i had the wonderful opportunity to celebrate Cindy & Weiqi’s union with a portrait session. Cindy had picked out a pretty lace dress from ASOS and she looked so gorgeous! Of course, Weiqi was looking sharp too and the both of them looked so cute together. 

We shot under extreme sunlight in the mid-afternoon sun and the light was so harsh but we made it work ;) Many of her friends can’t believe it’s her when they look at her photographs, “she doesn’t look so demure!” her friends say. In between whether she has trouble walking on granite stones and grass or she says something funny, a laugh will escape from weiqi’s mouth and his eyes will light up because Cindy makes Weiqi smile from the inside and making her happy, makes him happy.

She’s one who’s shy about how gorgeous she is, never playing it up and that’s what i think makes her all the more endearing. I definitely felt so honoured to be able to capture the way they love and I wish them a blessed and beautiful marriage that will grow from strength to strength with much laughter, joy and love!

so yes, part three of my adventure with sis haha - sidetrack, i realize i’m a very chapter by chapter blogger. i like to segment my photos and each post the photographs need to complement each other and stuff. weird haha and so that’s why i have posts that are entitled “part three” - but anyway, onto our adventure.

after a super full dinner of chee cheong fun and porridge (yum!), we decided to take a walk and headed towards ann hsiang hill area. and as we were crossing the road I spotted this huge lomography sign glowing bright red in the night. cool! they were having some kind of event…not sure what it was though haha but nobody stopped us when me and my sis cruised right in to check out the new store. 

but if you frequent the other toy camera shops in singapore as much as i do (which honestly is not that…much haha but enough…i frequent the 2nd hand camera shops more often ;)) well, you’d have seen most of the stuff already. so when we browsed enough, shuffled in the crowd enough and stepped on enough streamers, we continued our walk. that was when we were deliberating about photographing a stranger (haha) and then it was time to head home <3

the end of the adventure! till the next one :D

I need to share this before it’s too late! Some time back I did a portrait session with the beautiful and talented Nabillah for her The New Paper feature. Her story is a special one, she with many odds against her has actually secured a place at the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London! 

However, due to the high fees of the school, she has been trying to garner media support in hopes that someway, somehow she’ll be able to get the fundings she needs. During our portrait session, she played for me a piece and the second photograph is her in the middle of that song. She doesn’t just play the piano, she plays the kind of music that touches your soul and make one swell up just at it’s beauty. And I know, that one can be technically perfect but never create that kind of music that carries weight. It was definitely an honour to listen to her song.

Here’s the link to the TNP article where you can read more about her story and if you can help or know someone who can please drop me an email at info@nicolethen.com and i will link you guys up ;) thank you (click)

old ruins

we travelled in these pickups!

M+W with marcus doing some mid action talk :P haha

walking to the entrance

entrance of the cave…well, you have to climb a bit of course haha

oh hey cave wow wee done.

“i’m batman…” he whispers

more cave

beautiful mountains

saw this little girl walking towards me

and one more when she got closer

after having a scrumptious lunch we headed off to the caves. we were suppose to go there with the children or something…but they were still in school. right at the end when were heading off there was this little girl walking towards me and she was looking at me giving the “what is she doing?” after i snapped a couple of shots, i waved. and she broke into a cute smile and waved back <3 

following our coffee stop at The Plains, since they closed at 7pm, we headed off in search of food. just randomly, not knowing where we should stop to eat and having no direction in mind, we found ourselves in Chinatown.

“too expensive”

“too crowded”

“hey hawker center, want to go up?”

it turns out that there’s this store on the 2nd floor hawker center that has been open for a really long time. my sister’s friend used to come here with her grandparents when she was little. they serve breakfast food like chee cheong fun, yam cake, fried beehoon and porridge. we were there at night…yes, breakfast food at night…haha and there were people queuing!!! and i think here’s why, with the commercialization of many food joints well…the food’s just food…you know? but when you eat porridge and chee cheong fun from this store, it’s that exact taste of how chee cheong fun was or how porridge tasted when I was young. and it just gives you that comforting feeling of “ya…this is my home (singapore)” and i miss that. haha i know, it sounds a bit corny but with so many coffeeshops closing i’d gladly admit my love and cling on to whatever real singaporean coffeeshops there are.

# which reminds me of my friend/sister’s-boyfriend upcoming exhibition about places in singapore that mean something to you! will share soon :) do share with me places that makes you go “ya…this is my singapore” i would love to visit them too!!