Photography

Diane In For Photographers, Musings, Tips + Ideas

Composing Your Photos Like a Pro!

I don’t know about you, but I have a love-hate relationship with camera-gear talk. As much as I love gathering information about lenses and camera bodies, I also detest the thought that my gear is not good enough, even after spending a whole lot of money. It makes me and my bank account very sad. :(

While good camera gear helps add magic to photos, it only represents half the challenge (I mean, you don’t see us bringing little point-and-shoot cameras to our clients’ events!). Having an idea on how to compose a good image is key to a great shot, no matter the gear.

Since the year-end holidays are near and you will probably be traveling, I will show you some basic composition rules to help make your holiday shots better!

1. Rule of thirds

No, we’re not playing tic tac toe. :P

You’ve probably seen this grid in your smart-phone cameras. This is one of the most useful feature that you can have as it helps you align your horizon.

The other use for this is as a guide to place your subject at the points of interest, which are the points where the lines cross. Our eyes are drawn to these points, creating a pleasing photo.

Grace Tan In Chinese Weddings, Weddings

Purple craze: Wedding of Chris & Li Yen

We laughed till our sides ached. It was a day when creativity met madness, and when friends dared to show their true colours. Chris and Li Yen’s wedding happened some time back, but I can’t help but share these images with the rest of the world. It was Olympics season and some of the heng tai games had an element of sport to it… namely synchronized swimming! Totally unique, completely fun, and we even got a little wet from all that splashing in the pool!

You might have seen Chris and Li Yen’s pre-wedding photos here on the blog before, and probably got a sense of their personality through the images. You can tell that they are a really fun loving couple and don’t mind doing silly things in front of the camera. Li Yen has a spunky personality and tells me that till today, they dispute about who invited who out to dinner first, especially on their first date!

Chris and Li Yen, though it’s been a few months since your wedding, I still laugh when I look at these images. It brings back good memories for us. All the best for the future as you settle in Australia… and keep in touch!

Grace Tan In Chinese Weddings, Weddings

Mandarin Oriental Wedding: Colin & Kirsteen

She’s Malaysian and he’s Singaporean, but they met at school in Perth, Australia. Friendship blossomed and hours of conversation later, best friends became lovers. I truly believe that a relationship has a stronger foundation when it is built on friendship first. There’s just so much depth to it, especially since it started out with a love for mutual things. On the day of the wedding, everything felt really relaxed because this was their second event after their actual wedding ceremony in Perth about a week or so before.

Kirsteen gushed about her beautiful red evening gown that had her Iban heritage written all over it. In fact, it took her a long time to source for the right person in East Malaysia to weave the fabric and when it was completed, to find the right tailor for the job. Eventually, there wasn’t enough fabric to make the gown, so back to the weaving lady they went… and after much work, this gorgeous gown was made.

What struck me too was this really unique engagement ring that was heart shaped. I had never seen anything like that before. (I am sorely tempted to ask Alex to make one for me and propose all over again!). It was just gorgeous. It was then that I discovered that Colin’s mum is in the jewelry business and all the exquisite gems came from her.

There were so many rings, I had to ask Colin and Kirsteen which one was the wedding band!

We spent a few hours before the dinner reception just wandering around Mandarin Oriental for some portraits.

Grace Tan In Chinese Weddings, Church Weddings, Weddings

Fuchsia Pink Wedding: Daniel & Keshia

In today’s society, getting married before the age of 25 is considered young.

“We need to save up enough money first” or “Let’s enjoy singlehood while we can!”

For Daniel and Keshia, these thoughts were never on their mind. They loved each other, ever since they were best friends at school, and they knew for a fact that they wanted to marry each other. Personally, I think it’s a great idea to get married young, especially when you know for sure that’s what you want. You have more years to build life together and you don’t keep each other waiting for too long!

