Anna Wu Photography | San Francisco Wedding Photography

Zaha & Magdy | Cupertino Backyard Wedding

Anna — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:23:49 +0000

With each knock on the door, greetings of salam resonated through the home. Each family entered the house and stepped through to the backyard, transformed by beautiful floral arrangements, hand crafted by the bride's mother. The warmth of the occasion blended seamlessly with the late afternoon sunshine that lit the space.

Magdy entered the backyard, cheerful as he engaged the other men in conversation. Meanwhile, Zaha and the other girls ran around upstairs, getting ready for the ceremony. Zaha looked beautiful and held an understated elegance about her even amidst the frenzy.

Zaha and Magdy were joined in marriage before an intimate gathering of friends and family. Their small ceremony in California was just a prelude to the rest of the celebrations that will continue with the full wedding in Egypt. I only wish I could be in there for the rest of it too! But I am so thankful to have been a witness to this beautiful ceremony.

There were so many beautiful little vignettes all around the backyard. Zaha's mother is quite the gardener, with a wonderful artistic eye!

They had very traditional wedding favors: dried dates, almonds, and unrefined sugar.

Zaha's mother brings Magdy into the backyard and shows him the layout for the ceremony.

I love capturing men looking dapper in candid moments.

Zaha prepares upstairs.

The nikah ceremony is the part of an Islamic wedding where the marriage contract is set out. Both Magdy and Zaha are joined by male witnesses to the contract, as the imam leads in a sermon. Zaha even had one more witness not shown in this photo, but you'll see later...

The imam speaks of Allah and what is asked of men and women.

Zaha's cousin and childhood friend look on.

Magdy and Zaha repeat their consent in Arabic and English three times each.

They exchange the rings

And the marriage license is signed, next to a beautiful copy of the Qur'an.

The witness I previously alluded to! Zaha's father was unable to attend the nikah ceremony, as he was already in Egypt. But Zaha's cousins helped out by skyping him in as a surprise!

He watched the whole thing, and had to keep admonishing Magdy for taking off his floral necklace after the ceremony.

As soon as the ceremony was completed, the sun went down, and the celebrations were just beginning. Not only was this a special occasion, but it fell during the holy month of Ramadan, during which Muslims fast from dawn to sunset. It's tradition to break the fast with a date, as shown on the right, and prayer.

The food was absolutely amazing, a combination of homemade Egyptian and Pakistani food. And these were only some of the appetizers. There was so much wonderful food for dinner and dessert too.

Zaha and Magdy steal away for some photos just after sunset. I love the stringed lights she put up all around the yard.

And at the end of the night, a variety of desserts and a delicious slice of cake.

Congratulations, Zaha & Magdy! Wishing you all the best in Egypt and beyond.

Kristen & Matt’s Wedding | West Hartford, Connecticut

Anna — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:02:59 +0000

He stood in the reception hall surrounded by his friends and family and spoke of his new wife, his new marriage. He referenced wedding planning, often a notoriously stressful experience. But he smiled his passionate smile and declared, If wedding planning is a glimpse into the kind of marriage we'll have, I'm going to love it.

Matt and Kristen met in college at Duke, where they lived in the same dorm and were both involved in the same Christian organization. They were friends, but they didn't quite start dating then. Matt was moving across the country for grad school at Stanford, so they agreed to put it off. Of course, they then found themselves 3,000 miles apart and decided to start dating anyway.

True to Matt's words, all of the little details and elaborate excel spreadsheets that they labored over came together in a wonderful celebration of friends, family, and love. Kristen and Matt are simply adorable in their open affection for one another. They have been united in their love for each other and their love for God, and they will doubtlessly grow together in both.

I absolutely love Kristen's engagement ring: sapphire, diamonds, and gold, passed down from Matt's grandmother. And I love the band they had custom designed by Topper Fine Jewelers to pair with it too.

I began my day with the very good looking group of men getting ready at the hotel.

Such piercing blue eyes!

Then I photographed Kristen at her childhood home in West Hartford.

Gorgeous.

The ceremony was held at the very New England-style Covenant Congregational Church of West Hartford.

The programs were printed by Cricket Press with all the ribbons hand tied by Kristen and her helpers.
Kristen is absolutely glowing, walking down the aisle with her dad

Matt and Kristen sat down in the front pew for a special part of the ceremony as their friend perform a liturgical dance.

Beautiful detailing on their cake by Creative Cakes by Donna.
Kristen's grandmother was inspired by one of my photos from their engagement shoot and painted the beautiful painting of them on the left.

I love the soft flow of movement in her dress. They really had a beautiful first dance.

Kristen's sister Laura delivered a funny, moving, and emotional toast.

Newlyweds Addison and Julie-- I have to give Julie a huge shoutout, because she helped to coordinate everyone for all of the different group formals. I wish I could bring her with me to every wedding!

