Things Around Home

I made a conscious decision not to bring my camera along on my first day foray into the city on this visit to Hong Kong. It is very distracting having a camera - I decided that I would take everything in without documenting it. Next week I will make specific phototrips, and I will give myself little projects, e.g. storefronts, holiday decor, signage, produce. While on one hand having a camera is distracting, on the other, I've photographed Hong Kong so much that nothing is very novel and thus themes will help me focus my photo attention.

I photographed Things Around my Hong Kong home today. My Mom's orchids came to mind first; a great opportunity to demonstrate "bokeh", or the fuzzing out of background (or foreground) by having limited focal range. The thing with Bokeh is that what one chooses to be in focus is an important element of the composition. If I'd chosen the bottom left flower to be in focus, the photo would be strangely weighted. Even though many of the flowers are just blobs of color, they're still incorporated into the composition.

Photographing things around home makes me feel like a student photographer. The typical things to photograph as a student photographer are things that are easy to access and control, because it's scary to go into the unpredictable outside world to photograph (or draw, or paint, etc). If you see a portfolio with too many obviously Home Taken shots, tell that photographer to Get Out More.

Shrubbery (Part 2 in a Series)

Shrubbery photos work best with kids between say, 4 and 12. If they're too young; toddlers or babies, you worry for them - are they lost? Will they eat dirt by accident? Will they fall and get tangled in the bramble? But at kid age, branch scratches and bug bites are a part of life, you know not to eat just anything, you're mobile enough to skip over tree trunks. But older than 12... the innocence and fantasy forest land start to fade, and I'm more likely to wonder - what are you doing back there, smoking?

I need to find more shrubbery spots around SF. This happens to be a backyard, full of wonderful shrubbery; not manicured looking yet not too dense. Perhaps the Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park, if we stray off the path. The BG however, is huge and it is tiring looking for nooks. I wish SF experienced more in the way of Fall colors. A photography dream to photograph kids in a pile of freshly fallen red, orange and yellow leaves!

Shrubbery (Part 1 in a Series)

I have a collection of photos now, featuring kids and shrubbery. The key is to use the shrubbery to frame the kids, and to give the picture a sense of place. Trees or Forests and Kids is a reoccurring storybook theme. Little Red Riding Hood. Hansel and Gretel. Lion, Witch & Wardrobe.


There's something magical about forests and childhood. Maybe, before jungle gyms and video games were invented, forests were the first playgrounds. Things to climb on and hide behind. I took the opportunity to apply fun filters to these photos. The gritty textures are very suited to foresty photos, as if the pictures themselves had been scattered in the wind, tossed and scratched and color-seeped by crunchy fall leaves.

Holiday Headgear

A splash of red brightens any photo. Under non-holiday circumstances, people generally don't wear red. Grown ups like to opt for black (I discourage this - if not to make photography more interesting for me, but to avoid overwhelming a pic with a big mass of black) But I've been photographing red outfits left and right recently, and they look great on camera.

It's below freezing tonight in San Francisco. All the more reason to wear hats! Here's an all natural window light photo, with a backdrop held up by dad.

I am happily catching up with myself. My workload is looking doable without pulling all nighters towards the end. This feeling of holiday season deadline dread reminds me so much of being in school! I thought I'd left that behind years ago. At least there are no finals.

Quick Test.

It feels like a Friday, because I just photographed a company holiday party, and because this is my fifth straight day of photo shoots. But it's not over yet. A shoot tomorrow and Weds too. I've truly forgotten what it's like to have a weekend. You know, a day where one has time to do dinner and a movie, and then wake up late the next day. It's been months. I'm really looking forward to my vacation. Eight more (non-stop!)days!

Anyways, Levi's had gone all out with the decor - much in the way of visual effects, including video on the ceiling (snow flurries, much like the Harry Potter dining hall as well as fireworks), changing messages projected on banners. And giant neon letters. Here's the back of the A and M. In its entirety, the letters spell "America". Fantastic DJ. A gourmet cornucopia of food.

Speaking of food, have you ever wondered what happens to catered leftovers? I did. I asked one of the catering staff. (Side note, like making friends with wedding DJs, one of the fun aspects of being an event photographer is meeting other event staff, and knowing you can be candid with one another as neither is customer/client). Yep, you guessed it, All In The Trash. It's heartbreaking. Especially noting the large portion of cheese platter that remained. And vegetable soup. I even felt bad for the salami. It's a matter of health code, no other reason. I wonder, if I signed a waiver that said I wouldn't sue if I got sick from the leftover cheese, could I have all the leftover cheese?


I've written 3 paragraphs without actually talking about photography. Figuring out camera settings to capture light effects is tricky. I put my camera on shutter priority mode, and had an external flash (that just means Not-On-Camera flash- that's the thing that pops up and is permanently attached to the top of the camera) with diffuser. For this low-light situation, approx 1/5 sec setting seemed to work well; long enough to capture the colored lights through the darkness, but short enough that I could hold it completely still for the duration of open shutter. Compare the above MA with the lower MA. Quick test. Which was taken with the faster (shorter) shutter speed?

