Tips + Ideas

Sarah Lim In Casual Portraits, Family + Children Portraits, Maternity, Musings, Portraits, Tips + Ideas

How to Style Your Family for a Photo Shoot

Family gatherings are a perfect opportunity for a photoshoot, whether its a birthday party or festive gathering. However, getting a great family photo sometimes requires a little more than just smiling at the camera. There’s some prep work involved and it’s called “styling”. You don’t have to be a professional fashion consultant to do this. In fact, it’s quite easy! Here are four ways to start having better looking photos with just a little bit of styling done right.

1. Consider your location and backdrop

If your photoshoot coincides with an event such as a birthday party or a dinner, think about how the location will look like: What colour will the wall or backdrop be where your group will be standing? Here’s a good rule of thumb you can follow:

Plain background – You can wear either plain or bright colours, and outfits with more patterns. However not everyone should be wearing prints or else the patterns might clash, making overall photo look too messy.
Busy background – It’s best to wear outfits with plain colours (no patterns) that complement the background. Eg. A green leafy background can go with full white outfits or white and khaki colours.

Grace Tan In Musings, Tips + Ideas

Female Standing Poses: Tips & Tricks

There are many ways to pose a person so that they will look good in front of the camera. Naturally, our clients are not models, and they rely on us as the photographers to guide them on how to stand. Watch our video for some basic tips on female standing poses and see how your images can be much better by just applying some of these simple principles!

Female Standing Poses: Basic Tips & Tricks

Stand at a 45 degree angle to the camera to give some shape to your body. If our body faces the camera directly, the shoulders appear square and the entire body looks wider.
Bend your arms and knees to create shape. The female body is full of curves, even if you are plus sized! Arms that lie flat against the body look squished and makes it look even bigger than it actually is. So, go ahead and bend any limbs that can be bent!
Push your hips to one side of the other. If you are standing at a 45 degree angle, one leg will be forward. Put your weight on your back leg and push your butt and hips to the back so that it will make your hips look smaller.

Go ahead and get beautiful images of yourself!

Grace Tan In Musings, Running a Business, Tips + Ideas, Wedding Films & Videos

The Stories Experience: Our Workflow

It’s our 11th year of operations and since the first day we opened our doors, we have refined our processes through the years. From the moment our clients connect with us, to thinking about the ease of transaction, online payments via credit cards… we only want the best for our clients! I also just recently counted, we have hit our mark of 100+ FIVE STAR reviews on Google and Facebook! It is really amazing and exciting to see that our clients love our work!

Please have a look at our video to see what we usually do for our clients, from the start till the end of your interaction with Stories.my.

Grace Tan In Life, Misc, Musings, Parties & Events, Portraits, Tips + Ideas

Planning a kid’s baking party

This year, my daughter turned 6. Every year, I tell myself to do something simple for her birthday, but it always ends up elaborate! I guess it’s too much fun trying to think of party themes especially since she is at such a cute, young age. Last year, I had a lot of fun planning a unicorn party for Krysta and a fire station party for Kyle. If you’d like to view those photos, click here.

Thank God I had the help of another mother this year. We planned a joint chef / baking party for Krysta and Sherisse who were born 2 days apart. If you’d like some tips on how to plan a baking party, here’s how we did it at a low cost: Continue Reading

Grace Tan In Family + Children Portraits, Musings, Parties & Events, Portraits, Tips + Ideas

Zoe’s 1st Birthday Party

Styled birthday parties are the rage nowadays, and we love all the little details that go into making it such a pretty event. Two years ago, we went to New Zealand to photograph Calvin & Queenie’s wedding, and now, we’re photographing their daughter’s 1st birthday! So much love went into planning this rainbow themed, colourful party. Queenie also went as far as to coordinate her shoes with little Zoe. As a mother of 2 myself, planning parties like these are fun, but can be pretty stressful. It definitely helps if you have a planner and decorator like Mint Events & Soirées to do the bulk of the work for you!

We also photographed their family portraits the next day. I’ll share more of that in a separate blog post! I’ve included lots and lots of detail shots as inspiration for mothers who want a similar theme for their parties.