Wedding Photo style

My style is based on the idea of capturing the STORY of you and your newlywed spouse on your wedding day, and for me that means a combination of:

• documentation shots – details of venues, your dress, flowers, decor, people arriving, setting up, talking, etc.
• emotion shots – documentation photos of key moments that occur throughout the day: grandma being kissed by grandson, old friends hugging, people being themselves, etc. Seeing these will bring back the strong emotions of the day: unbridled laughter, tears of joy, quiet intimacy, etc.
• beauty shots – you’ve spent time and money on looking the best that you can. My aim is for cool, artistic shots that not only make you look great, but flexes my creative muscles as well.

“PJ” versus Posed

My style is definitely not photojournalistic, in the sense that I AM a part of your day.

I will hang back during key areas: ceremony, speeches and toasts, etc., but if I see there are certain groups of friends chatting, I might get them together for a quick, fun relaxed portrait.

Many couples plan a period for family portraits, and I am more than happy to accommodate your shot list.

And of course, we want beautiful shots of the two of you, so there will definitely be directed action, e.g. “hold hands while walking down this nicely lit corridor — just talk and be with each other. Good, stop right there and give each other a kiss! Awesome! Now turn around and come back.”

There will be other times when I know cool shots can be had just by having the two of you standing in such a way, or whatever. However it happens, it’s quick and relaxed, and I shoot what’s comfortable for you.

It’s About What You Want

In the end, my style is a mixed style, and the idea is to not only get all the shots that you want, but to also get the shots you’ll love!

I’m passionate about wedding photography.

Recently, I’ve been wondering just what about wedding photography excites me. Was there one single thing about it that was “it”? Well, no. In fact, there are numerous reasons, and together they really explain why I love to photograph weddings.

Enjoy.

1. Meeting great people – one of my favorite things about shooting weddings is I get to meet great people — people deeply in love, and their loving family and friends. Our clients come from all walks of life, and many become friends, letting us know as their family grows. After a shoot, Gregory and I often talk about how we felt we did (self-criticism to improve our work), and we often remark on how nice the clients were. It’s really a wonderful feeling to provide high-quality work to appreciative clients. And we love seeing past wedding clients at new weddings (referral!).
2. Experiencing THE story – every wedding’s the same, and yet each is different. As photographers, we become privy to an exciting time in a couple’s lives, learning their personalities, their joys and their love for one another. We engage with our clients during the lulls of a wedding day. We happily chat with guests that come up to us to ask questions. And we love watching client-made slideshows, hearing toasts and speeches from wedding party and guests.
3. Visiting new locales – the San Francisco Bay Area is such a diverse place, filled with many cultures, varied geography and spectacular views. From cozy Bed & Breakfast inns to fanciest hotels and mansions, we get a blast traveling throughout the Bay Area (and beyond) to shoot in venues (some of which) we don’t even know about.
4. Creating art – capturing great images is what really gets our creative juices flowing, and in the course of a wedding day, we often get great opportunities to get THE shot (or two or three). We get inspired by the location, the light, and the clients. We wind up with shots that elicit words of wonderment, questions like “how’d you get that shot?” Artistically, I live for those shots. We also regularly check out the beautiful work from top wedding photographers all over the world, getting inspired, learning, and of course, viewing that as a challenge for us to get great shots as well.
5. Being a Historian – books with old photos intrigue me. For instance, I like seeing what the San Francisco Bay Area looked like 100-150 years ago. Horse-drawn carriages, the original Cliff House and Sutro Baths, residents in their Victorian age raiment — all captured in photos. It’s like traveling back in time. And I know that for our clients: in their future, when they look back at the photos we capture today, it will also evoke that feeling. I feel proud to be able to provide our clients that ability through the work we do.
6. Getting the best sleep the night after – being on my feet for upwards of 10 or more hours on a wedding day means that I always get a great night of sleep when I get home. After a quick shower to rid the day’s sweat and grime, there’s really nothing like letting your entire body sink into the sheets. I’m out in minutes.
7. Exercising the cheek muscles – I love capturing what I see on a wedding day, and doing so always brings a smile to my face because I feel like a kid in a candy/toy store: there’s so much happening! From seeing the details of the settings and venues, to cute little flower girls and ring-bearers, to anticipating emotional moments from family members, to hearing great and funny stories during speeches, I soak in the emotions and imagery like the sponge, riding the “wedding wave” and smiling the whole time.
8. Working for myself (and the clients, of course) – it’s been about 10 years since I worked for corporate America. Since then I’ve been making a living working for myself. It’s not without its up’s and down’s, but answering to no one but myself (and my clients) have been a liberating experience. I still have a lot to learn, but I look forward to the challenges and experience.
9. Growing as a photographer – there’s a certain level of skillset you get after x number of years/weddings, but as a photographer, I’m always striving to add to that skillset. Whether it’s a new way of lighting, revamping the website, or posing clients, there’s always something new to learn.
10. Preserving Memories – our memories are what makes us who we are. As we get older, sometimes our memory fails us.  Which is where photography comes in. Seeing an image of today in the (far) future is like traveling back in time. The photos are visual clues that really time everything today in a person’s life, and with wedding couples, they’re no different. The wedding photos are but a sliver of a moment in time, but oh, what memories, emotions, smells and sounds they can evoke. Just think of what goes through your mind when you dig though old photos of yourself as a child. As a wedding photographer, yes it’s my job, but it’s also an honor and privilege to preserve these memories for my clients.

