Musings

That rectangular shape…

At approximately 1pm everyday, the postman would arrive in our neighbourhood. When I was a child, I looked forward to letters in the mail box. Did it contain a letter from my penpal in Turkey? Or was it a postcard from my brother in New Zealand? Or perhaps some photos from my aunt in Australia? Whatever came through that mail box, I would save all the stamps from those envelopes, some more special than others. But the years went by, and soon, the letters would be few and far between.

Nowadays, I mainly receive junk mail and bills in the mail box. And so, whenever the odd mail with the handwritten address finds its way to my mail box, I know for certain that it’s a wedding invite. Like an excited school girl, I would usually tear the envelope ungracefully, and peek into the envelope, excited to see the contents of that mail.

And what delight it is to find that people do pay attention to their wedding invites. I love it when I receive beautiful cards in the mail. The texture, the fonts, the colour… everything screams perfection. Just like this Save the Date card that was sent to my home recently. What creativity!

And as a note to my clients, I do enjoy receiving thank you cards in the mail too! :) *hint hint*

Grace Tan In Life, Musings

My first digital camera

Here’s some of the stacks and stacks of boxes we painstakingly handpacked! * iPhone photos

We rummaged through the cupboards, we packed our belongings into boxes and we taped them shut. Four years into marriage, our life as we knew, was changing radically. A new dawn peeks through the ominous clouds, as we prepare for the big move.

Some events in life are unforeseen. Some events are the catalyst for greater things. After marriage and renovating our current sanctuary, as we call it, Alex and I are moving to a larger space – one that will house a mini-theatre cum consultation space so that we can pamper our prospects and clients. But that is not the core reason for moving, it’s to provide shelter for my elderly parents in their twilight years.

My mum loves the mustard at Ikea, so we bring them there once in awhile as a “treat”! * mobile phone photo

In between boxes, Alex pulled out a relic from days gone by that triggered so many memories – from holidays on tropical islands to backpacking trips to fun outings with friends. We found our first digital camera! Not one, but two of them! Here’s the story.

Alex had been interested in photography and bought a Sony DSC-S75, based on the recommendation of a friend. It was only a 3MP camera, but it had fully manual functions and was very much an awesome piece of wizardry. On a seemingly pleasant day, after he discovered the joys of diving, he bought an underwater housing from eBay and hit the salty waters of Tioman Island with vigour. *cue horror music*

As you’re probably imagining by now, and are probably right, the housing failed to perform and it flooded. One thousand five hundred ringgit vanished, just like that. After giving him an earful (sorry darling!), we rushed out to buy… the exact same model! The camera was great and so were the photos. Squint a little at the photo and pick out the size of the ever so spacious memory card we had!

Grace Tan In Life, Musings

A dog with a message

Nowadays, it’s really hip to be green. Everyone is into doing environmentally friendly stuff, like in our office, we try to recycle plastic, tin and paper, and also do little things like making sure we use tupperwares or plates to tapao or pack our food, instead of using the usual styrofoam containers. We turn off lights or power switches if we are not using them, and choose fans over air-conditioning (when the weather permits!! This is more for me at home).

Soooo… I was really tickled when I saw this dog, named Boy, at a recent wedding I shot, with this green message. Makes me want to own a dog so that I can flash cool messages like that!

Next up… he’ll be in another outfit for the wedding… but that’s for another blog post.

Grace Tan In Musings, Relationships

Welcome to the Stories family!

As we are sad to see Shu Wan leave, we are happy that we have a new family member in the Integricity / Stories family. We’re glad to introduce you to Weiming! He will be our new resident Digital Artist. Here’s a little write up about Weiming so that you can get to know him as well!

Weiming How graduated from Multimedia University with a degree in Film and Animation. This has helped him in the laying of a strong foundation in design, visual, & cinematography knowledge. In his years of studies, he always had a keen interest and great passion for photography. It is beyond his wildest imagination that he is pursuing his dream and working with one of the best in the industry. Every day is a learning experience for him. Being an avid photographer himself and having a strong foundation in multimedia has been a real help to him in working as a Digital Artist in Stories. He is interested in creating special moments on digital images and creating shots that can be transformed into magical stories that linger in lives.

Weiming, I am sure we will have lots of exciting moments ahead, shooting under heat or rain, or shooting for many hours without food (you already did that with me last week! Haha), rushing for datelines or just creating works of art for all our clients. Welcome to the family!

Grace Tan In Musings, Relationships

All the best, Shu Wan!

After almost a year of working with Integricity Visuals, our digital artist Shu Wan has decided to move on and explore the world – not necessarily on a plane, but in various aspects of life and career. Shu Wan was the main person who did all the photo touch ups, album designs, animation and video editing for most of the work that you have seen on our blog the past few months. She is a really talented individual and we are sorry to see her leave. I enjoyed having her company as we traveled from shoot to shoot, and just talking about anything in life. Outwardly, she seems like a quiet, unassuming person, but she really is a focused, passionate person – especially about the things that she cares about.

Here’s what Shu Wan has to say…

It’s too soon for me to say goodbye here. I know. I never think it’s coincidence that I was here. From the day I met Grace, my life was changed. I was actually planning to take my step into the animation industry. But then I thought, I wanted to learn different skills, so in the end I decided to join this family.

Time has proven that I made the right choice. Throughout my days with the Stories team, I learnt a lot of new things… ranging from photo editing to video shooting. Grace has been a really good mentor. She taught me patiently and shared her knowledge with me generously. As she hold firmly to her belief in education, I have been given opportunities to attend conferences and training camps so that I can grow better. Looking at what I am today, I must say it’s because of God’s amazing Grace! :)

This was certainly an interesting journey. I am glad to be in this company of awesome people. Really nice meeting all of you who are lovely and kind to me along this road. Thank you for walking together with me and leaving me with tremendous memories! I truly appreciate it. Hereby I end my journey here with this blogpost as I am heading off for a new adventure! There are dreams to be fullfilled before it gets too late. So wish me luck k? =)

Ohyaaa, did I tell you that I love my title very much? :P It’s because I long to be an artist but too bad that I can’t draw very well. Haha. So now I could tell people, “hey I am a artist, digital artist!” :P