The lower one! Well done.
Shutter was open for a shorter period, less light detected by camera, darker photo. But crisper - the top photo was subject to camera shake - not being able to hold the camera perfectly still for the entire open shutter period.

Volunteer Photography

I started the day with some volunteer photography, at the Randall Museum's Holiday Craft Fair. It's been a while since I'd photographed for them, as other events just happened to fall on a day that I was photographing a wedding. Anyways, it is always a nice change to photograph free of editing, customer service and delivery worries.


Volunteer photography was one of the ways I originally started building my portfolio. Non-profits welcome volunteer photographers. I've suggested this to aspiring photographers, but I don't think any have taken my advice. I think it's tempting to want to jump into being paid for photography work, but everything stems from a solid portfolio. Ideally one does not have to include mediocre photos in to add quantity to the portfolio. I didn't launch my business until I felt I had a good number of photos in my portfolio, all of which were my best work.

However, it's not a way to build contacts (I've yet to have a photo session scheduled as a result of my volunteerism). I could shove my postcard into the hands of everyone I photographed, but how annoying would that be? To me, that's not the point of volunteer photography anyways. Besides practice and portfolio, volunteer photography is good for karma.

Cats Are Photogenic.

It is the middle of my work week. Well actually I work every day, I just happen to have actual photoshoots Thursday through Tuesday, and any other time I am pretty much editing (or eating, sleeping, or walking Charlotte). So it's a short post today.

Thought I'd leave you with a lovely cat photo, lest you be disappointed in the lack of a new post.

New Fun Effects!

I have new digital toys. They are texture effects called Dirty Pictures, to lay over photos to make them more visually interesting, or well, Dirty. I recently bought them from Totally Rad Actions (they had a Black Friday sale, my only Black Friday purchase), who provide all sorts of fun and useful photoshop tools for photographers. These effects are used like filters. Where I don't want the texture to exist (e.g. over faces), I can erase it. It's even set up so that I can make up my own textures! I'm thinking of creating some based on my pen and ink comic drawings. Maybe in January, when I have time to breathe.


I figured I'd share several versions of the same pic. Here is a high-contrast black and white. And below, the original image... well not really, it's photoshopped so the colors are enhanced and such, and I removed a random guy walking in the background (because, it is much more fun when an outdoorsy picture looks like it there exists no other people and we have the whole place to ourselves - isn't that why we wait for people to get out of the background?)


Anyways, I always try to optimize the "plain"photo before applying effects, though further tweaking is usually required even after B&W conversions.

Tis the Season for Multitasking Like Crazy (I wish I were an octopus with 4 computers and 4 brains and at least 2 wacom tablets and a personal chef)

I have been computer multi-tasking like mad. I've had 10 photoshoots since Tofurkey Day. Pics were uploaded from memory cards, backed up, memory cards emptied. I sifted through all 3000 or so photos and deleted all the awkward face/blinking photos, made minor color corrections and then made lo-res versions of all photos, zip-filed each set and then ftp-ed them to each client, with a set of instructions as to what to do next. This process takes about 30 mins per client - and I've not even started editing yet! I suppose I could just send all photos, awkward blinking photos and all.... but no-one wants to see themselves with half-asleep grass-chewing cow expression.

Another set of clients, about 12 of them, recently got back to me with their selection for "urgent" photos, ie, please get these done ASAP in time to print holiday cards. That means I have to fish out their selected photos, export in hi-res to photoshop, edit them, zip-file them and send them off as hi-res edited photos.

Meanwhile, I have 8 other sessions this week, and I need to send reminder emails or iron out final details or answer client questions. I need to plan out my timetable for driving, plug in all the addresses into my iphone. I commit names of all family members to short-term memory.

And that's on top of the usual editing of photos, sending out gentle reminder emails: Hello! Please Send Me A Check! or Send Me Your Selection of Photos For Editing from that Shoot We Did a Month Ago! There is impossibly much to keep track of. It's all on my iCal. I'm trying very hard not to let anything slip through the cracks - my lapses in vigilance when I am really pooped. And, requests for sessions are still trickling in, so I need to email Sorry I'm Fully Booked For The Rest Of The Season emails.

The funnest part in all of this is the actual photoshoot. I have a lot of fun getting to know families, playing with kids, trying to make tots and babies smile. Everyone (OK, 99% of everyone) I've worked with has been so nice, it's just reassuring to know that there are so many good people in the world. And when people react with much happiness to my photos, that makes my day too.

A Change in Pace

A glamor shoot! In the name of fun. They had amassed a selection of accessories: silk and crocheted scarves, lace umbrella, long stemmed flowers, strands of pearls. They'd researched videos and other pop media for inspiration. It's fantastic when clients have lots of ideas of their own. I can only have so many ideas myself.

