reflections

Grace Tan In Life, Musings, Running a Business

2024 Reflections

Each year, we strive to be better than yesterday—not just in the photos we take but in the connections we build. At Stories, excellence isn’t just about quality; it’s about creating an experience that feels warm, personal, and meaningful. However, developing personal connections can be challenging as our number of clients grow. In 2024, we photographed 274 personal events and portrait sessions, and the year hasn’t even ended yet. This is a milestone we are so proud of!

One way we nurture these connections is through community events. This year, we hosted the Family Rhythm Father’s Day event, participated in Nurts Day, and joined the Ibu Family and Private International School fair. These moments remind us that our work goes beyond photos; it’s about celebrating relationships and creating memories together.

Looking ahead to 2025, our hope is to deepen these relationships even further. We’re challenging ourselves to grow creatively, improve our service quality, and enhance efficiency—all while staying true to what makes Stories special.

That also means evolving with our clients’ needs. While we’ve been blessed to welcome so many families into our studio, we recognize the need to reconnect with the wedding industry. It’s a question we often ask ourselves: How do we remain relevant to our clients as trends change?

As new creatives join the Stories team each year, we constantly ask ourselves, “How do we maintain a consistent, exceptional brand experience while allowing space for fresh ideas to shine?” By encouraging open discussion amongst team members, we find ourselves in a space where we are never allowed to be comfortable for too long. We disrupt ourselves again and again, pushing ourselves towards a higher standard, year after year.

The encouragement we’ve received keeps us inspired. With 137 five-star Google reviews and 72 Facebook recommendations, we’re reminded that the work we do matters to you—and that’s everything to us.

If you have been a client of ours, please send us a message to share your experiences with Stories. Your words not only keep us going but help us grow. Thank you for trusting us with your moments—here’s to creating even more moments together!

Bin Bin Tan In Misc, News, Parties & Events, Running a Business

2023 Year End Reflections

We don’t remember days, we remember moments.

This quote is at the forefront of our Stories’ Lifestyle website and is one that speaks deeply to our team. At the core of it, our job has been to immortalise your happy moments through photographs and videos. This year we went beyond that by engaging with community and creating experiences for families to make new and unique memories together.

Here’s some of the moments we remember from this year!

Engaging with community at the Ibu and Makchic Events

We were happy to be invited to both events held by Ibu and Makchic this year, two organisations whose work we love dearly. At the events we created a mobile studio setup and took complimentary family photos. It was really nice to be able to give the event goers a little momento to bring home with them and to give some families who may not have stepped into a studio a chance for a professionally taken family photo!

Father’s Day Beach Adventure

We worked with educational program organiser Mad About Education (“MAE”) to create a unique Father’s Day experience where families spent a morning in Pantai Kelanang where we engaged in some play activities, explored mangroves and of course, took family photos! The event was such a success we got requests for similar experiences immediately. (Psst.. we’re in the midst of planning more of these, so stay tuned!)

The Flight of Imagination

And finally.. our proudest creation of the year! I’m sure you’ve heard of personalised children’s book where the text is changed to reflect the child’s name. Together with the team at Makchic, author Kimberly Lee and illustrator Munsya Rahman, we created a one of its kind personalised photo storybook experience where not only are the names personalised, so are the pictures in the book – replaced with photos of your own family. The process in taking the photos and having them be a part of a book, not to mentioned to actual unboxing and seeing your images will be an experience your family will treasure forever!

Looking back, we are so proud to have all of you along for the ride as we continue to create memories worth making. We look forward to seeing all of you again in 2024!

Oh! Don’t miss out on the promotion we’re running for The Flight of Imagination Book Experience! Click on the button below to find out more.

Take me to The Flight of Imagination

Our founder, Grace Tan, has also written a year-end reflection on our business website. Do check it out here!

Sarah Lim In For Photographers, Life, Musings, Running a Business

Reflections of the Year 2020 by Grace

I never expected 2020 to turn out the way it did. The Wawasan 2020 vision I had as a teenager was quite different to what I realised this year, but if there’s one word to describe the year that went passed, it is gratefulness. We launch into 2021, going into our 13th year of business. We’re going to be ‘teenagers’…no longer the child we were when we first started out in 2008.

Grace Tan In Life, Musings, Relationships

Welcome, 2017!

As I sit in a hotel room in Dhaka, Bangladesh on the last day of 2016, I reflect on all that has happened this year. It’s been a year of ups and downs, at times filled with beautiful memories, and at times, financially stretching for us as a company. Yet, perhaps with some childlike faith, I have hope. I am hoping that 2017 will be one that is great. A year that will bring about change, as we have set into motion some plans for the year.

Recently, in between our wedding shoots here in Bangladesh, I had time to walk the streets a little. We bumped into an old curiosity shop that looked like it sold antiques (or lookalikes!). I was drawn to a hourglass that had a compass at the top and bottom. That afternoon, as I was praying about the year ahead, I felt God telling me two things: That I need to depend on Him as the compass of my life. He would give me the direction I seek desperately. And the hourglass reminds me that my time on earth is short – what am I doing daily that makes a difference to the world?

Naturally, my thoughts go to my children and leaving a legacy in their lives. It would be tragic if I spent so much time working on my business but neglected the welfare of my kids (and husband!). If today was the last day of my life, would I feel happy with all I had done in life?

Let’s make each day count. Happy New Year from us in Dhaka and have a great start to 2017!

BTS-day1-bangladesh *Thank you to the random waiter who suggested we have a photo together after the holudh event, and who actually took it for us on our phone! (Left to Right: Jamie, Grace & Jennifer)

Grace Tan In For Photographers, Life, Musings, Running a Business

Reflections: Photography as a Lifestyle and Business

It’s 2am and I lie awake in bed, one of those nights where my thoughts lead me to my work, life and my general state of happiness as a person. It’s been 10 years since I started this journey as a photographer, and in these past 10 years, I’ve explored many areas of photography – from travel to documentary, posed portraits vs candid photography, learnt about studio and natural light, thought about diversifying my work to get various sources of income, and then thought about finding my niche so that I can get the type of clients that I really like.. Lately, I’ve been thinking about how to grow my team, spending more time with my family yet running this business that I love and thinking about my retirement plan when my body is too weak to shoot.

These past 10 years, I’ve also felt insecurities as a photographer – not knowing if I am on the right path, feeling envy when others are successful, worried about how to move forward in this business.

How I wish there was a blueprint in running a successful photography business.

Many of the lessons I learnt while running this business was built on trial and error. I have swayed to the left and to the right over the years, and now, I think it’s time to go back to the start.

What drew me to photography in the first place?

I just love capturing life.

People intrigue me. Everyone is so different and yet, the human emotions of love, joy or sadness connect us. I love photographing human connections – that moment when a child looks trustingly at his mother, when the father of the bride cries as his little daughter is finally getting married, that laughter shared between life-long friends.

This thought comes through again and again – keep doing what you love and you’ll excel in it. But it also takes a lot of work. On days when I am not shooting, I am trying to learn something new – reading about ways to improve my business, looking at Pinterest to find new inspiration, signing up for workshops and trying out different genres of photography just to upskill myself.

So 10 years on, I am still learning and doing what I love. It’s what keeps me going.

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