Birdseed grand exit!

Vendors:
Church: Covenant Congregational Church, West Hartford, Connecticut
Reception Venue: Birch Meadow Banquet Facility, Bloomfield Connecticut
Florist: Sharon Elizabeth's
Cake: Creative Cakes by Donna
Jeweler: Topper Fine Jewelers
Programs: Cricket Press
Salon: Acure Eco Salon
DJ: Dave Giani
Photographer: Anna Wu Photography

Lauren & Ryan | Cincinnati Lifestyle Photographer

Anna — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:17:23 +0000

We grew up playing violin together, having named ourselves the two halves of "wubu," Anna Wu and Lauren Buchkajian. We played so much in so many various groups and combinations (youth symphony, chamber symphony, duets, quartets, etc.) that our high school orchestra conductor named an award after us, the wubu award, equivalent to the 3000 points club. Yes, we were really that cool.

Orchestra overachieving aside, Lauren is doubtlessly one of my longest running blogstalkers, as she has been a personal supporter of mine from the very beginning. Long before I ever knew I wanted to be "a photographer" she stood by me in my various little ventures. She is incredibly beautiful, smart, and talented, and is far more amazing than she ever gives herself credit for.

This summer we got together back in Cincinnati at the tail end of my Midwest tour, meeting at the Panera Bread right by my house. We sat in the shop chatting for a little while, until the sun started to disappear. We took the quick trip over to Weller Park, and in between mosquito bites, I snapped a couple photos. Lauren's boyfriend Ryan joined in for a little bit too, before we headed over to Dairy Queen to finish off the night. I may have frightened Lauren with the horrendous swelled up welts on my legs from the mosquito bites, but it was all worth it in the end.

Please tell her she's gorgeous. Sometimes she doesn't believe me.

Lauren and Ryan have the most adorable story about how they met-- commuting together on the same bus together for literalaly weeks and weeks, neither one having the courage to approach the other. Of course, one day Lauren finally said hello, and well, here they are.

Seattle & Shang Chen

Anna — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 03:28:47 +0000

If I just concentrate for a moment, I can conjure it all back. The amazing overlooks, late-afternoon blue skies, and the feeling of being in this beautiful city with no obligations-- only an open day to explore and spend time with friends. Seattle has a vibe not unlike the Bay Area's.

Despite its gray reputation for clouds and gloom, Seattle lights up in the summer. By late afternoon, the sun wins over the clouds. If there is a color I associate with summer Seattle, it's not gray, but green. Trees huddle in the landscape surrounding the water of the Puget sound, providing lush views of nature and city intertwined.

My last day in Seattle I spent with my friend Shang and her friend Emily. Below are some of my images of Seattle and portraits of Shang from our impromptu shoots.

Olympic Sculpture Garden:
The standard view of Seattle from a little park atop a hill in Queen Anne:

She's a Nikon girl, but I still love her. Shang Chen.

Me & Shang looking very coordinated with our brightly colored outfits.

I love traveling, and I feel incredibly lucky to be able to explore all these different places. If you've been following my blog, you'll know how excited I am to have bought JetBlue's All You Can Jet pass, which will allow me to fly to as many places as humanly possible for 30 days.

Follow along with my updated calendar on this previous blog post and catch me in your city. Here's a summary below:

Los Angeles: 9/7-9

Chicago: 9/15-16
Indianapolis: 17-19
Chicago: 9/19
New York: 9/20-21
Pittsburgh: 9/22
Boston: 9/23

Austin: 10/1
San Antonio: 10/1-3
Austin: 10/4

Los Angeles: 10/21-25

Lexington, KY: 10/29-31

Now Seeking 2010 Assistants!

Anna — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:48:40 +0000

It's a little late into the season, but I'm happy to introduce the very first Anna Wu Photography Assistant Program, starting 2010.

I am looking for one to three people who are seriously interested in photography and have time to dedicate to learning and working with me.

Please read through this page thoroughly before applying. Thank you!

THE ASSISTANT PROGRAM

I am looking for one to three assistants to start right away.
I am located in Mission Bay, San Francisco, close to the ballpark.
This assistant program is unpaid, but I will teach you as much as possible and bring you behind the scenes into my world as a wedding photographer.

IDEALLY, YOU...

Are an aspiring photographer with serious interest in working as a photographer either part-time or full-time.
Are post-college and available to work on weekends.
Have a solid foundational understanding of dSLR photography and own your own dSLR.
Have not photographed more than two weddings as the primary photographer.
Are involved in social media (twitter, facebook, blog).
Live in the San Francisco Bay Area and are able to travel to San Francisco once a month.
Are reliable and professional. You arrive on time and must not cancel on your commitments.