The photos called out for conversion to monotone - something about a vintagey starlet quality. I tried out a few different monotones. Here, a dark deep chocolate forest brown (different from sepia, a light brown sugar brown) and navy blue.

I generally don't like to obscure eyes, but in the above photo, the obscured eye is effective - it really draws your attention to the other eye which has a mischievous glint. I thought the flowers worked out well too - who in real life, lounges around with flowers? But here, she and the lilies look like they belong together.

Great Candid Shoots takes Great Parents

It takes energy, on parents' parts, to get good candid photos. This dad did a particularly impressive job of tirelessly chasing the little guy towards my camera, smiling all the way. Even though candids are unposed photos, that doesn't mean that they just happen by sitting around. Families need to be having fun. Sometimes I warn parents that our photo session will be an hour long playtime with their kids. Often, everyone is exhausted afterwards.


Not all parents are prepared for this. Sometimes I encounter Dads who look longingly from their backyard towards the large flat screen TV featuring Sunday football. Baby Moms and Dads are already exhausted. Sometimes Moms are just "not feeling it" and I become a photographer with child-chasing (something like babysitting) duties. Often times though, both parents are enthusiastic participants, and those make for the best photoshoots. These photos are from such a shoot that I was particularly pleased with.

Happy and Safe Travels on this Holiday Weekend

I took this photo ages ago. OK, it was February 2008. I wanted to find a photo that had something to do with travel and transport, and this is what I dug up on my computer. This was taken in Aix en Provence, France. Walking back from Cezanne's house to the north of the city.

I drive a lot for my photography job. Last weekend, during my cross-bay 4 shoot marathon, I was driving towards my third shoot in San Ramon in East Bay. A white cloud appeared ahead, much lower than the other clouds on this overcast day. The cars in all five lanes slowed to a procession. Different from when traffic is funneled through a limited number of lanes - this was not stop and go, but rather, a slow rolling forward, and cars started meandering across lanes, straddling lanes, unsure of where to go. Then the traffic opened up, like a stream splits around a stone. There was a small, turquoise car, its color and munchkin size incongruously cheerful with its heart-wrenching situation. It was upside down, facing the traffic, the front of the cabin partly smushed. I drove right past the passenger side, which was empty. I couldn't see the driver side. A row of cars had pulled over, tearful people on their cellphone. I arrived at my shoot rather shaken.

Sorry to end on such a downer. I partly blame this lingering cold that I can't seem to rid.
Wishing safe holiday travels to everyone out there.

Pumpkins are Heavy

It is one of those days when my brain is tired and so in lieu of witty comments I will provide some cute photos of kids and pumpkins to make you smile.

I just keep squishing people into my schedule. At some point, I should say No, My Schedule Is Full. But I have this inexplicable sense of duty, to provide good family holiday photos for Bay Area families should they desire them. Somehow, people manage to make weekday sessions work out, and so I squish them in. At this point, I'm guaranteeing a small set of family photos for holiday cards, with the rest of the edits to come in January. Next year I will email all my clients in August to start scheduling for holiday photos EARLY.

Dogs Can Jump Too

Four photo shoots in a row. Three and a half hours of driving around the Bay Area. Cold + dayquil + bountiful kleenex + cough drops + a thermos of hot water + bag of croutons (Italian Seasoning). A start time of 8:30am on a Sunday. I wasn't sure if I was going to make it.... But I made it, without coughing fits! Without being late and a comfortable cushion of 5-10 mins early arrival time. And I had fun too, a triumph of a multi-shoot day. Hour long photo shoots go by really quick, even for me, after having done so many shoots.

The day kicked off with a family of many siblings. We met at Baker Beach, and agreed that it was too dismal to photograph there - the bridge was barely visible through the drizzle and cloud. I had a back up plan: the Palace of Fine Arts. A very iconic, unique backdrop. My favorite aspect of the photo is Kai the Husky, wondering what on earth is going on.

Happy End of Autumn to Everyone

Looking for baby photo prop ideas? A (relatively) large floppy stuffed animal may be the answer! And one can never go wrong with baby hats. These are some of the photos I took for the mother who recommended me to her Mother's Club. I am still receiving requests as a result, which is fantastic! But not only am I out of weekends, I am rapidly running out of weekdays. In other news, I just heard from the same mother that Tiny Prints, an online printing company, wants to feature some of these photos on their website. Awesome. I'll update you on those details later.


I apologize for being MIA. I traveled down to San Diego for a few days, and then upon return I promptly fell ill. I've never postponed shoots before, but I had to this week, to hopefully speed up recovery, and to prevent sharing this cold with clients.

I just realized, that I have less than a month left in SF before I head out of the country for the holidays. And still 23 more shoots to do (and I won't scare myself by counting how many I have yet to edit). Yikes. I'd better head over to photoshop right now.