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.

Meandering Thoughts on Why I Give Families Hi-Res Digital Files of Their Photos

Shortly after this photo, her pearl earring fell into the stream below the bridge, but it wasn't a big deal. This wedding was at the Botanical Gardens in Tilden Park, in East Bay. Many habitats to choose from, and many paths.

November is turning out to be as busy as October. Twenty-Eight (28!!) scheduled sessions, with another pending. A decent chunk of them are referrals. Today I learned a bit more about the mother's club recommendation. Apparently, a mom had posted a question to her mother's club: Does anyone know of a photographer that lets you keep the digital images? And a handful of moms wrote back and recommended me.

I also learned recently, from my sister-in-law who is a new mom, that hospital baby photographers (who work for hospital baby photography companies) run in post-birth, take photos and offer prints only - and then come to your home again to do a session, again to offer prints only. And that you can only order prints then and there - no pondering about it - because they will delete the images right after the session! I am so aghast by this photography practice - the lack of photographer generosity with hi-res digital files. It's one thing for a photographer to protect his/her artistic rights (and even then, I think clients should have affordable access to hi-res images, when they are personal pictures) but a whole different level of unreasonableness when the pictures are apparently meaningless enough to be deleted and Still not given to clients. As if moms with newborns don't have enough on their brains/hands that they have to stress out about spending $100 on whether or not to buy photos.

It's different if say, the photo was of a sperm whale wrestling a giant squid. If I had a hi-res pic of that and just let the hi-res version go to my client (oh say, National Geographic sponsored me) then NG could go and sell that awesome image on posters and mugs and make loads of $$ that I would never see. So, I would want to retain control over where my squid/sperm whale pic goes. But family photos - they aren't going anywhere; they're only valuable to clients. I highly doubt any of my clients will post their photos on stock photo sites to sell, or pitch them to parenting magazines.

Some photographers may argue that photos are the photographer's art work, and that they shouldn't be let go so easily. My pen and ink illustrations I hang on to tightly. Those are very personal To Me, and I feel, took a much more intimate relationship between me, pen and paper to achieve, even when the illustration is for someone else's book. And, the channeling of artistic energies are much more raw - the blood sweat and tears much more palpable, when all there is between me and product is pen and ink; very different from camera, lens and computer. My photos of people are more of a collaboration - the photo would not exist without people subjects. Also, you can make multitudes of copies (digital or paper) of photos as opposed to one original drawing. For these reasons, it's easy for me to let go of photos. Perhaps if I were doing this in darkroom ages, I would think differently.

Family Life in Black and White

Gray days can make for gloomy colored photos. But they make for fantastic Black and Whites. The cloud-diffused light means no shadows that will obscure details when converted to B&W. The gray sky can be lightened to white, providing a stark backdrop against which stuff really stands out. B&W works best when subjects are wearing black or white, for maximum contrast. Other shades will disappear into gray tones, like the grass.

Why the black border? Hmm. While I like the expanse of white sky, I didn't want the white-ness to overwhelm. The black border only works because there is heavy black within the picture too; otherwise it would be overwhelming. Also, I thought the contrast between the clean, graphic, black frame and the messiness of the family candids balanced each other out. And, it draws attention to the white negative space created by the black shapes.


Why such a thick border? It makes me think of postcards, or posters (strange that I think of both, since the scale is so different). Actually, none of this reasoning happened when I added the border. I just thought it looked interesting, and came up with reasons for this blog post.

'Tis the Season for Family Photos

A patterned bedspread makes a fun backdrop - using shallow depth of field, the pattern nicely fuzzes away from and towards the camera. Really highlights the baby face.

I don't have enough weekends. Back to back shoots. A huge demand for family holiday photos, and I've gotten to a point where I've stopped advertising on Craigslist. Just a few days ago, a pleased mom recommended me to her local mother's club. The response has been overwhelming. Which is wonderful! I wish I could accommodate everyone, but weekends are finite, and most people don't have time on weekdays. Also, days are so short, shooting time on any day is extremely limited.

I did four shoots today. I think that should be my max. It's a lot of driving and name remembering. I try to cluster shoots, so that I can stay in e.g. Stern Grove for two shoots, and then head down to South Bay for two shoots. I use locations I'm familiar with - less taxing on the brain, when I already know the spots with good lighting.

Things should calm down after Thanksgivings. People tend to send their holiday cards right after then, so the demand for photos will lessen. I can't help but hope so. Scheduling shoots is one thing. Editing the photos takes a whole other massive chunk of time.

Backdrops can be fun

Once again, Fake Studio Set Up in the living room of this couple's home. We tacked (OK, the husband tacked) up my black backdrop, and it hung from the ceiling. To the immediate left, a large window over which the white back drop was tacked, to provide a soft light source. Pushed dining room table to the side, so that I have space to back up. My backdrop wasn't long enough to cover floor for sitting on the floor shots. Just so happened that one of them had a large black sweatshirt - we spreadeagled that across the floor.


My black backdrop was actually quite wrinkled, so in photoshop, in a separate layer over the image I painted over the wrinkles using a large, soft black paintbrush. I keep the opacity around 50%, and build layers of blackness, rather than to use a 100% opacity brush. Then went back and used a hard eraser to remove black from where I'd overlapped with the image.

