Friday night of Memorial Day weekend, I texted my good friend Dan because we still had no plans whatsoever, and we needed to do something! Dan is the perfect adventure buddy because he is not fazed by the randomness of our trips (example: Salton Sea). After all, spontaneous trips often turn out to be the…
This was such an incredible surprise proposal. Vijay crafted such an intricate plan, completely thoughtful and intimate down to the last detail. It was not a big public display or self indulgent in the least. It was all for Anika. It was all about Anika. While Anika went to work, Vijay prepared everything in her…
Defining Movement, a.k.a. defMo, is an amazing multicultural dance group at Duke University. In college, I used to love photographing their performances. In fact, a defMo show was my first official paid photography gig. I always wished I could dance that well, but I was pretty content with leaving the dancing to defMo and photographing…
It’s very fitting that right now, as I type this post, I am back at Duke a second time in two months, sitting at a computer station in Lilly Library on Duke University’s East Campus. Just last month, I came to Duke for my reunion. It had been five years– five long/short years since I graduated from this…
This is an engagement I’ve been looking forward to for a while now. You may remember my friends Sun and Elliot from their portrait session a year ago, before they were engaged, just as they were about to embark on a year of long distance across San Francisco and Vietnam. Well, they made it through…
My friend Talya is an incredibly talented opera singer. She also happens to be gorgeous. She’s one of my long time fans and has made frequent appearances on this blog. This time, I told her if she flew out to California, she had a portrait session waiting for her over here. She got a little…
It’s been such a pleasure to photograph the Gardners year after year and watch their family grow. Sadly, they are moving down to Southern California this month, and they will be sorely missed up here in the Bay Area! But I fully plan to visit them down in Ojai to continue the annual tradition, as…
Joy and Timmy are expecting! Despite forecasts of rain, we lucked out on some gorgeous sunlight instead. It took a little bit of convincing for me to assure Tim that we weren’t going to create super awkward maternity photos (because yes, there are so many super awkward maternity photos out there in the world). But he…
This city is full of surprises. Even with all the times I have visited in the last couple years, no two trips have ever felt the same. This time it was a really quick visit, just two short days, one of them Valentine’s. No romantic liaisons, but lots of awesome friends! I spent most of…
I went to Philadelphia in the middle of February on a whim, and of course, of course I had to sample the famous Philly Cheesesteaks for myself. So with a motley crew of 3 of my awesome friends who had never met each other, we set off on our cheesesteak adventure. Four cheesesteaks in one day….
My good friend Talya is working with an amazing after school music program called Play On, Philly. While I was visiting Philadelphia last month, famed vocalist Bobby McFerrin also happened to be doing a guest appearance at the program. It was a perfect opportunity for me to grab some photos for them and capture the excitement…
Pristine, perfect, posed photos are nice. But to me, the imperfect ones are the real gems. I want to trap the sneaky little moments that fly by, because they are the split seconds that reveal our true spirits and remind us to celebrate life as it is, not just as we stage it to be….