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Grace Tan
In Family + Children Portraits, For Photographers, Musings, Portraits

Family Portraits: Terence, Devi & Jaydee

I’ve known Terence and Devi for over 10 years, since I was a university student in Brisbane. They are 2 very cool individuals – Terence’s grin and laughter (plus silly jokes) is pretty infectious (though I sometimes admit I roll my eyes occasionally), while Devi’s warm, calm and pleasant personality makes you feel as if you’ve been her friend for umpteen years (even though you might have met her for only 15 minutes).

Devi’s Thai and Kadazan heritage is pretty cool too… therefore, they named their daughter Jaydee… which in Thai means good-hearted. Jaydee is such a sweetheart. Her smile makes you warm up instantly… I guess it helps to have super smiley parents like Terence and Devi!

This shoot was not an ordinary portrait session for us. In fact, there were 5 of us there that day – Johan, Ben, Diane, Felicia and myself. 5 photographers for a family portrait shoot? That sounds pretty crazy huh! Well, our main purpose that day was to share ideas, think outside the box, and sharpen each other’s skill while shooting.

We had heaps of fun. So here’s a combination of shots from all of us! Started out with some couple shots – image on the left taken by Johan, and on the right by Grace.

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Below: L (Diane’s image), R (Grace’s)

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Grace Tan
In Chinese Weddings, Outdoor Weddings, Testimonials, Wedding Films & Videos, Weddings

A blend of cultures: Roy & Pek Yee

It was an epic wedding – full of wonderful moments that will be etched in my mind forever. Roy’s humour brightens the day and keeps us entertained while Pek Yee’s infectious (loud) laughter reminds me of my childhood friends who are equally boisterous. The wedding was split to 2 days… the first half was the Chinese wedding ceremony in KL, followed by a beach wedding at the colonial-looking Danna, Langkawi. Seriously, I consider this a 6-star wedding…not just because of the gorgeous location and beautiful decorations that adorned the venue, but because it had all the elements that made it special – a superb couple that was so easy to click with, really fun guests who made the party happening, and family members who treated us like… family. Most of the decorations were done by Roy and Pek’s friends and family members… amazing flower decorations by Pek’s aunt June and stationery by her friend Hooi Yee.

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Through out my stay at The Danna, my team were treated so well by the staff there. I appreciate it that they didn’t see us as merely vendors, and saw to our every need, making sure we had water to drink all the time, made sure we had a decent place to have our meals, brought us cutlery and even offered us home made butter when it wasn’t necessary! Needless to say, the team ate well and slept really really well the night before and after the wedding, which made us really happy campers!

I love it how Roy and Pek Yee blend so easily into each other’s culture. Swiss and Malaysian cultures are worlds apart, yet, they seem so at home with each other, and even speaking a little of each other’s language. Roy’s Mandarin is definitely better than mine, since I am a pure ‘banana’ as how Malaysians would put it (yellow on the outside, white on the inside – someone whose first language is English).

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So, they met in Shanghai, China about 3 years ago… and here’s how the story goes…

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Grace Tan
In For Photographers, International, Life, Musings

Fraser Island, Australia with the Panasonic GX7

Early this month, I was invited to Fraser Island, Australia to test out the new Panasonic Lumix GX7. The first time I laid eyes on it, I fell in love! It has a beautiful vintage look that will look good with any outfit I wear, plus, it fit my small hands perfectly. Over 2 days, I had the privilege of going around Fraser Island with this micro four thirds camera and a huge range of lenses. Thank God the camera and lenses were light, so lugging around 7 lenses in my sling bag was easy-peasy! I would definitely consider this camera as a travel buddy.

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The landscape at Fraser Island is just so raw and untouched. It is the largest sand island in the world, with the beach stretching over 123km in length. What was interesting to me was the fact that the beach is actually a designated highway so there are signs saying 80km/hr is the max you can go!

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Now can you imagine this landscape with a couple in the photo? Darn, I wish we had models to photograph!

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All the photos in this post were taken with the Lumix GX7 – minimally edited. I was really amazed at the quality and colour of the images. The curse of being a photographer is that sometimes, your photos never get to see the light of day because you’re always wanting to ‘edit’ your images before posting them online. I mean, I have been guilty of colour grading every single travel photo before posting it to Facebook! Since the images that come out of this camera look superb already, hopefully, it’ll cure me of this ‘editing’ disease that every photographer faces.

The 90-degree tiltable Live View Finder also made shooting interesting since I could see things from a different perspective. (Plus, it made me look cool – do refer to the first image in this post). One thing I had to get used to was learning to focus on the touch screen, but with the focus peaking feature, it gave me the confidence knowing that the highlighted edges in an image are the parts in focus.

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Grace Tan
In Life, Musings, Relationships

7 Years and Going Strong…

I was woken up this morning by a whatsapp message from my father-in-law – “Wishing u both Happy Anniversary today. Have a memorable day of reflection of all the happy events gone by n look forward to many years of happiness ahead. Leave Krysta with us n go enjoy the evening.”

Instinctively, I looked at the date on my phone… was it really August the 12th? I had forgotten completely about our wedding anniversary. I even had to take a few seconds to calculate how many years we’ve been married.

Uh oh… it’s started! The years of being together, always having the other person there, and never really stopping to think about celebrating special events. 

I never used to think much about celebrating events like Valentine’s Day or Wedding Anniversaries. But today, a thought flashed through my head, “Perhaps it’s there to remind us to never take the other person for granted. Ever.”

So today, I am grateful for our 7 years of marriage.

I am thankful that I have a wonderful husband who supports me emotionally through all my ups and downs (especially dealing with my worry-wart nature).

I am grateful that he always makes an effort to work on our relationship, especially during the days when we irritate each other so much.

I am amazed at how he loves my family through his actions… by going out of his way to fix my sister’s audio-visual system in her home or changing my dad’s diapers when it’s needed.

I am proud that he is a wonderful son to his own family, making special effort to bring every member of his family out on personal ‘dates’ so he can spend time with them intentionally.

My heart swells when I see him love Krysta with all his heart, how he would uncomplainingly wake up in the middle of the night when she cries, how he makes her giggle during playtime, and how he carries her through all our travels, sometimes for hours in his arms.

I am blessed.

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Taken during a recent family holiday in Cameron Highlands. 

Grace Tan
In Portraits,

Lush Love: James & Rachel’s Pre-wedding

His first few lines to her was… “Could I loan a book from you?” They were students in TAR College… young, naive and open to love and adventure. One book opened the door to a series of meet ups, and soon, college life, became… well, shall I say… a lot more interesting to James and Rachel.

In reminiscence of their many hours together in college, James and Rachel decided to photograph their pre-wedding there. Wandering the corridors, visiting their usual haunts… it brought back many fond memories for the both of them.

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As a contrast, we also shot at Sekeping Tenggiri. I love how the location is transformed into a magical forest in the shot below, taken by Weiming.

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