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Many years ago, when I first began taking photographs professionally, I shot a lot of family portraiture.  My style was to make candid, natural photography that showed the real-life relationships between mothers and fathers and their children.  I sought spontaneity and honesty in my imagery, never having the subjects look at my lens, but instead encouraging the family to simply be together while I documented their interactions.

It was a great little business for me, providing me with a steady revenue stream, a chance to meet loads of new people and a fantastic opportunity to practice my photography skills and experiment with different techniques on real, live (paying) subjects.  But most importantly, shooting this type of imagery helped me develop a personal style for photographing people, as well as a large portfolio of family photos.

This style and portfolio has served me well over the years, and has been instrumental in my being awarded a number of family- and baby-centric advertising jobs around Asia. From Johnson & Johnson to Unilever to my most recent work for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) here, I am grateful for all those early mornings I spent photographing families in the backyards, playgrounds and parks of Singapore.

For this GSK campaign, I worked together with the TBWA/Tequila advertising agency in Singapore to produce 40 photographs that, rather simply, illustrated "Love".  I sought to capture the intimate times shared between mother and child, trying to make photographs that were honest and inquisitive.

And even though I had to shoot this campaign in a studio using only artificial light -- and I collaborated with hair and make-up stylists, wardrobe stylists, art directors, account service personnel and clients -- I still approached the two day session in much the same manner as I would have if it were just me and the family alone: I tried to stay out of their way and be observational, letting the magical moments between mother and child unfold naturally.

These are a handful of the GSK advertisements that were recently released in markets across North and Southeast Asia.

See more of my advertising photography portfolio here.