Musings

Grace Tan In Life, Musings, Relationships

Appreciating the MAN…

He has been by my side for many years, encouraging me when I feel down, cheering me on when things are going well, holding my hand when I am sick, my adventure buddy, my partner, my lover. That’s Alex.

This is my fourth year of marriage, and boy, has it been exciting. This month, we celebrated Alex’s birthday, and I thought I’d write a post to celebrate him. The best part about my marriage is the fact that I can journey together with him, going on our little adventures together. It’s not just about a trip to the beach or an extravagant holiday somewhere, but it is the little things in life that I appreciate. Him waking up early in the morning to prepare me breakfast. Him carrying my camera bags from the car at the end of a tiring shoot. Him looking after my parents while I am away.

He’s an amazing man.

Photo by Dawn McCarthy

Yes, we have our squabbles, like any other couple (like him getting exasperated at my short term memory, or me getting annoyed at him for leaving receipts and bills all over the floor)… but at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. I believe in not holding grudges and working at a relationship to make it work.

So… to celebrate his birthday, I did a few things…

Grace Tan In International, Life, Musings

India: Sights, Smells, Sounds

A kaleidoscope of colours, smell and taste. I did not imagine India to be anything else but interesting. In my list of countries to visit, India is definitely not one of my top 10. But at the end of June 2010, I had a taste of India. AND, felt the burning heat of the sun, all 40 degrees of it. I was in India for a corporate shoot. 8 days, 4 internal flights, many hours on the road and 5 cities later, I felt I had seen two different sides to India.

On one hand, you have poverty…

Children with growths on their heads, young girls who barely look like teenagers holding on to babies, begging on the streets…

And then you have development…

Fancy buildings that look so futuristic. Offices with coloured glass windows. High end apartments that only few can enjoy.

What a contrast.

Grace Tan In For Photographers, International

Accidents while on shoot

I’m still traveling in India on this corporate shoot, but will be glad to return to the comforts of my own home (and a loving husband) soon. While at one of the many construction sites, the 3rd-party strap (but, but it was an uber comfortable neoprene padded one that was supposed to cushion the weight of the camera on my neck!) I was using came undone from the buckle, causing my precious 5D Mark2 to fall with a resounding thud.

I picture it in slow-motion over and over again, wondering if I could have dived in Matrix-style to save it before gravity got the better of the DSLR. What’s done is done, I guess and I’ve resolved to be very, very careful when buying camera accessories.

As a professional, I always carry a backup camera body and for good reason. I would feel a whole lot worse if I let my clients down because I was not well prepared enough. As the scouts would chant, “Be Prepared!”.

Canon, pretty, pretty please get this fixed quickly when I get back, and I hope it won’t burn too big a hole in my pocket.

Grace Tan In For Photographers, Musings

Top 10 Female Wedding Photographers

This June, I was featured alongside 9 other amazing female wedding photographers in FACES magazine. We were dressed in beautiful gowns from That Special Occasion and Pretty in White, and each had to carry our cameras for the pic! The women featured were Fiona Lim, Jenny Sun, Anna-Rina, Evelyn Lam, Naomi Ching, Ning Liaw, Visithra Manikam, Nurul Suhaimi & Fatini Zulnaidi. Taken in The Professional Gallery’s studio, make up & hair by Michelle Touche team and photographed by Peter Tan. And thanks to Fiona for these scanned images of the mag!

For those of you getting married, do get a copy of FACES magazine this June 2010! They have awesome prizes to give away, including a RM5,000 diamond engagement ring, loan of a Mazda 2 for a lucky couple’s wedding day, a 3-tier wedding cake, over RM1500 in dining vouchers, AND a 5-day, 4-night honeymoon to Monaco, which includes airfare, hotel stay and a helicopter ride around the state! Wow that sounds amazing!

Basically, you have to keep the receipt to be eligible to enter. Closing date is 15 July 2010. FACES is available at MPH, Borders and Popular bookstores. Here’s the cover and my feature page.

Here are some behind the scenes shots that I took on that day. Since our photo sessions were split according to group, I only have photos with my group of girls. I think this shot of me getting ready was taken by Fiona, if I remember correctly!

Here’s Anna goofing around as usual! :)

And Fiona doing her usual pose while Jenny looks on… Thought bubble: “What’s Fiona doing!!???”

Darn I look short next to these girls. :P Now where’s my non-existent 4 inch heels!?

In the meantime while we were doing silly shots, Evelyn was posing for Peter.

My turn!

Here’s a shot with Michelle and Summer who did the make up and styling for the shoot.

And Patrick… who was our official iPhone photographer! I think we kept bombarding him with iPhones “Please take a behind the scenes shot with our iPhone!”.

It was a fun time. Now stop reading this blog post and go get yourself a magazine, and a trip to Monaco as well!!

Alex Lam In Musings, Relationships, Tips + Ideas

Techie wedding features an iPad and an iPhone

Well, Steve Jobs has done it again – creating lust in the hearts of many with the newly launched Apple iPad. This couple got married and had lots of Apple product branding featured. No, I don’t think Apple is going to give them money for their video, though.

Many mixed comments were hurled on YouTube, but let’s just relax and let them have their special day the way they chose. Watch and enjoy.