose – to show how important it is that mentoring relationships are formed in every part of our life. The Women: girls campaign was created in line with IWD’s theme Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures. The campaign aims to begin a connection to inspire and encourage a new network of exchanges between young girls and women. I think it’s really pertinent to life. I can remember many women I looked up to when I was young, women who inspired me to believe in myself and reach higher heights in life. My sister is definitely one of them.

The following series of images were created specifically for the Women: girls campaign. It features 10 local celebrities and 10 girls from underprivileged backgrounds. The photos were exhibited in Fahrenheit 88, KL for the past week. The celebrities share their thoughts on inspiration and what it means to them.

Some of the awesome thoughts that resonated with me:

“It’s a strong feeling and drive that I get from someone else that makes me believe I could do anything.” – Julie Woon –
“Inspiration is that wonderful moment that makes you go wow and say, if she can do it I can do it too!” – Kartini Kamalul Ariffin –

What are your thoughts on inspiration and who inspires you?

Julie Woon, Actress & TV Presenter with Gokila, 16 years

Datin Paduka Umie Aida, Actress with Valawanda, 17 years

Diane In For Photographers, Tips + Ideas

Thoughts on Photographing Pets

We all love our pets, don’t we? We treat them like a member of the family and because we love them so much, we want to take pictures of them. My cat, Cashmere had kittens during Chinese New Year and the kittens have brought a lot of joy to my family. So last Saturday, I decided to have my take on pet photography- not something that I normally do. It turned out to be quite a fun, yet challenging task!

I am not a pro at this, but here’s some tips for pet photography, which I’ve gathered from this experience.

~~#1. Sedate your pets before the shoot so they will stay still.~~

I’m kidding! :D

#1. Photograph your pets in their comfort zone.

I am sure your pets have their regular “hang out” spots. In my case, my kittens love to play around in my living room, which is where I photographed them. I tried bringing them out to my car porch, thinking there would be more light and space for them to play around but they were just awkward out there. We stayed indoors, but I opened the windows to allow lots of natural light in so I get equally good lighting.

Grace Tan In Musings, Portraits, Pre-Wedding & Engagement Portraits, Relationships

A Fireproof Marriage & A Pre-Wedding: Chih Wei & Diana

“Fireproof doesn’t mean that a fire will never come, but that when it comes, you’ll be able to withstand it.” – from the film Fireproof –

It’s definitely one of my favourite films about love and relationships. If you have never heard of this Christian film before, it’s a story about a firefighter, Caleb, who tries to save his marriage from burning to the ground. Everything seems to be going from bad to worse, which eventually leads him to consider divorce. At the lowest point of his life, Caleb’s dad gave him a Love Dare challenge – to perform a simple act of love for his spouse every day for 40 days. It could be something as simple as resolving not to say anything negative to your spouse the entire day.

“The sad part about it is, when most people promise for better or for worse, they really only mean for the better.”

The film spoke to me in many ways. Just like the quote above, it made me think about life and relationships. How often we go into marriage thinking everything will be rosy every single day of our lives. I often think of love as a choice and commitment. It’s not just a feeling or emotion, because when tough times come (as they surely will), we may not feel like we want to carry through with that commitment. It’s at times like these that you remember your vow to your spouse – for better or for worse. Choice to me does not mean that I have the option to leave anytime I want. It means that I choose to love that person even when I don’t feel like it.

And when tough times come into my marriage, I can say that it’s fireproof.

I was really excited when Chih Wei and Diana took out their Love Dare book from their bag during our pre-wedding session. I think it’s really awesome that couples desire to make their marriage fireproof by going through books like these together.

I was happy to hear that Diana also attends the same church I used to attend when I was studying in Australia years ago. It’s great that we have common friends and similar values in life. Once I got to know Chih Wei and Diana, I knew that we could instantly connect. Diana lives in Brisbane whereas Chih Wei works in Malaysia. I definitely respect any couple who goes through a long distance relationship and survives it! So much patience, understanding and effort needs to be sown into that relationship daily.

Since they are getting married this weekend, I thought I’d share some images from their pre-wedding session here. Congratulations Chih Wei & Diana, and may your marriage be filled with lots of exciting moments!

Grace Tan In Musings, News, Running a Business

Our Studio in SStwo Mall, PJ

This week has been an exciting one for me. Other than trying to sort out the details for the upcoming Bloom Workshops that’s happening this 10th and 11th March, photographing local celebrities like Cheryl Samad, Datin Umie Aida, Low Ngai Yuen amongst others for International Women’s Day, I am also finalizing all the details for the renovations of our little studio in SStwo Mall.

The structure is almost complete. Today, we have our lighting installed! I still have to get some curtains and furniture to make it more complete. As you can see, our spiral staircase doesn’t even have steps yet. But it’s all good! Once everything is done up, I’d love to invite all of you for a visit and I will make some coffee for you here and we can have a nice chat. With the launch of the studio, we’ll also be having some promotions, so keep a look out for it!

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

Of travels and holidays

I have to admit. Since the Chinese New Year celebrations in January this year, I’ve been slacking off a bit. Just a bit. The end of 2011 was so hectic that my back was beginning to ache from all those shoots, and on top of that I twisted my ankle the day before a wedding in January. That week, I had to shoot 2 weddings with a twisted ankle. At that stage, it became clear to me that somehow I needed to rest. God’s message to me was crystal clear: If you don’t learn to rest, more of you will soon start to break down.

So Chinese New Year was a welcome break for me, and then came February with some other Malaysian holidays (did you know that Malaysia has one of the highest number of public holidays in the world? So yeah, if you love your holidays, do work in Malaysia).

So we kick started February with a celebration dinner with the team – to remember and give thanks for the success of 2011. Since it was Weiming and Mark’s birthday, we also had a cake!

Standing (L-R): Myself, Mun Tzin (Mark’s wife, who recently started her wedding planning business, Milestones), Felicia (our Digital Artist), Diane, Johan, Alex
Seated (L-R): Zhi Ming (Intern), Weiming and Mark

In February I went to Jakarta to photograph the wedding of Eric and Jennie. That was the first Indonesian wedding I’ve ever photographed. I loved it! But that’s for another blog post (speaking of blog posts, I am absolutely delayed with many of them!).

After Jakarta, Alex and I flew to Jogjakarta for a short holiday. We didn’t really do too much there but one of the must-dos was visit Borobudur temple, of course!