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Portraits

Tips on Photographing Babies & Newborns

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It’s funny how it is through my career in photography that I get to handle infants. More so now compared during the time where I used to work directly with kids as a teacher! There’s truly a different set of skills to learn and be aware of with handling children and babies of different age groups and even with that, every child has different temperaments!

At Stories, I have had the wonderful privilege to photograph and document relationships between parents and baby. Every shoot is a new experience as every individual is different and more often than not, I rely a lot on my intuition to navigate through the differences. Just want to share with you some thoughts I have concerning photographing newborn babies and slightly older infants.

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The Food Story: Pre-Wedding of Chuen Wai & Kim

From day 1, their story revolved around food. It was February 2008 when they first met. Chuen Wai was working in Sagano Japanese Restaurant and Kim was interning at Sheraton Imperial. Despite her first impression of him (that he looked really young, even though he was 25 then!), they hit it off, and shortly after that on the same month, on Valentine’s Day, he presented her with a huge bouquet of flowers at work.

Things moved really quickly from that point onwards, as they spent lots of time talking about where to eat, what to eat, what new foods to experience, how to cook those new experiences, watching food channels on TV together, and traveling to places where food would dominate their itineraries.

However, since Kim had to head back to Switzerland to complete her studies, they spent 2 years in a long distance relationship with a 6 hour time difference. Eventually, Chuen Wai moved to Dubai and their time difference was shortened to 2 hours, which made it more manageable. And once Kim moved to Dubai, everything got even more exciting as they relived their love, commitment and passion to each other once again.

This May, Chuen Wai and Kim will tie the knot, and we would like to wish them a hearty congratulations! This shoot was quite a memorable one for the team, because initially, I was scheduled to do their pre-wedding shoot last October. However, the night before the shoot, I was really in a lot of pain from the Urinary Tract Infection I had, plus I was heavily pregnant. That morning of the shoot itself, I went into labour to deliver Kyle. Thank God for Jamie and Diane who were really amazing as they stepped up to replace me.

So before the shoot ended, I had Kyle in my arms. Though I never met Kim and Chuen Wai personally, I had communicated with them through many emails, and seeing these images made me feel that they are such a fun, relaxed couple to be around. Perhaps one day, we will meet and I would love to sample some of that cooking!

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Family Portraits: Meng Hwa, Celine, Amelie & Aiden

In 2014, we photographed many different families and couples, and we’re so glad to have made new friends through all those sessions. Now that it’s already February (where did the time go!), I can’t believe I still have a huge number of images that have yet to be blogged! So I am going to attempt to share more posts starting this week.

I met Meng Hwa and Celine at the Ibu Tots Fair that we participated in last September. They booked a family portrait session with us that day, and in no time at all, I was over at their home, photographing their two little adorable children. I loved the family dynamics and how Amelie loved Aiden. Now that I have 2 children of my own, coaxing an older sibling to kiss the younger one is sometimes a huge task on its own! The reaction ranges from willing participation to outright disagreement (which usually ends up in the younger one being pushed away a bit too roughly). But isn’t that the joy (and frustration sometimes!) of parenting toddlers?

Anyhow, I had a good time with this family, and even their extended family came to join in the shoot. I am sure the kids have grown since I last saw them! Hope to photograph this family again in the future. :)

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We’re on the Move!

OntheMove

The next few months will be a time of exciting change for us at Stories. After moving around from venue to venue over the past few years, we’re now relocating into a permanent home which is at Oval Damansara! This building faces the Sprint highway and is opposite Tropicana City Mall. You can easily spot it from the highway especially with a number of furniture shops on the ground floor of the building.

Sooooo… to celebrate this move, we’re having a studio lifestyle portrait promo! Here’s the deal…

Interested in a studio maternity, family or personal portrait session with us?
Book any studio session this Feb or March and get 20% off the listed rates.
Block a weekday date between the months of Feb-April (not inclusive of public holidays) for your shoot.
Depending on the move date, the shoot will either be done at SStwo Mall or Oval Damansara.

Contact us to get our lifestyle portrait rate card.

University Crush: Joseph & Jenna’s Pre-wedding at Monash

It was at the Monash Christian Fellowship gathering in 2009 that Joseph first met Jenna. A great place to meet like-minded people! As they got to know each other better through the semester, they started hanging out in campus. Long conversations with their Starbucks drinks in their hands, they discovered things about each other. Like how she absolutely loves to read – in between going from one place to another in malls, when she eats, before she sleeps…all the time! While Jenna is the introvert in the relationship, Joseph is the extrovert. He loves to meet people, sometimes to Jenna’s dismay.

So while books is pretty much a part of Jenna’s identity, music is Joseph’s.

When it comes to music, Joseph is the maestro. He is a pianist and can play by ear, so oftentimes, he sings songs without words which annoys Jenna to bits. (On the other hand, Joseph says that he can’t stand it when Jenna changes key while he is singing!)

So a good antidote for a grumpy Jenna is ice cream. Jenna enjoys scrumptious servings of ice cream and dessert! (According to Joseph, the McD’s RM1 ice cream does the trick!).

So life is definitely interesting for this couple!

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