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Best of 2011: Personal Posts

Anna — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:24:23 +0000

2011 was a lovely year filled with little surprises. I was lucky enough to fill my days with travel, photography, and even yogurtland and ballet. Oh, and I even managed to read 36 books (thank you iPad). And I blogged and blogged through it all. Below, I share some of my personal posts reflecting on my adventures along the way.

Places

In 2011, I found myself in Las Vegas three times in a row and Los Angeles six times during the year. I had amazing clients who flew me to Atlanta, Washington D.C., Arizona, and upstate New York. And then there was our epic roadtrip up the West Coast from San Francisco to Vancouver. Below are my various adventures, arranged roughly thematically: Bay Area, Las Vegas trips, other destinations, and the Cascadia Road Trip.

The City \| San Francisco	Sausalito	SF Vignettes	Falling in Love with San Francisco	A Lifetime Ago \| Oakland	Sailing in the Bay
All of the Lights \| Vegas	Out in the Desert \| Vegas	Neon Museum \| Vegas	Ice Waterfall in the Desert \| Vegas	Pyramid Lake	With Etiquette
A Single Snow Day \| Tahoe	Staying in Awe \| Duke	The Beauty of Night \| Atlanta	Stone Mountain & Rhodes Hall \| Atlanta	Nogales & Tubac, Arizona	Washington D.C.
Cascadia Road Trip	Crater Lake	Portland, Oregon	Tacoma, Washington	Seattle, Washington	Vancouver, British Columbia

Personal Reflections

I’m sometimes not sure how I let such personal thoughts travel from my mind out into the wild world of the internet. But I believe strongly in the power of personal expression, and whilst I found myself seeking inspiration on more than one occasion this year, I had this little hope that perhaps my words could somehow contribute to others finding inspiration as well. Below, some of my personal musings from this past year.

Best of 2011: Portraits & Headshots

Anna — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 21:20:56 +0000

It’s been another wonderful year! We kick off the year-end recaps with the best of portraits & headshots in 2011. Click on the links or images to visit the full posts.

Lifestyle Portraits & Headshots

Karina Garcia Li in San Jose, California.

TaiwaneseAmerican.org t-shirt shoot in San Francisco, California. Dental school students never looked so good.

Alexandra Leem, violist, in San Francisco, California.

Ho Chie Tsai in Oakland, California.

Diana Lee in Los Angeles, California.

Eugene Petrushansky, Harpsichordist, in Fremont, California.

Family Portraits

Wallis & Julian, family session in Orinda, California.

Little Isla, family session in Oakland, California.

Deion’s Birthday Party, family session in San Francisco, California.

Baby Miles in Richmond, California.

Little Sarah family session in San Gabriel, California.

Sailing in the Bay

Anna — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 18:34:02 +0000

It was a gorgeous Saturday morning– sunny and seventies– and it was perfect for sitting in a boat in the middle of the Bay. The irony was, the air was so nice, warm. and calm that there was zero no wind for sailing. Undeterred, we slowly motored along from San Francisco’s Pier 40 toward Angel Island.

The three pirates: Arvind, Jon, and our captain HD.

As we quickly learned, it’s very easy to underestimate distances over water. What looked like a five minute stretch took us about three hours by boat, while a blimp circled around the bay overhead, as if taunting us with its speedy air travel capabilities.

Right off the bat, we saw a cluster of seagulls fighting a sea lion for fish. Later, we saw a dolphin frolicking about.

Passing under the Bay Bridge, and our boat docked at Angel Island. We did make it there by motor after several hours, and after a brief lunch break on the island, we had to circle back around before we would be sucked out to sea by the currents.

Passing by Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge

The ferry building on our return journey. We got plenty of wind on our way back in, but it was counterbalanced by the going against the tide.

The water looked unreal, like it was made of metals instead of water.

We passed the city right as the sun was going down

And finally, back at the pier.

I will never look at the Bay in the same way again, and I mean that in the best possible way. Spending a day on the water has transformed it from just some blank interstitial space between the land into infinite little sailboat route possibilities in my mind. I can see why people like sailing so much. I would definitely go again!