ASSISTANT DUTIES

Tasks include, but are not limited to,

Working one day a week (approx. 4 hours) with me: once a month at my home office in SF
Meet virtually (gchat/skype/phone) the other three weeks of the month.
Assisting with marketing
Preparing and shipping client discs
Assisting at shoots when available-- mainly assisting with lighting and gear.
This is not a second shooter position, but you may be allowed to take photos for personal portfolio use ONLY when there is time.

WHAT YOU WILL GAIN

Insights into both the technical side and the business side of wedding photography
Constant feedback on your images and portfolio
Behind-the-scenes view of my business-- emails, client contacts, shooting, post-processing, and more
Access to my overflow photography inquiries
An ally and a friend
The adventure of learning with me as I learn!

TO APPLY

Please email me at anna[at]annawu[dot]com.
Include: your contact information, a short introduction into your photography background, and what you would bring to the table. Also include a link to your online portfolio of 10-15 of your best images from weddings or portraits. If you do not have images already online, please contact me for further instructions.

I will be setting up interviews with potential assistants in the next couple weeks and will have a trial run period before final confirmations are made. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis.
Please contact me only via email. Facebook messages, tweets, etc. will not be considered as an official application.

And of course, because no post is complete without a photo, here's a photo of Shang Chen from our Seattle trip last month. Shang is an amazing photographer, my own friend and ally, and the inspiration for my own assistantship program. Check her out at shangchenphoto.com.

The Shay-Tang Family | Kirk in the Hills, Michigan | Lifestyle Photographer

Anna — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:57:57 +0000

When I arrived, the house was buzzing with preparations for Lily's big day. This was the day she would be introduced to solid food. But you have to think of solid as a flexible term. Solid like... soupy rice pudding. But food that's not in a bottle is a big deal! We were all making exaggerated OM NOM NOM motions with our mouths, and I stood by with flip cam as we eagerly awaited Lily's reaction to the spoon in her mouth and the food dribbling down her chin. She was a trooper, and later would be rewarded with bathtime (her favorite) and an actual bottle of milk.

The next morning, we did a spontaneous photoshoot with Lily in her adorable polka dot outfit, in which she later made a huge poop.

Later, we headed to Kirk in the Hills, an amazing home-turned-church in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

While Lily is the star of her own show at home, and her 5-month birthday was something to celebrate, this was actually the main reason I drove over to Michigan for this shoot:

FOUR generations of Shay women.

In relation to Lily, we have Grandma, Great-Grandma (flew in from Taiwan), Aunt Patty (flew in from Arizona), Mommy Christine, and of course, baby Lily.

Mommy & Lily

With grandma and with daddy.

The whole family.

Then an outfit change, and we took it inside, out of the 95-degree weather. I loved the window lighting in this hallway and the arches in the background.

Love.

One more with the whole Shay-Tang family.

Patty and Lily.

And finally, I absolutely love this portrait of Christine & Patty's grandmother, age 87. Still young, I say.

Thank you so much, Christine, for inviting me to Michigan to stay with your family and to capture these portraits! I had a wonderful time and would love to come by again and again as Lily grows up! Hope your family enjoys these images for years to come.

Laurence Kim Workshop- One on One in Seattle

Anna — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 18:22:09 +0000

First of all, if you're ever trying to find the Queen Anne district, don't be fooled by the numbering grid in downtown Seattle. They are not connected. In fact, they run in opposite directions. But besides my embarassingly dramatic 45-minute-late entrance, everything about my workshop with Laurence Kim was fantastic.

Why fly to Seattle when there are plenty of photographers in my own backyard in San Francisco? Several reasons.

Have you ever wanted to custom tailor an individual workshop to your own specific needs? This is your chance.
If you've ever read Laurence Kim's blog, you'll know he gives practical, useful information. No fluff.
One of Laurence Kim's greatest strengths is the business side of photography. And that's what I wanted. Plus a little more about lighting.
You can actually do individual tutoring over Skype from wherever you are. But hey, I love an excuse to travel.

Laurence Kim offers some group workshops scattered throughout the year like "Building a Profitable Portrait Business" and "Lighting 101," but he also offers the unique opportunity for you to design an individual tutoring session. You choose your own topic(s) and pay by the hour, $100/hr. I set my budget at 4 hours, and we proceded to cram as much as possible into that time. My approach was to look through his existing workshops and choose the topics I was interested in. Here's were my priorities:

Building a Wedding Photography Business

Highest Priority:

Marketing: how to get the most for your marketing $$. Where to advertise, where NOT to. The best way to market. Blogging and social networking tips.
Pricing: How much to charge for that 1st wedding, 5th, 10th, etc. How to design price lists that maximize revenue. How to design packages. How to charge for albums.
Contracts: I go over my own contract line by line
Sales: how to structure your sales meetings

Medium Priority:

Workflow: From downloading your cards to delivering the album - how to process your images in the minimum amount of time.
Vendors: I discuss all my vendors, from print shops, to canvas printers to album providers.

