With the sand castles, the gorgeous weather, and the element of complete surprise, their proposal was perfect. If you missed Shelly & Mark’s proposal, you’ll need to head there first and come back when you’re done. After all the tears and the uncontrollable grins, such a wild spectrum of emotions, we headed back to our…
They told her they were having “guy time,” and the three of them, Mark, Joe, and my brother Albert, ran off to conspire at the beach, leaving her behind with Nikki for the day. Shelly imagined the boys were hanging out a bar somewhere, watching the game. She certainly didn’t suspect this. She was on…
Is there anything more beautiful than getting back to the roots of what drew you to something in the first place? For me, shooting film has been an incredible journey back and a total jolting leap forward at the same time. Shooting film is humbling. You have to get back to basics in your technique,…
The incredible story of how they met spans 2,650 miles from Mexico to Canada on foot. They had each embarked– separately, still strangers– on the Pacific Crest Trail at the California-Mexico border, Debby leading by two days without a clue that her future husband was trailing behind her. It wasn’t until three and a half…
Earlier this month, I taught the final workshop of our four-part series. It was a live portrait shoot with two wonderful models, Henry M. Chu and Shannon. We were rained in and spent most of the session in a loading dock, but with all the awesome participants, I think it turned out just fine. First,…
If you can shoot in a big square box, you can shoot anywhere. I told them from the beginning, the theme of today is going to be resourcefulness. We were rained in. It was our final workshop in the 4-part series, and we were supposed to do a live shoot with models and the whole…
Sometimes, it rains. Literally, metaphorically, sometimes we have to adapt and change our plans. With some things going on in Silvia’s life and forecasts of rain for the week, we seriously considered cancelling the engagement shoot. But I am so very glad we didn’t. It became a reprieve from the rest of the world, a…
You might not see the silly side of them right away, poised as they are as the lawyer and the police officer. But give it just a little bit of time and the right conditions, and their playfulness comes right through. They’ll laugh together and be goofy together, but they’ll also cry together and they…
I can tell you all about how generous and kind Elliot is. I live with him, though we both travel frequently and he works so much that we joke about taking turns living at our place. I can also tell you about how sincere and engaging Sun is, despite having met her only twice. It’s…
It’s so easy to fall in love with these two. They seem like such beautiful old souls, like they’ve already been together a lifetime. They fall into step and interact with a simple ease. Soulmates. We met at Magali and Sam’s building in downtown San Francisco, and we kicked off their session on their awesome…
Theirs is an absolutely wonderful engagement story with just the right amount of theatricality. Last June, Tony brought Connie to see Wicked, one of their favorite musicals up in San Francisco’s Orpheum Theater. After the show, he had arranged everything for a sly backstage tour, and just to complete things, he even had “the green witch”…
I meant to feature this a long time ago but kept saving it for another day. As some of you may know, in my “other” life, I am creative director and managing editor of TaiwaneseAmerican.org, which supports the Taiwanese American community. Back in August, we did some shoots for TaiwaneseAmerican.org‘s t-shirt line. We had our friends volunteer…