Sometimes I am temped to buy a proper backdrop set up, the scroll of non-wrinkly matte plastic, with a stand (like a projector screen). I would save much time in photoshopping. There are cheap ones, for approximately $100. While I do prefer natural background photography, it is fun to do dramatic shots with backdrops.

Wine Country Time

Welcome to Keller Estate Winery! I drove up to Napa for the first time ever to photograph the staff of Keller Estate. Just 45 minutes from San Francisco, it was a different world, of gently rolling slopes of vineyards, or fields with frolicking lambs and Shetland (those little midget horses) ponies! I thought I would stop by that ranch on the way back, the ponies were so cute, but as it turned out I was too exhausted.


These photos are for the website. Not so much a head shot, said owner MK (above), but more like a profile of a person. People in their work habitat, to show off the functionings of the winery. I had tour of the various machines, and the cave dug into the hillside where wine is aged in barrels. I know nothing about wine making, and today I realized that one can get very geeky about wine making. It's not something I've ever before associated with geekiness - and I'm talking wine Making, not wine Tasting - but wine talk can be as geeky as say, guitar amp talk, biofuels talk, computer programing talk, classic English novels talk, camera lens talk. Well anywhere there's a passion, there are geeks.

The floor of the main room is a lovely brick red. This way, it's harder to notice any spilled wine. But I really like that color in the photos. Don't ask me what these machines are. I just climbed up on the catwalk and took photos.


This is the underside of the squishing machine. In olden days, I imagine a similar stream would squirt out from beneath a giant vat containing grapes and barefooted people stomping on them. No stomping people here - a large, metal, cylindrical press, squeezing the last out of... um. I forget what grape. Petite Sirah? Actually, they called it a berry, rather than a grape.

Chinese American Comfort Food

It's Chinese Food. Or rather, it's Chinese American food. When Chinese Restaurant News assigned me to photograph VIP restaurant, I assumed I'd be photographing chow fun, fried rice, steamed fish. But I was surprised. The first thing the owner/ head chef plated was french fries served in a bowl made of baked noodle, with fried chicken.

Then I realized what was going on. This was Chinese fusion. Different from Chinese American dishes like Kung Pao Chicken, Orange Chicken, Fortune Cookies. But also not fancy-schmancy-tiny-portioned-over-priced-catering-to-non-Asian-tastes Asian Fusion a la PF Chang. Rather, this was a fusion of Comfort foods. Or perhaps, Western-food-catering-to-Chinese-tastes food. While much of Hong Kong western food is Chinesified, I'd not been to a restaurant in the US that specialized in this genre. Fascinating!

A customer favorite, and a good example of fusion, was Baked Pork Chop with Fried Rice with Tomato Sauce. The whole thing was baked, with a sprinkle of cheese. It looked like a baked bolognaise, except Chinese pork chop and fried rice lay beneath the generous blanket of sauce.


The owner was eager to share his noodle baskets with me. We went downstairs to the bakery, where he pulled out a tray of various noodle and pastry baskets out of the oven. The noodles were molded over metal bowls, and baked to a crisp. These baskets can hold all sorts of things. The owner seemed really happy to be plating (the art of arranging food, decorating). The curry dish above is comprised of 3 noodle baskets, held in a clam shell shape by strategically placed tomato slices.

I claimed a booth in the back of the restaurant to do food portraits. And then the servers brought out more food. And more food. I had two booth tables worth of food to photograph.


The owner was extremely proud of his cakes. The decorations are entirely fresh cream, he emphasized several times - none of that fondant, or marzipan. Other cake stores send their decorators to him for lessons on fresh cream coloring and application techniques. The hard part he says, is in getting the gradient of colors just right. He decorated this dragon cake himself; took him 1.5 hours. Western style cakes have been appropriated into Chinese cuisine. Chinese food is rarely baked, and usually it's buns. But here we have a sponge cake, with cream - Chinese don't traditionally use cream or milk in anything. But atop this otherwise western cake is an unmistakable Chinese dragon. Often such cakes have Asian-appealing flavors too, such as taro, ube, green tea or mango.


The staff were very welcoming and excited about having a photographer around. They were all ethnically Chinese, all spoke Cantonese more comfortably than English, and all their customers were Chinese too - there was no doubt everyone considered this a Chinese restaurant.

They worked around me and my camera bags without complaint, offered lunch and drinks, warmly insisted that I come back for a visit. They sent me off with 2 large boxes packed with Chinese pastries and egg tarts.

VIP Coffee & Cakes Shop, 671 Broadway in Chinatown, San Francisco. Definitely one of my funner shoots - I miss photographing food. Hopefully I can keep this gig with Chinese Restaurant News.

Pouty.

A fantastic pout. Usually we want smiling baby pictures, but sometimes less-than-pleased baby pictures are just as cute.

When taking baby photos, I like to get up really close. Crop out the top of the head. Make sure focus is on the eyes.


And here are some candids. Why is it that babies like being upside down? As an adult, if someone swung me around upside down I'd demand that they stop immediately. Being upside down makes babies and little kids smile 9 out of 10 times.

I was a wedding photographer for Halloween. It was not a Halloween themed wedding, but it did have some Fall inspired decorations. But more on that later. Then Sunday, I photographed four families, almost one after another. I scarfed energy sustaining snacks in between shoots (vegan chocolate chip cookies from Trader Joes - they're excellent!) I do give up having any weekend fun with friends to do all this photography, but I do really enjoy taking photos.