Kind of already know/go over if there’s time:

Gear: including minimum required gear, where to spend your $$, and where NOT to
Portfolio: how to build a portfolio. How to edit it to make you look like an amazing photographer.
Website: what vendors to use, what to include, what not to.

Lighting

Highest Priority:

Lighting wedding receptions
Lighting groups with a single flash

Medium Priority:

Fill lighting: when to use it, how to use it and when not to use it
How to meter your camera for off-camera flash/Why you don't need a light meter
How to set the correct exposure on your subject

Kind of already know/ go over if there’s time:

Understanding light placement - where to place your flash in relation to your subject
Understanding modifiers: bare flash, grid spots, umbrellas and soft boxes
How to create soft lighting or hard lighting
Limitations: what your flash can and cannot do

Amazingly, we got through both the wedding business and the lighting information and had a little bit of time to do a quick runthrough of the portrait business too (which is a completely different business model than weddings). Laurence was very good about covering as much as he could in the time we had and pacing the workshop according to my interests. We used a lot of his existing workshop slides, but he was very flexible about glossing over information that I didn't need to know and elaborating on anything I had a question about.

When all was said and done, I had nine pages of notes and a whole new world of understanding about the inner workings of a photography business. Since I was the one who chose all the topics I wanted to learn about and it was one-on-one, I managed to get everything I wanted and more from this jam-packed session. For me, it was definitely more useful than a 4-hour group session on any one topic would have been. It was undoubtedly a worthwhile, bang-for-your-buck, investment.

I could give you an idea of the kinds of information I gathered, but really, you should just look at his blog and sign up for your own workshop to find out whatever it is you want to know. Remember, you can pay by the hour for your own Skype or in-person meeting.

But attention all Bay Area photographers, I am thinking of bringing Laurence down here for a workshop. If enough people are interested, we can have our very own Laurence Kim workshop right here in San Francisco. I guess we'll see!

I didn't take any photos during my workshop, but the image above was taken by the wonderful Shang Chen on our awesome photo exploration of Seattle.

All You Can Jet!

Anna — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:48:29 +0000

Sometimes I dream about the jetsetter lifestyle-- not only flying to all kinds of places, but actually doing so spontaneously. I could wake up in the morning and think, I'd love to be in New York today, and voila, be there before sundown!

But really, how many people actually have the flexibility in their time and the access to airplanes to just fly around whenever they feel like it?

Apparently, I DO!!

Yes, after some deliberation, I decided to take the plunge and live the dream, thanks to JetBlue's All You Can Jet pass. I am free to fly wherever I want between September 7 and October 6. The one big drawback is JetBlue's very limited selection of destinations (so I can't just think of being in Paris and end up there, unfortunately.) But I will still be happily flying around, as much as I possibly can, to the places that they do serve. What better way to celebrate not having a 9-5 job?

So this is where you come in, dearest friends and clients: Want to book a session in your city? Help host me in your town? Jump in the fun and help me make the most of my travels!

Tentative schedule below, open to suggestions! (look at September-October):

September 7-9: Los Angeles
September 11: San Francisco Wedding
September 16-19: Chicago to Indianapolis
September 18: Indianapolis Wedding
September 20-22: New York
September 25: San Francisco Wedding
October 1-4: Austin to San Antonio

Good Morning, Oakland

Anna — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 15:27:45 +0000

I know it's a matter of familiarity and time. I just moved to San Francisco, and I haven't been there long enough to enjoy it yet. I haven't become a part of the city, and it hasn't become a part of me. I'm not used to this fog, this windy chill, the irony of my new place being even quieter than I knew was possible in "the city."

It only makes sense that my heart does a little flip as I cross the Bay Bridge and I see Oakland coming back into view. These roads are the routes I traveled as a matter of course. This is a place I know. It's warmer and sunnier, only a few miles away, and yet this place is the one that feels like home.

One of the things I knew I'd miss is my view over Downtown Oakland, I decided to create this time lapse on my moving day so I could bring it with me wherever I go. Sure, it's not as good as the life-size version, but I like it. Especially when that first peek of blue bursts through the clouds. See for yourself-- a bit of my Oakland home.

So that's that. From now on, I've resolved to look forward and start building my new life in San Francisco. It's a matter of familiarity and time. I know there are amazing things waiting to happen. And maybe one day soon, I'll love my new city as much as the last.

Dan Hutchings, Vocalist | San Francisco Headshots Photographer

Anna — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 01:49:50 +0000

Dan Hutchings is a classical vocalist based in San Francisco now, but soon moving out of state. He's reserved, straightforward, and classically good looking too. The cool thing about this session is that it's the first one I did right here, at my new place in San Francisco. Looking forward to many more to come!