children

Grace Tan In Family + Children Portraits, Portraits

Family Portraits: Win, Aindra & Edga

Win and Aindra were both medical students from Myanmar who fell in love with each other while studying in Malaysia. In fact, they’ve lived in Malaysia for so many years that it has become home to them, even though they recently made the move back to their home country. With their little one Edga in tow now, they see lots of opportunities as Myanmar has risen up through the years and is a growing country.

I too have fond memories and links to Myanmar. My great-grandfather from my mother’s side moved from Myanmar to Malaysia years ago so part of my family history originates there. I have also traveled to Myanmar in 2008 where I spent 2 weeks around Yangon, Inle Lake, Bagan and the surrounding areas climbing stupas, cycling the streets, talking and eating with locals, chasing sunrises, and visiting churches. In Malaysia, I have photographed 2 Myanmar refugee weddings – for Zwe & Stellar and also Bobo & Catherine.

So recently, while Win and Aindra were back in Malaysia for a short holiday, we did a photo shoot for their family. It was a beautiful day in the park, and we had a great time together. Edga, the little man, was ever so happy to be with his parents chasing after birds, being lifted in the air, or just simply walking around. Here are some of my favourites from our session together.

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Grace Tan In Family + Children Portraits, Portraits

The Fun-Filled Yap Family

It was one of those shoots that went so well, you hope and wish that every single family shoot was this easy. Firstly, we had this lovely lady to photograph, Mrs Gloria Chin. She told me she used to act and pose for photos when she was much younger, so she totally knew what to do and really worked it for the camera! I love her sincere smile, and her gung-ho-ness of walking the park despite the fact that she is not totally mobile according to her daughter, Mag.

20140714_Yap_FamilyPortraits_015 So this is Mag and Ming Ern. I got to know them through DUMC, and they are a really fun couple to photograph. Mag really planned this shoot well and even brought chairs and props for the shoot! Ming Ern is a fun, extroverted kind of guy and the kids from Mag’s brother’s family really adore him.

20140714_Yap_FamilyPortraits_018 So here’s Joel, Joey and Jaeydon. I can’t remember what I said that was so funny!

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Grace Tan In Boudoir, Casual Portraits, Family + Children Portraits, Maternity, Portraits, Studio

Studio Portraits

Over the past few years, many families have walked through our doors and spent one hour with us in our natural light studio, immortalising family relationships through our images.

STUDIO_10 STUDIO_07 Other than cute babies and families, we’ve also photographed casual portraits of couples…

STUDIO_05 Boudoir photos…

STUDIO_03 Corporate headshots for professionals…

STUDIO_02 …The only thing we haven’t tried yet is fitting an animal into the studio!

While most of these sessions did not manage to make it to the blog, I’ve decided to select a few of our favourites and show them to you here. These images are taken by the Stories photographers, mainly Grace, Diane, Jamie, Nigel and Weiming. Do contact us if you’d like to pop over our studio for some portraits!

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

Canon Family Portraiture Workshop

20140803_CANON_FAMILY_WORKSHOP_09 In half a day, 25 participants were taught the basics of what makes a great family portrait even better and were even given the opportunity to photograph real families! Chaos reigned supreme during the shoot as with all normal family portrait sessions, and together, we perspired, jiggled rattles, played games, and simply had fun. It was my first workshop specifically on family portraiture, and though I had spoken at many workshops and seminars before, this one felt a little different.

I am thankful to Canon (yay, thanks Chris, Shing Eu and Kevin!) for being the main sponsor for this workshop, and for giving me the opportunity as to speak as their EOS Academy Instructor. We also got to test out the PIXMA Pro-10 printer which was great! I loved the prints that came out of it, so this one’s a keeper! We’ll definitely be printing more images and displaying it around our studio soon.

I’d also like to thank Diane, Jamie and Alex for assisting me on this day because no successful workshop can be done alone.

Here’s some photos from the workshop over the weekend, held at Tropicana Golf & Country Club.

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Grace Tan In Family + Children Portraits, Maternity, Portraits

Maternity & Family Portraits: Chee Seng, Sze Min & Katelynn

Chee Seng & Sze Min and Alex & I have a lot in common, really. We have individually conquered Mt Kinabalu before, are certified divers, have 2 daughters that are the same age (1.5 years) and are expecting our 2nd child in the same year! Oh, and we live in PJ too, just 10 minutes apart!

The difference is that they dated for 10 years and were married in 2011. Alex and I dated for 2 years and married in 2006. :)

It was great getting to know this little family early one weekday morning at their apartment in PJ. Our main purpose was really to just capture moments together that are classic, timeless and real. Honestly, Sze Min and I share the same values when it comes to photographing our children. We feel that time flies so quickly and everyday is a new learning experience with the child. It sounds cliched, but it is true… they DO grow up way too quickly! And part of being a kiasu parent is the feeling that we don’t want to miss a single experience in their childhood years.

Even when I look back at the photos of my daughter just a few months ago, I notice her facial features have changed somewhat. I am really glad that it is relatively cheaper nowadays to photograph our families as compared to the days of our parent’s time! Developing film was pricey (and 1 roll was only 36 shots!)! There were no such thing as lifestyle portrait shoots (If you wanted a family portrait, you’d just get one done at the studio, and you only get 1 image!). Now we can shoot in burst mode even on our phones and seriously not think about it.

The downside is that most of us don’t even print most of these images, and the value of photos as it is, goes down when you have an overabundance of images all stored… somewhere.

But a well taken family portrait will be cherished for years and years to come.

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