Technical note: All of the images above were shot on Mistubishi Super MX 200 film (a random cheap film I picked up) and processed and scanned by Richard Photo Lab. I quite like the turquoise of the water on this film.

Vancouver, BC | Cascadia Road Trip, Part 5

Anna — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 21:50:43 +0000

It was the only rainy day of our road trip, but luckily the rain went away and left only lingering gray skies once we crossed the border into Canada. Vancouver was our northernmost destination on the road trip, and it was the perfect finale to our amazing week.

First, some views from Stanley Park which spans the entire edge of a peninsula.

It was funny how we really didn’t expect Canada to really be like a foreign country (I mean, it’s Canada. They don’t even stamp your passport!) But then the little things kept getting to us. One, we couldn’t use our cell phones. Two, we actually had to get some Canadian money, even though the exchange rate is basically even. Three, what in the world are blinking green lights? In fact, what are all of the strange street signs, like the sign that looks like three gold bars? And why would you ever have an intersection in which one direction has traffic lights and the other has a stop sign? We sat there at the stop sign loudly pronouncing, “But when is it our turn!?!” But we loved Vancouver anyway.

We also took a little side trip out to Capilano bridge, a nice Indiana Jones style suspension bridge in the woods. And then we headed into the city!

Left: a reflection of the steam clock in Gastown. Right: the boys had a lot of fun in this denim shop. I never knew Young knew so much about denim.

We also managed to walk through what must be the two worst blocks of Vancouver– between Gastown and Chinatown. There were just tons of people openly doing cocaine on the sidewalks and arguing with each other. This was also only two blocks from the police station It was quite bizarre.

Finally, we headed back to Richmond (the very, very Asian suburb of Vancouver) for the best Taiwanese beef noodle soup ever. It might not look like much in my cameraphone rendition below, but it was amazing and quite possibly the best meal of the entire trip, which is saying a lot, considering we spent the entire trip eating really good food.

The end! And then we went back to Seattle and each flew away to our respective cities. Check the related links below to see the other parts of our road trip. Thanks to Howard, Vince, and Young for an epic adventure! What shall the next one be?

Technical note: as with many of my latest posts, this has been a mix of real film photos processed and scanned by Richard Photo Lab and digital images processed with VSCO Film. Check up on my “Shooting Film” series if you’re interested in reading more about my explorations in film vs. digital.

Seattle, Washington | Cascadia Road Trip, Part 4

Anna — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 21:24:55 +0000

You would think we had planned it, the way we were greeted by colorful autumn leaves and perfect weather everywhere we went along our road trip. In reality, we were just really lucky. After our stops in Crater Lake, Portland, and a brief stop in Tacoma, We arrived in Seattle to bright sunny skies in the mid-sixties. Our first stop, Gas Works Park.

Autumn! Young, Howard, and Vince.

Love this leaf pile.

We stayed at our friend Jennie’s ridiculously awesome place. This is the view of the Seattle Space Needle out her window.

On day two, we walked through the Olympic Sculpture Park to get to Pike Place.

Love the Calder against the sea and skies.

Seattle Center– Space Needle and the Experience Music Project.

Lynn and Young– we met up with Lynn for lunch at Paseo.

And then the most amazing oyster happy hour at The Walrus and the Carpenter. Best $1 oysters ever. Vince models by the entrance.

And Young too.

Finally, one last shot from Jennie’s bedroom window on the morning we left for Vancouver– the only non-sunny day of our entire trip.

Lovely as always, Seattle! Next up, Vancouver.

Tacoma, Washington | Cascadia Road Trip, Part 3

Anna — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 20:51:56 +0000

Day three of our epic road trip up the west coast: on our way from Portland to Seattle, we made a little pit stop in Tacoma, Washington. On a friend’s suggestion (thanks Margaret!), I wanted to check out Tacoma’s Museum of Glass. We didn’t actually go inside, but we just scoped out the Chihuly Bridge of Glass and some of the sculptures outside. It made for a nice photo op.

Next stop: Seattle!

