The Evanoffs

Did I tell you that I love Canadians? They are warm and friendly and one after another my Canadian clients have introduced their friends to me and I can't thank them enough for the support shown :)

Meet the Evanoffs, a Canadian couple who recently came for their Bloom and Teeny Weeny sessions. The Bloom shoot was wonderfully relaxed and I made a mental note of some of the shots we took (including props used) to carry over to their Teeny Weeny session in a few weeks time. Well, the newborn session with little Aidan really made me sweat literally! He wasn't sleepy even after many feeds, he fussed, cried, poo and peed :p Mummy and daddy were on the verge of giving up. Plus we had all those challenging shots planned but now seem unachievable with a very awake baby :(

Well we did what we could and I am so happy with what we managed to achieve despite the difficulties. The "aeroplane" shot in particular which was requested by mummy proved the most challenging and I implore you not to try this unless you have all safety measures checked! Newborn safety in photography is of utmost importance and we take this very seriously.

Thank you Theresa, Darryl and Aidan for your time, here are a few favourites from your session :)

the shot above inspired by Baby As Art :)

Looking forward to 2012

2011 was not a good year for many I know. It was quite a bad one for me too the first half of 2011. The year started with me falling sick twice. Now this is rare if you know me and to get hit twice at the beginning of the year started the bad luck rolling. The next few months saw us receiving two lawyers' letters (long story), my kids contracted HFMD, chicken pox too even though vaccinated, business was slow up till June, our photos were used everywhere without credit, my grandma passed away and my mother took thousands from me to settle her debts leaving us with no vacation last year.

But why bore you with my sob story?! Here are the good bits of 2011! :) On the business front for The Studio Loft, we had an awesome year and a few milestones. In Feb we welcomed Joanne Tan as our 3rd photographer, she was teaching at a childcare centre before and is great with kids especially the naughty ones :p Wen Lin and I are happy to have her on board working with us. We also had intern extraordinaire Yvonne Soh for 8 weeks! She is an extremely talented illustrator and artist and we were bloody lucky to have her as our intern :)

We had our very first walk-in promotion OUTDOORS! It was the Easter Hop-Out and it was a great success although the weather was rather unkind to us. We also smashed all walk-in records with our innovative and awesomely cute settings for the Children's Day Walk-In! The first day of the walk-in on Childrens' Day itself saw us not being able to cope with the number of people coming in so we had to turn a few away otherwise we would have been shooting till 9pm!

In total for 2011, we shot 283 Blooms (maternity), 135 Teeny Weenys (newborn), 215 Little Big Shots and 155 We Are Families! We are so grateful for all the support shown to us by our clients, old and new, and hope that 2012 will be an even better year for the studio. What's coming up for The Studio Loft in 2012? First big thing will be we are moving to a BIGGER and better space come 3rd quarter of 2012! We are also hoping to hire one more digital imaging artist to help us with post processing work. To stay at the top of our game, we will be attending more professional photography workshops and may even hold one ourselves! We will strive to continually come up with new and exciting promotions and interesting settings and backgrounds for walk-in or walk-out shoots in appreciation of all our clients who love to come for these mini-shoots. So stay tuned by "liking" our Facebook page :)

Last year also saw great exposure for me as a mobile photographer. Three of my iPhone Instagram photos were selected for the SIN exhibition out of 8000+ submissions and I am very honoured to be a part of the Singapore Instagram community. I was also given a HTC Sensation smartphone as part of HTC's marketing campaign getting photographers from different backgrounds to shoot with a HTC. Six of my photos shot with the HTC was featured in advertorials for the phone company. I was also interviewed in The Straits Times for an article on the growing trend of travel photography with the phone camera.

This blog was nominated as Best Family Blog in the Singapore Blog Awards 2011. I didn't win the category but won a few new friends :) Since then I have not been actively blogging due to work and family commitments. I am hoping to be more active this year so do keep your comments coming as I would feel better knowing I am talking to somebody out there and not just to myself :D

I baked my most ever in 2011 and was constantly Instagramming as well! This led to me forming a special friendship with the Instagram Mamas - @kawaiisensei @tygermama @catfong and @jmeelim! These ladies made each day much easier to get through with our Whatsapp chats, monthly meetups for tea or baking classes together! Thank you so much for your friendship :)

2012 sees a big change in my family's schedule. Kayden our eldest starts his primary education this year! Dylan continues at nursery level in the childcare centre (much to his dismay) and we parents have been struggling to stay awake and sane since the year began :p Here's hoping the new year gets better as we go along. That goes for you too and I wish everyone a great 2012!  

I leave you with a few shots from one of my last few Teeny Weeny shoots of 2011 :)

Retro Radio Baby!

Can't resist posting this shot of baby Jun (9 days young) I shot this morning. He is lying on top of a giant retro radio! Isn't it cute?! And the baby too of cos :D Happy midweek everyone!

Teeny Weeny Alicia

Since we came up with the Teeny Weeny newborn package last June, it's been a year of pee, poop and regurgitated breastmilk :p I'm not complaining though, the perks of handling a sweet smelling baby, the touch of velvety soft skin and at times, flashes of sweet dreaming smiles just about put any mess the babies make away.

Here's a session done in January for the Holland family. Thank you for having me in your lovely home and capturing shots of your sweet Alicia :)

Gabrielle

Oh my, I just realised that I have forgotten to update my blog with newborn pictures but they are all on The Studio Loft's facebook! So here's the first of many backdated newborn shoots. Ah we have renamed our newborn shoots to Teeny Weeny by the way :) Fitting don't you think?

Ok, on to teeny weeny Gabrielle.
Remember our very cheerful father-to-be from our Blooming Fun album? Here he is still as cheerful with his brand new baby girl! We love how enthusiastic he was about the shoot and even brought some of his own props. Thanks Chloe and Andrew for choosing us to shoot Gabby's newborn portraits, hope you love the pictures!

Talking about enthusiasm, Andrew even edited a video of some shots he took during the session together with the final retouched shots. Check it out! Thanks again you guys :)



And on to the pictures (1st 3 shots by Charlene)

teddy!

Check out this cute teddy who dropped by the studio this morning! :)
Shot in our new natural light shooting area with a few new props, isn't he just the cutest little bubby?

Lumiere Au Natural

Since June of this year, we have taken over a new area of the shophouse and have converted it into our natural light shooting area.

We also bought new furniture for use as props during Teeny Weeny shoots.

Here's one of our Teeny Weeny client shot in the new studio area using natural light only. I don't think I have had a baby shown me the middle finger before! Guess he wasn't too pleased to be disturbed hehe :p