Musings

Grace Tan In International, Life, Musings

Adventures in Holland

The past one week has been a whirlwind of an experience. From the moment I touched down in Amsterdam on the 4th of August till the wedding day, I’ve been running on adrenaline. After spending 2 days in Amsterdam, I came down with a full blown fever and flu on the third day. It was a really challenging time for me since I was by myself and having to lug heavy equipment and bags all over Holland while blowing my nose at the same time is not something I was looking forward to do.

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Some sights around Amsterdam.

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But I had to muster whatever strength I had and travel about an hour away by train to meet Christina and Chee Su at Zwijndrecht. That evening itself we were supposed to have our pre-wedding shoot but since I was not feeling too well we decided to postpone the main part of it till the next day. Instead we went to a nearby river for some quick shots.

The next day, we went to Kinderdijk, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. The place is covered with mindmills and the landscape is absolutely stunning! We spent about 2 hours there and I even had time to climb up one windmill (as a 10 minute touristy thing). That afternoon, I crashed for 4 hours since I was still weak from the flu. Later in the evening we came back for more photos! Christina and Chee Su braved their fears and went out onto the water in a really unstable row boat. Thank God it didn’t overturn! Here are some teaser shots from the shoot.

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Grace Tan In Life, Musings

Musings: God Made Me Female!

I’ve always considered the world of photography as a predominantly male industry (which it is!) and initially when I considered joining the ranks of wedding photographers, I thought, “Oh my goodness, I’ll have to grow a goatee, wear an ugly vest and talk tech all the time.” Well, that was like 2 years ago, and now, after having met lots and lots of cool female photographers like Jenny Sun, Fiona Lim, Anna-Rina, Asther Lau, and myself included *ahem*… I am jumping for joy. There’s hope for us yet!

I can look stylish and hot as a female photographer! It sounds incredibly vain, I know, but hey, at least I’m being honest!

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I’ve thought through some of my strengths and weaknesses of being a female photographer, and thought I’d share some here:

Strengths:
– I can connect with the brides out there who are usually my first point of contact during any form of client consultation. I am genuinely excited to hear about their wedding plans, how they met their fiance and what kind of decorations they’ll be having on their big day. You know, girly talk.

– On the shoot day, I can get access where most male photographers cannot. For example, brides would usually allow me to be in the room while they change. They have no qualms cupping their breasts in front of me while my shutter goes clicking away.

– I have more wardrobe options than male photographers. Yay!

– When I started photography, I didn’t really focus a lot on the technical aspects of it, but rather the composition and story of each shot. I think that is still one of my greatest strengths. I look for emotions and storyline above everything else.

– I smile a lot to people. I think that warms them up and breaks the ice. Ok, ok, this is not really a gender difference.

Weaknesses:

– I’m female and small. Being small can be another blog post in itself, but the fact that I’m female, most people would tend to look at the male photographers first before looking at me. They probably think that I’m a guest taking photos. They are quite surprised when I command the situation especially during group shots etc!

– The other male photographers I shoot with can shoot off anything technical in one breath, talk about the latest gadgets in the market, explain ALL the features in the various camera bodies available in the market AND refer you to the websites that has great reviews about them. I am a little slow in these things. :)

– I cannot push large heng tais away, especially those that block my view during the chip san leong session.

– I like to be pampered way too much, so sometimes I spend my hard earned cash on things like massage sessions and pigging out sessions with my girlfriends.

So, what are your thoughts out there? What are the advantages or disadvantages of being a female/male photographer?

Grace Tan In Musings, Relationships

Musings: Communication & Expectations

One trend that I’ve noticed is how often photographers include their spouses in their business. For example, Jasmine Star has her husband JD 2nd shoot for her, Louis Pang has his wife Jasmine run the office, and Jenny Sun has her husband Ju 2nd shooting at times as well. Some of my photographer friends say they try to get their wives/husbands involved. Some prefer bags to camera gear. And I mean LV bags. So that won’t do.

Well, I do the same with Alex. When I first started shooting weddings, it was natural to ask him along. I felt a sense of security and bonding when we can do fun stuff together. Alright, I admit, not everyone’s idea of fun is standing on your feet for 10 hours, lugging heavy gear around, but thank God Alex does not complain.

The benefit of having yr spouse shooting with you is that you can share rooms when you’re outstation shooting a wedding. After a long day of shoot, you can come back and cuddle after a nice relaxing hot shower.

But what if one day, Alex decides not to shoot with me anymore? Gasp! What would I do? How would I feel?