Portland, Oregon | Cascadia Road Trip, Part 2

Anna — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 05:01:22 +0000

Portland is just as green as its reputation suggests. Green in the scenery, green in its hipster eco-friendliness. It’s a small, small town packed to the gills with bicycles and coffee shops. Charming. This was the first city we visited (after a stop at Crater Lake) on our epic Pacific coast road trip. We arrived on Sunday night and headed out Monday morning to explore the city.

Our first stop: Pine State Biscuits. Delicious.

Just down the street, Stumptown Coffee.

Vince fits right in to Portland except that he’s really New-York-paced.

I am unfortunately not a coffee drinker, but now I know all three boys’ coffee orders: Vince- espresso, Young- iced coffee, and below, Howard and his latte.

After breakfast, we drove out east to Multnomah falls.

Sigh. Nature.

Back in downtown Portland, we visited Powell’s City of Books, the largest bookstore in the U.S. It’s a multi-story maze of books.

So many books. Love. Even though I just read everything on my iPad now.

Food carts. Sad story: Howard spent so long looking at the menu for Brunchbox that they closed up shop right as he went to order.

Portland by night.

Gorgeous.

Breakfast at Jam on Hawthorne the next morning.

“The Bizness.” An excellent way to start the day.

And then we were off to Washington!

VSCO Film Review | Digital Mimicking Film | Shooting Film

Anna — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 15:08:15 +0000

I had been thinking for a while that someone should just create a set of actions that would make digital files mimic film. Well today it showed up: VSCO Film.

In short, VSCO Film is a set of digital actions/presets for Lightroom and Photoshop that take digital raw files and make them look like different film stocks (Fuji 400H, Kodak 160, Kodak 400, etc.). It has the photography world in a bit of a tizzy– some people love it, others think it’s way overhyped, and still others (especially film purists) are up in arms about it all.

If you have read any of my recent “Shooting Film” series on digital vs. film, you might suspect that I would be the target audience for such a thing. You would be correct. After all, as one of my little experiments, I sent digital files to Richard Photo Lab with precisely the goal of making the digital files look like the film photos. So I was already looking for exactly what this claims to offer: a simple way to get that film look without actually shooting film.

Just to be clear, I am in no way affiliated with VSCO or any film company, and I am not being paid or compensated in any way for this post. I paid for the actions just like everyone else. These are my honest opinions rolled into one big ball of optimism & skepticism.

My overall take: Yes. I am happy about VSCO. I will be using it a lot.

Here are some comparisons I whipped up with the lightroom actions:

Does it really look like film? Maybe, maybe not. In the samples above, I was using the presets to match RPL scans as closely as I could, which means they weren’t really one-click edits. But as I’ve said before, I don’t really mind if digital never fully looks like film. From my limited knowledge of films and my tests on VSCO, the results are actually really impressive. One button really goes a long way across all sorts of different images, and the results do bear quite a resemblance to the classic looks of these different stocks. But again, I don’t actually mind if the action doesn’t replicate each film stock exactly. What I really care about is whether the image looks good.

Does it look good? The answer is yes. Actually, I like it a lot. I have used other action sets, but none have turned out results that I actually like so much and so consistently. There are quirks you’ll learn though, like the 400H has so much contrast built in, it doesn’t work well on backlit photos or anything that has been metered for the shadows (highlights blow out and shadows get really dark). It’s not mass producing instant Jose Villas.

Are actions magical? No, but they can be very powerful. Good actions churn out a particular look. They are consistent and replicable. They are fast and easy– this one in particular is really fast and really easy– one click really does churn out a great look. But will it make a bad photo great? Probably not. Will it give you a style and a vision if you have none? Probably not.

What does this mean for the photography industry? This software democratizes post-processing and this “film look.” As with anything that democratizes (like the democratization of dSLRs for instance), the technology spreads and barrier to entry becomes lower. This sometimes causes panic. But again, some people will use new technology well and many others will still use it horribly. Will we probably see a proliferation of images with these actions run on them? Yes. But you know what? I don’t mind. If these actions are actually producing really good-looking images as a baseline, then great.

