Photography

Grace Tan In Casual Portraits, Life, Musings, Portraits, Studio

Dignity for Children’s Visit

Last week, we had 12 very special visitors to the Stories studio. It was an unusual day for us as we never had a group of teenagers visit us in this manner before. These teenagers were chatty, fun, cheeky and ambitious. You wouldn’t have thought that they came from underprivileged backgrounds or hold a refugee status here in Malaysia.

But thank God for amazing individuals who have volunteered their time and energy in order to give back to society. And especially so for the people behind Dignity for Children, a one stop community learning centre for the urban poor and underprivileged children. Their vision is to empower these children to break the cycle of poverty through quality education, which leads to a positive life transformation.

We were pleased to share our journey as photographers / videographers and to encourage these students to see that this is a viable career path. It was a good exposure for most of them and they even got to have their portraits photographed by our team! It was really worth it to see their smiles knowing that we made a small impact in their lives, even if it was only for 2 hours. We really pray for the best for these kids, and hope that they will lead successful lives as they make carve their path into adulthood.

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Grace Tan In Chinese Weddings, Weddings

Chinese Ancestral Home Ipoh Wedding: Si Howe & Joanne

Some time back, I photographed some portraits of Joanne for her 30th birthday and it was on that shoot that I met Si Howe. He struck me as a really fun loving, supportive guy who was ever willing to give Joanne a hoist to entertain her ideas of climbing trees for pictures. As we got to know each other more later, it struck me that they were two opposite personalities totally in love with each other. Si Howe, an obvious extrovert, was telling me all about his Ipoh wedding at his family courtyard home (where EVERYONE in their family holds a wedding!) and enticing Nigel and I with stories about giant Tanjung Tualang prawns served during the luncheon.

Needless to say, we were definitely looking forward to this wedding!

We were really smitten with the wonderful classic family home that we had the privilege of shooting in. Since Si Howe’s family was a large one, the tea ceremony took quite a while, serving approximately 180 people! One of the biggest challenges we had was doing a huge family photo that could accommodate everyone. At the entrance of the home (image below), it was hot in the midday sun, so to get everyone to stand / sit there even for 15 minutes would be really challenging. But the worst thing is that everyone would be squinting as they had to look towards the direction of the sun. So we moved everyone to the back of the house instead for the photos. Though it was very warm still, at least people weren’t squinting as much!

20141213_WEDDING_SIHOWE_JOANNE_0743 I love this marital bed that symbolises their union. Si Howe told me how he and another cousin had to painstakingly take the bed apart from another cousin’s home and transport it to this place. And then he had to put it together again, pretty much like a jigsaw puzzle. If you look carefully, you will see his yellow sticker notes on the bed frame which we ‘conveniently’ left in the shot. Tells a story!

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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 Portraits, Pre-Wedding & Engagement Portraits

The Food Story: Pre-Wedding of Chuen Wai & Kim

From day 1, their story revolved around food. It was February 2008 when they first met. Chuen Wai was working in Sagano Japanese Restaurant and Kim was interning at Sheraton Imperial. Despite her first impression of him (that he looked really young, even though he was 25 then!), they hit it off, and shortly after that on the same month, on Valentine’s Day, he presented her with a huge bouquet of flowers at work.

Things moved really quickly from that point onwards, as they spent lots of time talking about where to eat, what to eat, what new foods to experience, how to cook those new experiences, watching food channels on TV together, and traveling to places where food would dominate their itineraries.

However, since Kim had to head back to Switzerland to complete her studies, they spent 2 years in a long distance relationship with a 6 hour time difference. Eventually, Chuen Wai moved to Dubai and their time difference was shortened to 2 hours, which made it more manageable. And once Kim moved to Dubai, everything got even more exciting as they relived their love, commitment and passion to each other once again.

This May, Chuen Wai and Kim will tie the knot, and we would like to wish them a hearty congratulations! This shoot was quite a memorable one for the team, because initially, I was scheduled to do their pre-wedding shoot last October. However, the night before the shoot, I was really in a lot of pain from the Urinary Tract Infection I had, plus I was heavily pregnant. That morning of the shoot itself, I went into labour to deliver Kyle. Thank God for Jamie and Diane who were really amazing as they stepped up to replace me.

So before the shoot ended, I had Kyle in my arms. Though I never met Kim and Chuen Wai personally, I had communicated with them through many emails, and seeing these images made me feel that they are such a fun, relaxed couple to be around. Perhaps one day, we will meet and I would love to sample some of that cooking!

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Grace Tan In Family + Children Portraits, Portraits

Family Portraits: Meng Hwa, Celine, Amelie & Aiden

In 2014, we photographed many different families and couples, and we’re so glad to have made new friends through all those sessions. Now that it’s already February (where did the time go!), I can’t believe I still have a huge number of images that have yet to be blogged! So I am going to attempt to share more posts starting this week.

I met Meng Hwa and Celine at the Ibu Tots Fair that we participated in last September. They booked a family portrait session with us that day, and in no time at all, I was over at their home, photographing their two little adorable children. I loved the family dynamics and how Amelie loved Aiden. Now that I have 2 children of my own, coaxing an older sibling to kiss the younger one is sometimes a huge task on its own! The reaction ranges from willing participation to outright disagreement (which usually ends up in the younger one being pushed away a bit too roughly). But isn’t that the joy (and frustration sometimes!) of parenting toddlers?

Anyhow, I had a good time with this family, and even their extended family came to join in the shoot. I am sure the kids have grown since I last saw them! Hope to photograph this family again in the future. :)

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