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I wonder sometimes if I can be a pretty selfish person. I like having him with me, doing fun stuff together (especially the things I consider fun). There are always 2 types of couples: One that does everything together and you think that they are joined at the hip. And the other that does NOTHING together other than meals or movies.

So what do I really expect from my spouse? What would my expectations be and would I be disappointed if his ideals change one day? What if Alex said one day, “I’d rather spend the entire day on Twitter and surfing the net than shooting with you”. Would I say, “It’s ok dear” but silently harbour a grudge because he PREFERS not to do the things I do?

Expectations can be an evil thing that rears its head every once in a while.

“But you’re the wife, I expected you to clean the house every week!”

“Why can’t you be a man and make decisions for once! I have to do everything!”

“I thought you’d stop playing computer games after we’re married and give me more attention for once. I keep seeing the back of your head everyday”

Yup, expectations can be the cause of many arguments especially if it is not communicated properly from the start.

Speaking of which, now that Alex is sick today, I better be the dutiful wife and nurse him back to health.

Grace Tan In Musings, Relationships

Musings: A Lifelong Covenant

It’s one of our goals this year to make the Wedding Story blog more interesting to readers. Of course there’ll always be postings of videos and photos of our work but we want to do more than that. One of the ideas we have is to share more from our lives, so that you get to know the people behind Wedding Story. We love to get personal with our clients, so we do hope that our posts will help you get to know us better!

It’s been about a year now since I ventured into weddings professionally. And about close to 3 years since I became a wife. I thought that over time, I’d like to share little musings and tips that I’ve learnt over the years, not just as a wedding professional, but also as a previous bride who planned her own wedding with the help of friends & family, and also as a wife, and perhaps in the future, as a mother (doesn’t mean I’m pregnant now ok!).

Most the things I’ll be sharing, I’ve learnt through experience or from another friend’s experience.

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Lately, I’ve seen a number of friends getting married and some getting engaged. It must be every little girl’s dream as they grow up to be a bride one day, to wear that lovely white dress and walk down that aisle. A friend asked me today, “How’s married life, coming to 3 years now?”. I haven’t seen him in a while, and though I wanted to exclaim, “I love it!” I thought to myself, “Would he really take me seriously?”

You see, to him, after being married for 24 years now, with 2 kids approaching adulthood, marriage is something that has declined to a state of existence. I’ve seen many people who started out with tears in their eyes, filled with romance, only to walk separate ways with a different set of tears 2 years down the road. A photographer friend shared with me once too that before she could deliver the wedding photos, this client of hers has anulled the marriage (after 6 weeks).

Marriage is something that can bring so much joy and yet to some, it also means heartache and loneliness. When I said my vows to Alex 3 years ago, I knew that this would be for life. I know that realistically, life is not a bed full of roses. But saying those vows meant that I made a commitment for life. When I got married, our pastor said that we are making a covenant, not a contract. A contract can be broken by any party whenever they find something disatisfactory, but a covenant is an oath. It’s something that I have promised to keep for life, between myself, Alex and God.

It gives me security to know that Alex has the same views towards marriage as well. That no matter how difficult times get, we would work things out and live life with no regrets. Saying I’m sorry could be one of the hardest things to do, but it could be the key to saving our marriage in the future.

Grace Tan In Musings, Relationships

Mark & Mun Tzin’s Engagement

It’s really so exciting whenever I hear proposal plans, and even more so when you are involved in it! Tonight, Alex and I had the privilege of witnessing Mark’s proposal to Mun Tzin at House & Co in Bangsar Shopping Centre. Mark is one of Wedding Story’s key photographers and an extremely good friend of ours. For weeks, we discussed proposal ideas and thought of what to do to make the proposal exciting.

Mark even thought of proposing during the recent ShootFest! But in the end, he decided to do it in the company of his closest friends. The idea was that Mark, Mun Tzin, Alex and I were supposed to be filming and photographing another couple’s proposal. The couple (Boon Keat & Melody) are close friends of Mark’s, and he had convinced Mun Tzin that Wedding Story was hired to cover the event. So we went to BSC today… Munz did not suspect a thing! In fact, Mark had bought a bouquet of flowers for Munz but told her that it was from Boon Keat for Melody. She even carried her own bouquet to the proposal location unsuspectingly!

As she was focusing her camera on the guy proposing, he opened this sheet of paper with the words, “Look at Mark now”… Munz was stunned! She turned to Mark, and there he was, on his knees! We got the entire proposal on video, so we’ll upload it sometime soon!

Well needless to say, she said yes!! Here are just a few photos from this momentous event tonight. This is Boon Keat, pretending to propose to Melody!