Intern Extraordinaire Part Deux

Last year around this time, we had the pleasure of having Yvonne Soh as our intern at the studio. If you had seen her illustrations you will know that I am not exaggerating when I tell you she is DAMN good! See my blog masthead above? That's her work too.

So the first day she started her slavery internship, we put her illustration skills to good use hee hee :p We were preparing for a baby fair and wanted some tee-shirts printed and she helped us with the character illustrations and tee design all within a day! Here's a shot I took of Yvonne and she has included Wen Lin, Joanne and me with her in the shot using the illustrations she did for our tee-shirt :) Cute right?

While she was interning with us, we also tried to incorporate her illustrations with our photography and you can see examples of our collaboration here and here. She also designed our 2012 brochure, Christmas card templates, my blog's namecard etc and overall we were very happy with our intern of last year. Well, guess what? Yvonne is joining us again next week for a few weeks! We can't wait for her to help us with that mountain of photo editing to work with her again and Yvonne, good luck with your final year project, see you soon! :)

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 :)

Canada Cuppies

A few months ago we tried our hand at photographing cupcakes by the very talented Audrey from Sugar Pie Gourmet Cakes and Classes and yesterday I planned a session for the girls Wen Lin & Joanne to have a cupcake decorating class with her and yes, we took more photos :p

Here are some shots of the cupcakes which Audrey made for the Canadian Association of Singapore. We were after an autumn feel with warm hues. All those leaves you see are handmade with fondant and totally edible!

Happy Children's Day!

We at The Studio Loft had a great time planning and creating our Children's Day Walk-In which started today - fittingly on Children's Day! And what overwhelming support we had as more than 30 of you walked in and I am so sorry to have to turn a few of you away as we were really packed out for the day. It's like those shops that have the "sold out" sign put up by lunch time, now I can identify :p We hope that those who missed out today can still come for the next and final two days of the walk-in which is this coming Monday and Tuesday. We would like to thank everyone who came and made today a record breaking one for our walk-in history! Thank you! :) Special thanks to Elly and Itsy Bitsy Me too for sponsoring outfits for the children and setting up stall here for parents to shop their wares.

I would also like to thank my girls at The Studio Loft - Wen Lin and Joanne for working hard the whole day and managing to protect the props from being destroyed :p Also thanks to my Instagram mama friends (who all incidentally were clients of The Studio Loft before!) Cat, Rachel and Steff for letting your kids be our models for the trial shoot and promotion flyers.

Here's wishing all our children and yours a very happy Children's Day!!!

The Big One

So it's been a month since the big birthday party for the big one before he embarks on a new milestone to Primary School. Up till lately it hasn't hit me that he's going to school, a real school and soon! I've got like 3 months left with my big baby before he becomes a slave to the public education systerm. No more happy days off when grandpa decides to bring him to the zoo. No more vacations during off peak season, we now have to jostle with other families who have school going children. Oh and not to mention the early early mornings we have to get used to. So not looking forward :s

On the bright side, we do have 3 more months to go! I intend to spend a lot more time with Kay during this period. His 6th birthday was one event he has been so looking forward to. We decided to go all out, inviting all his classmates from school and other childhood friends. Heck I even made a trial cake in preparation for this party! He wanted a Beyblade theme, now that was mighty challenging. I got Yvonne jie jie (my ex intern) to draw Gingka, his favourite Beyblade character and composed him together with a photo I shot of him in the studio to complete his party invite :) It was a sports party and he chose two of his favourite sports, basketball and tennis. This was followed by a Beyblade tournament amongst the boys. I am sorry the girls were left out but they were busy eating the cupcakes anyway :p    

Below are some pictures from the party shot by Joanne jie jie. I beam just seeing how happy you were enjoying the company of your little friends :)

 

Son, if there's one word that can describe what I am feeling as I look at you now, it's pride. How you have matured into a sensible young man. Who would have guessed as you were an extremely demanding baby. You are not only a good son, you are a loving brother and grandson as well. We hope you will be a great student too! :) Here's to your last 3 months of kiddy freedom-hood and let's have fun! Happy 6th birthday Kay! We love you heaps! *smoooch*

Goofing on the tracks

images, editing and gif animation by our fellow goofball, intern Yvonne :D

Red Dot

It was my first time at the Red Dot! We walked passed it after a shoot and the red wall and windows were just shouting at us to take a picture there so here you go :)

Ms Wen Lin looking all hip and cool. Profile picture woman!


And here's the skinny one Joanne, the small one Wen Lin and the giant - me :s

Boxing Day party

It has become tradition for me to have a Boxing Day party to celebrate Christmas with family, friends and those I work with so it was no different for Christmas 2010.

I love the challenge of getting interesting and relevant xmas presents for my friends and family and the look on their faces when they unwrap the pressies (can be bad sometimes!). So here's what I got for them, tell me am I a good gifter or what? :p

Ok for my family, Kayden got a Bey Blade stadium from his daddy, that's a no brainer, he's been going on about bey blades for the past few weeks! For Dylan, I got him a 3 wheeled scooter! He was so happy when he opened the gift becoz now he can join his brother for scootering adventures along the HDB corridor :p For Erwin, I got him a book on millionaires' secrets so he can strike it rich soon and I can be a tai-tai hahaha :D

For my dear friend Corinne and my employee Wen Lin and ex employee Charlene, I got them little handmade lomo camera necklaces from an Etsy shop, aren't they just simply adorable?!

Yvonne, another dear friend who loves everything Japanese, I got her a cherry blossom fragrance from The Body Shop so she can smell japanese all day long :) For my other dear friend Terence who's been training and taking part in triathlons, I got him a phone pouch which he can strap to his arm while running. Dave, my writer friend who's into comics, I got him a thick hardcover book from DC Comics. Ik Hui who complained to me about her dark circles, I got her a concealer for her eyes kekeke. Ashley my ex employee who recently got an iPhone, I got her a speaker for her phone and for her girlfriend Shirley who recently picked up photography, I gave her a tee with a hanging camera design.

Ok next came the tricky ones, the bloggers. For Edmund, the pastor, I got him this book The Case for GOD which talks about the mindset of religion in this modern day. Eunice my travel blogger friend got a travel pouch designed like a postmarked letter from Italy, very cute :D As for Walter, man he was tough to buy for, so in the end I got him some hanging mobile photo holder thingy :p

We had too much food as usual and I made desserts we learnt from our last staff outing to Palate Sensations (cooking school). I made Vanilla Panna Cotta with raspberry compote and Chocolate Lava cakes :D

Hope you all had fun, see you at the next party!