newborn

Grace Tan In Beautiful Everyday, Casual Portraits, Family + Children Portraits, Life, Maternity, Musings, Portraits, Studio

Highlights: Family Portraits 2015

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” ~ Robert Brault

Each of us only has 24 hours in a day. When I first started my business, I was grateful for the extra ‘time’ that I could have for myself, and then when I had kids, I wondered where all that time went! Each day, I am surrounded by news of disaster, and how easy it is to lose someone you love. Ironically, when I have time with my kids, I just wish they would fall asleep faster, and when I am away shooting a wedding at a beautiful destination, I wish I could be back with them.

I also want to do more in life, but when I have time on my hands, I just want to laze and not do anything.

Such is the irony of life. And then, before you know it, time just slips through your fingers and then a week passes by, and then a month, and a year. Just recently, on Sunday, I sat down with my husband Alex at a random cafe in PJ to talk about life (without the kids!). It felt like a breath of fresh air. We ordered fries, tea and coffee, then flipped our mac screen open to look at our February calendar and intentionally planned date nights, family nights with the kids, swimming sessions etc! We left that cafe a little more rejuvenated, and a bit more focused with what we wanted to achieve in our life as a family.

So, as a pause… here’s a little compilation we did of some of the 101 families we photographed last year. We hope you will take a moment to cherish your family today.

Photography by Grace, Diane, Jamie & Weiming

Grace Tan In Beautiful Everyday, Family + Children Portraits, Life, Musings, Portraits, Relationships, Studio

You Made me a Mother

This Mother’s Day, I’d like to share a poem that I came across on Facebook, written by this lady, Melanie Tan. It’s a really lovely piece adapted from another similar poem. I love how she has captured the feeling of motherhood through these lines. Wishing all amazing mothers out there, a Happy Mother’s Day.

20150429_FAMILY_NICO_MURIEL_YASMIN_27 Two blue lines,
Tears, excitement and fears
Will I be a good mother?
Can I survive child birth?
I wasn’t ready

Then, the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard
Hearing your heartbeat for the first time
That fast paced rhythm
I told myself, I can do this

I felt you
Your first kick
I smiled
Your first in-vitro hiccups
I laughed

Suddenly, you were here
Daddy’s nose, mummy’s lips
and those eyes
staring at me when we first met
and I fell in love

I held you, fed you
You cried and I cried
Our 3am staredowns
Sleepless nights

That smell of your head
Little wandering hands
A sniff, a kiss
While you gently suckle on my breast
You doze off
With droplets of love on your lips
I wipe them off and put you down gently
Thinking how much I will miss this
When you grow older

But there are also times I wanted to give up
Then you smile at me
Your cheeky wide grin
And you grab my hands with those little fingers
I pick myself up and console myself
This only gets better

We are growing together
Seeing the world as new
I’ll open my heart and shower you with love
You’ll giggle and I’ll do it all over again
And we’ll walk hand in hand
Until you let go
and explore the world with your two little feet
and I’ll be right behind you
Cheering you on
Or to catch you when you fall
Wherever you need me most
I’ll be there, always

I made you…

But you made me a mother.

Diane In Family + Children Portraits, Newborn, Portraits, Studio

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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Grace Tan In Family + Children Portraits, Maternity, Newborn, Portraits, Studio

Maternity & Newborn Portraits: Timothée

When we walked into the Lacour family home, we were so amazed at their antique furniture collection! I found out that Justine and Cyrille had shipped all these furniture from Singapore where they used to live. It was quite a task moving some of the heavy Buddhas around to make space for the newborn shoot. What amazed me more was that Justine was helping to move the dining table herself, just 7 days after her C-sec! Where does this woman get her strength from?

Diane photographed their maternity portraits at our studio and I shot Timothée’s newborn shots at their home. What a handsome little chap!

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Grace Tan In Family + Children Portraits, Portraits, Studio

Dreams Come True: Shaun & Jochebed

Shaun and Jochebed have waited a long time for Eden to arrive. Way too long for any longing parent-to-be. In fact, the waiting was the cause of many heartaches, tears and prayers to her Lord Jesus Christ. Their hearts longed to see that test kit prove positive, but time and again, they were disappointed. She desired to conceive and prayed earnestly for more than 3 years. Every time she hears a story of a parent who doesn’t ‘want’ a child that they have conceived, she was heartbroken. To her, every child is precious, especially the autistic children at the centre she works at. The doctors suggested IVF but they decided to try IUI instead. Unfortunately, it was unsuccessful.

One of the breakthroughs she experienced was when she really delved into the word of the Lord to see what it had to say about women and pregnancy. God caused many miracles to happen and every barren women who loved God in the bible conceived. Childbirth is really in God’s original plan, and He is totally into expanding the next generation! (just check out those old testament family trees… wow!). Jochebed was led to google stories about miracle conceptions and it really increased her faith to believe.

One month after they tried IUI, Jochebed conceived naturally. Precious little Eden came into the world and turned their lives upside down. As I chatted with Jochebed about her story, we both unanimously agreed about how many women feel ashamed to discuss issues about infertility. Especially in Asian culture where you have to ‘endure’ comments from well-meaning family members who ask year after year… “When are you having children?”

For me, I waited 6 years to have Krysta, but that was a personal choice. However, with irregular periods like mine, it was a miracle that I too, conceived Krysta, and subsequently, Kyle. It occurred to me that every conception is really a gift from God. While we can try many treatments, in the end, it is the Lord who gives. But we really do not have to feel ashamed to talk about such things. There are many women out there who have shared similar experiences.

God is indeed good.

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