Daniel and Keshia, we had an awesome time at your wedding. Thanks for sharing your lives with us. Loved the fact that you wanted us to ‘highlight’ your height differences… not to hide it, but to make it obvious! Haha… the both of you are absolutely fun loving people and I am sure you’ll build a great marriage together, with God in the centre.

For the people viewing this blog post, be warned, I am not very good at cutting down the number of images in one post! And if you still want to see more images, there’s a slideshow too at the end of the post!

Grace Tan In Musings, Relationships, Running a Business, Tips + Ideas

How to keep your photographers happy (& ultimately give you better photos)

How many times do you walk into a restaurant and think… “How can I make life better for this waiter?” If most of us are honest, we rarely, if ever think about those thoughts. We expect to be served, to be treated well, and when things don’t go the way we expect, we rant and complain. It is probably true for a lot of people working in the service industry… hotels, hospitals, tour operators…

And even photographers.

When I first started working in this industry, I knew that it was the little things that differentiated a good service from a great one. The client and their needs are always top on my mind, and I made sure to communicate that to our entire team… from our communications to the photographers on the shoot, and up till delivery stage. Someone told me once, that if you show genuine care to your clients, they know it. It has always been our principle to make sure our clients get the best experience from us. So it does sadden us sometimes when we get the occasional client who doesn’t treat us the same way.

I do admit, most of our clients are amazing. They are thoughtful, kind, generous… even when there’s a million other things to think about on their wedding day. It makes us feel so appreciated. To know that we’re not just another ‘vendor’, but that we’re treated as friends. Ultimately, we just want to do even better and more for these clients!

* The Stories team at work (left to right, top to bottom): Johan, Diane, Ben, Weiming, Felicia and Mark

Here are some simple ways that can keep your photographers happy throughout the wedding day:

1. Do remember to feed us – Being on our feet for 10 hours on your wedding day, carrying kgs of equipment is not an easy task. Most Malaysians are really hospitable and make sure that we are well fed during lunch and dinner. We do not expect to be seated at the table with your guests since we’ll be moving around a lot during dinner anyway. It’s always best to just order a vendor’s meal like fried rice or a burger from the hotel for the team. Sometimes though, there were days when all we got for dinner were soggy McDonald’s that were bought hours ago, or a pack of egg tarts for dinner. A hungry photographer can sometimes turn a little grumpy. Sometimes.

2. Please prepare a room at the hotel for us – This is relevant if you require a same day slideshow to be created by us. Our base is in Petaling Jaya, so sometimes it may not be feasible for us to travel 30 minutes from your home in Klang to PJ, work tirelessly without a break to create a slideshow and then drive another 30 minutes to a hotel in KL, all within 4 hours. Photographers hardly get any rest. It would make our life a lot easier if we didn’t have to spend so much time traveling, but can go to a dedicated hotel room just for the team to work, take a nap if necessary, and have a shower to freshen up.

This room should not be shared with other guests because it’s really difficult to work comfortably when we have people looking over our shoulder, expecting to see images or wanting to talk to us when we really have a deadline to meet. Sometimes, we are given function rooms to use, but that is not really ideal. Most of these rooms do not have shower facilities, nor proper seats to rest comfortably. I find it sad when a client or wedding planner expects us to shower in the public toilet at the hotel, or not freshen up at all prior to dinner. Even sadder when we are placed in a store room somewhere to prepare the same day slideshow (thank God this only happened once).

3. Do give us sufficient time for portraits – We know time is precious on your wedding day, but we want to do the best for you too. Do allocate at least 30-45 minutes sometime during the day for a portrait session for the both of you. We know that sometimes, this eats into your mingling time with guests, but we feel that it’s important to make time for it. Please be patient with us if it seems like the portrait sessions take a while, or overruns in terms of time.

4. Do tell us how you feel at the end of the day – We love to hear feedback! If you are happy with our service throughout the day, do let us know before we say goodbye. Those little words like thank you goes a loooong way! 10 hours (and sometimes more!) of exhaustion is worthwhile knowing that our clients appreciate our work and attentiveness.

*Mother hen – Grace