forest

Rustic Datai Langkawi wedding: Graham & Elaine

Two architects with an eye for detail and the love of the outdoors found their perfect location to celebrate their union – on the beach at the Datai, Langkawi. Graham grew up in Scotland, and that was where he met this cute, Malaysian-born girl named Elaine. With such a deep attraction to life off the grid, Graham and Elaine chose to live in Nova Scotia, Canada (google it, the location looks totally AMAZING!). It boasts a totally magical natural landscape, and they own a house in the forest overlooking the cove to the south and the Atlantic ocean to the east. Photovoltaic panels power their house with electricity, and they use wood for heat and water from a well. Their neighbours include birds, squirrels, porcupine, loons, ducks, deer and mink.

What a lifestyle that is so connected to nature. I love the thought of it, though I don’t think I am personally able to live like that!

20160227-WEDDING_GRAHAM_ELAINE-01 Graham and Elaine’s wedding was the perfect blend of Scottish tradition meeting Malaysian flavours. Even her wedding gown had elements of the Scottish kilt and the top of her gown had Indian elements, representing Elaine’s heritage. The colours green and purple are their favourites and they have incorporated them into their attire and wherever possible. Elaine’s mother crocheted the sole-less sandals for the bride and her bridesmaids and the whole look with the decorations were so rustic, organic and natural.

At the wedding reception, they shared stories of places they have been to and things they have done through story cards displayed on each table. So many intricate details that are simple, minimal and thoughtful.

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Jamie Ang In Portraits, Pre-Wedding & Engagement Portraits

Pre-Wedding in the Forest: Daniel & Rachel

When we first met Daniel and Rachel, they were rather nervous about the shoot. Both of them are admittedly camera shy and according to Rachel, Daniel doesn’t know how to smile for the camera. They brought along their friends, Aaron and Chrystin (who happened to be our previous clients), to help with the shoot. However, despite being camera shy, both Daniel and Rachel were naturals in front of the camera and they were so much fun to shoot! Daniel was constantly cracking jokes and making everyone laugh that it felt like we were hanging out with some friends instead of doing a photoshoot.

Daniel and Rachel are like the best of friends. Even after 10 years of courtship, they still amuse one another and make each other laugh. What amazed me most though, was that at the age of 17, Daniel already knew he wanted to marry Rachel someday. Talk about true love!

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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 Portraits, Pre-Wedding & Engagement Portraits

Engagement Portraits: Siva + Sumitha

The thing that strikes me about Sumi is how infectious her laugh is. She is so bubbly and always joyful. I am sure that is one of the reasons Siva is drawn to her! A few weeks before their engagement shoot, I met up with them at Starbucks in the Curve. Only one sandwich to be shared between the both of them for dinner. “Gearing up for the photo shoot & wedding” they said. Wow, such resilience.

Even though it rained half way through our shoot, Siva & Sumi’s spirits remained high. We continued the shoot in the rain, and in complete darkness, even after the sun had set. I love doing really impromptu things like this with my clients. Makes life more exciting! At the end of the shoot, Sumi said, “This is sooo much fun!” Well, Sumi, I had a really awesome time too. Looking forward to your wedding in March.

A quick change of outfit (at the Dataran Merdeka carpark toilet!) and a new location…

It started raining when we arrived at FRIM. Luckily the make up artist had this really cool strawberry umbrella in the car…

It’s so cute, I wish I could claim the glory and say that I planned it all. :)

In between intermittent rain, the sun came out for a short while – maybe 10 minutes?

And then the sun set, and it rained again…

This is where it got really interesting…

Since it was already raining, why not just go ahead and get wet? With so little light to play with, I decided to manoeuver two cars (Siva’s and mine!) into the best position for the shots below… (and Shu Wan holding one video light next to them)