What I am curious about is how this will impact film shooters, film labs, and film companies in the long run… this definitely marks a turning point in the mainstream direction of the industry now there is now an easy way to get the “film look” with all the conveniences of shooting digital. We’ve separated the aesthetic from the mechanism, to an extent. I do love shooting film, and I understand that there will always still be a difference between film and digital. I actually think there will still be a niche demand for real film shooters for a while, because there is always room for (and a premium for) “different,” especially in a creative industry. But this may be a “game changing” moment we look back at in the future.

As an aside, one specific example of impact: this eliminates any need for me to turn to Richard Photo Lab to do my digital processing. Since they charge $.50/image for digital editing, I estimate I’ve already earned back the $99 I paid for VSCO just by editing one session this afternoon. Read my earlier “Shooting Film” post to see what RPL could do with matching digital to film (they did an awesome job).

What does this mean for me? I will continue shooting a combination of film and digital, though now I can continue to lean more on digital. I plan to use VSCO Film in Lightroom to batch process my digital files for client proofing, and this will probably make my images more consistent, “better” in a way, and I’ll be able to do it all faster. But I still plan to take the images I use for my blog/prints/albums and edit them further in Photoshop. My eye is still on the big picture: I am always looking for photography I can fall in love with, and I will continue to evaluate and reevaluate what that might be. For now, I’m really, really excited by what I see.

Finally, a couple sneak peeks of Jenny & Kevin’s one-year anniversary shoot in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. These were all edited with VSCO Film in Lightroom.

Try it for yourself: VSCO Film.

Check out the related links below to read my other “Shooting Film” posts.

Come say hello on facebook and like my page if you’d like to keep track of my future film/digital adventures too!

Crater Lake Oregon | Cascadia Road Trip, Part 1

Anna — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 18:54:53 +0000

I dozed off amidst in the vineyards, and I woke up in the evergreens. We had left at the crack of dawn, embarking on our road trip up the west coast. Our first destination was Crater Lake, Oregon.

All that I knew about Crater Lake beforehand was that it was somewhere between San Francsico and Portland and that it was a big lake. Between the long detour and getting stuck behind slow vehicles on the two-lane roads lined with impossibly tall and skinny trees, a tinge of skepticism may have nudged its way in. Were we going the right way? Hopefully this stop was going to be worth it.

Finally, we drove up the southwest side of the lake, pulled off at the first vista point, and hopped out of the car. Immediately it was obvious: it was definitely worth it. The lake so vividly spelled out for us the very definitions of Blue and Green.

Sigh. Nature. Crater Lake is formed from a volcano that caved in on itself, and it’s a lake with no tributaries– all that perfectly still blue water comes from rain and snow– and lots of it. Apparently Crater Lake has more snowfall than Tahoe, but we just happened to time our visit perfectly with basically no snow and amazing sunshine to boot.

Howard was the catalyst for the road trip. He was on a visit back to the states after having moved to Australia last year.

Young was hanging on the edge of the earth.

And Vince scrambled up some rocks to stand atop the earth.

Whee!

And thus began the road trip. More to come!

Technical note: some of these images were shot on 35mm Fuji 400H film. Thanks to Richard Photo Lab for the scans!

Washington D.C. | Fuji 400H | Shooting Film

Anna — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:12:22 +0000

These images bring back the humid embrace of summer, the ninety-some degrees weather and array of sunshine and rain storms. It’s been three months since I took these film images in Washington D.C. These are the perils of shooting film– tucking away the finished rolls in some corner and forgetting all about them for months. But then again, this is also the delightful surprise of shooting film and forgetting about the images for months!

Thanks to Richard Photo Lab for processing these images and scanning them to perfection. Being reunited with these images makes me fall in love with film all over again.

Mona and her amazing roof deck overlooking Dupont Circle.

We stopped by 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

And walked through the Smithsonian arts & crafts museum.

The day before, Steve and I hit up some of the iconic military monuments, Iwo Jima and the Air Force monument.

And a visit to the Vietnam War Memorial. The architect Maya Lin is kind of a personal hero of mine.

Thanks again, Mona for hosting me in DC! And Mayline for bringing us out there to shoot your wedding. And to everyone who hung out with me in the area (Steve, all the photogs who got together in Maryland, Debo, and anyone else I forgot.)

Technical note: all of the above images were shot on Canon EOS3 using 35mm Fuji 400h film.