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Grace Tan
In Family + Children Portraits, For Photographers, Musings, Parties & Events, Portraits

Ice cream themed birthday bash – Thea Grace turns one!

We photographed Aldrian and Mei Mei’s winter themed wedding some years ago. Ever since then, we’ve kept in touch over Facebook even though they live in another continent. This year, I got to meet their lovely daughter, Thea Grace, who just couldn’t stop smiling and giggling at our shoot. Well, surrounded by cookies that look like ice cream and pillows that look oh-so-sweet, who could blame her? She was just high on love and all things sugary. This styled shoot is a testament of how different people came together to make this work.

20160616- FamilyPortraits_Aldrien_MeiMei-008Mei Mei brought some props from the UK, and I especially love all the hand-sewn animals hanging off the basket, holding… guess what? Ice cream! The letters that made up Thea Grace’s name were hand made by Mei Mei, and so were a number of the props themselves. Evelyn of Moments contributed the delicious looking ice cream shaped cookies, balloons and we provided the crates, blankets, bags and basket!

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Grace Tan
In Chinese Weddings, Outdoor Weddings, Weddings

Westin Langkawi Beach Wedding: Justin & Nicole

While the team is in Langkawi yet again for another wedding today, we thought that it’d be wonderful to share another set from a wedding at the Westin, Langkawi. The peach, pastel tones of the bridesmaids’ outfits look so sweet against the earthy tones of the beach. I also like how the coffee beans were a feature in their ring box (reflecting the coffee addict in Nicole!) – not only did it look good, it smelt heavenly too! Here’s how one coffee encounter led to something bigger and better…

20160312_WEDDING_JUSTIN_NICOLE_32Nicole & Justin:

Like most relationships, we got together through a combination of luck, perseverance, and fate. We were introduced by a mutual friend, but it was not exactly like sparks flew the moment we met, especially since Nicole had one dating condition – no dating lawyers!

Through luck (Nicole accepted Justin’s friend request and actually replied to his Facebook messages), perseverance (constant spamming by Justin on Facebook) and fate ( we were both single then), we went out one fateful day for coffee. Coffee turned into dinner. Dinner turned into missed appointments for the day. It felt like we had so much to share that day (Justin: so much that I held my need to pee for a good 5 hours). That was the start of a beautiful relationship.

It hasn’t always been easy, but we’ve both realized that tolerance and giving in has been the reason we still love each other very much every day. Justin is now a pseudo coffee addict (he secretly prefers Teh Tarik more) while Nicole is a pseudo active gym member (She spends more time on social media than the treadmill). It also helps that we share loads of common interests- our dog, traveling and just being lazy, and we make a good team – Justin manages the finances, and Nicole everything else.

For us, we know that no matter what happens, how annoyed we are with each other and how stressful our day has been, it will always be alright because we have each other.

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Jamie Ang
In Family + Children Portraits, Portraits

Family portraits: Brian, Marina and 3 boys

Brian and Marina warned us…both their 3 and 5 year old toddlers will not sit still for the camera. We’ve been told that their son James is shy and would definitely try to hide during the shoot! With this challenge in mind, Chi Yin and I headed over to Brian and Marina’s home for their family portrait. And hide he did! But that didn’t stop us from chasing them into the playroom for photos.

We even had to stop the shoot temporarily to play with them, so that the two toddlers James and Matthew would warm up to us. Chi Yin had the difficult task of luring them out of their really fun-looking playroom. We worked hard for every single image!

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Grace Tan
In Family + Children Portraits, Parties & Events, Portraits

Hari Raya with the Naza Family

I was honoured that an old friend had recommended me to Datuk Wira SM Faisal SM Nasimuddin, who was looking for a family portrait photographer during the Raya holidays. It was wonderful meeting the entire family behind the Naza Group of companies, including Marion Caunter. Donned in festive clothes too, I tried my best to look good setting up lights while wearing a kebaya. :)

Everyone looked really smart in their baju Raya and the kids were just too cute. Here’s the large family portrait that was set up in 5 minutes. As one of the siblings, Nadia mentioned on her Instagram account, “There’s a whole troop of nannies behind this shot”… and may I add, taking photos for the family with their mobile phones! I wish we had taken a behind the scene shot of that!

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Grace Tan
In Musings, Tips + Ideas

Canvas Clusters

Canvas-13I believe canvases are a great way to brighten up a home – especially if it is filled with lovely images of your family. At Stories, we have designed canvas clusters for our clients through the years. All you need to do is to tell us the dimensions of your wall in inches and we will design it for you, free of charge. Here are some tips on how to plan for a beautiful canvas wall at your home:

  1. Find a wall that is a feature in your home – meaning, the wall should be in a prominent location that is eye-catching. This could be above the couch in your living room or next to your dining table.
  2. Avoid having too much clutter at the bottom of your feature wall. If the wall is next to a cabinet that is filled with children’s toys, your eyes will be drawn to the clutter and not the images.
  3. Install spotlights that direct your attention towards the images on the wall. This is especially good for night events!
  4. When choosing images to include on the wall, think about some form of continuity – for example, are all the images taken in a nice outdoor environment but one is not? Do the images complement or distract each other? Is there a theme to the images selected? Do also include a series of candid and posed shots for best effect.
  5. Communicate with your designer if you prefer to have designs that are neat (for example, all canvases fit into a perfect square) or if you prefer a more organic design that doesn’t have to align perfectly with each other.

Canvas-10What do you think of the sample walls at our office?

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