Place of Birth

I was born and raised in San Francisco’s Chinatown and Richmond districts, and remember fondly going on family outings to the Marina, Golden Gate Park, Baker’s and Ocean Beach, etc.

I speak Cantonese fairly well (okay) and some Mandarin.

Education and Background

I am a graduate of UC Berkeley’s Film Studies program, and have additional experience in graphic design, illustration, web design and programming, and now a would-be novelist, too.

Film Studies

I had grown up on a lot of old movies, back in the days when having cable meant getting AMC (American Movie Classics) — before today’s deluge of digital media.

And what’s more, movies are simply series of still images strung together, playing at 24 frames per second, and thus creating the illusion of motion (due to a physiological phenomenon known as persistence of vision).

So my transition to still photography should not be all that surprising. Both media are ways to tell stories.

Graphic Design

At the same time, I had an earlier stint in college studying graphic design, which further helped develop my sense of aesthetics. After all, they say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But some things — certain angles, ratios, color combinations — are worth analyzing, if only one should learn the rules before breaking them.

Comic Book Illustration

As we travel further back on my road to photography, we find that my first forays into storytelling come from reading and drawing comic books. In fact, my very first career choice when I was but a wee lad was to become a comic book artist. I actually drew my own comics from 7th grade on for over 10 years, and even have several published comic books to prove it!

Again, it was all about telling stories.

Novelist

Speaking of stories, I just participated in — and won! — NaNoWriMo, the annual National Novel Writing Month contest. You can read about that here.

Photography

As such, photography was always something I was interested in, if not just to take photos of various San Francisco neighborhoods for reference material for my illustrations.

But being a starving artist precluded spending money on film and developing, and so it wasn’t until digital cameras came onto the scene that I really cut my teeth on this discipline.

Beginning in 1999 or so — when I purchased my first digital point-and-shoot camera, a Canon Powershot S10, a 2.1 megapixel beauty that, with extra battery and whopping 512MB memory card that set me back a cool $1K — I embarked on my journey into photography.

I had been learning and doing the swing dance called Lindy Hop for a couple of years, and so naturally, the first photos from my “Phase II” photo era were that of swing dancers.

Years went by, and finally, I purchased my first DSLR, the Canon 10D, and shot my first wedding (digitally) in 2003.

I haven’t looked back since.