As we say goodbye to 2011, we also say goodbye to the headache of renovating our photography
studio. We spent 3 months dealing with the fine white dust from the drywall, the teeth-shattering jackhammering, and the noise from dawn till dusk. Renovation is super stressful, especially if, like me, you’re someone who is meticulous about the tiniest details: light, color, the shape of the tiles, design, ambiance, and on and on.

But the good news is that our studio renovation is finally complete! Champagne all around, please! Happy New Year!!!

We decided to go through the remodeling process because we wanted to be able use the studio as an elegant backdrop in photos. Renovation of this proportion usually takes 6 months, but we
completed a majority of it in just under 3 months because we are utilizing the space as a studio and can’t have such a long downtime. We had to be extremely creative in making the renovations in sections.

We did all the interior design ourselves, and we’re so please with how it turned out! The studio used to be really dark, but now light pours in from skylights and windows. Glass doors open onto the yard, creating a flow between indoor/outdoor living space.

We created more light by adding 7 new skylights, and a bunch of new windows. We also installed at least 60+ new light fixtures into the studio, most of which are LED (energy efficient and non-toxic).

The interior has a wedding theme with a glamorous, contemporary, warm and extremely sexy feel. The furniture is modern and cozy, the perfect place for couples who are getting married to get comfortable, have some wine and cheese, and chat with us about their plans.

The fireplace is elongated, see-through and set into beautifully curved tiles, bordered by wood. The other side has a large black granite surround, sitting on a sensual red wall. The see-through fireplace is fun because it’s essentially 2 fireplaces in one.

The salon also received a facelift with new light fixtures, glass French doors and new flooring.

With its beautiful lighting, flowing design, comfortable furnishings and elegant touches throughout the space, visitors tell us the new studio has the feel of a high-end lounge.

The historically grand Hayes Mansion used to be a private estate. It now is a grand hotel with lush landscape and dramatic views. Yuanyuan & Mike’s wedding started in that estate and mansion and the ceremony was set at The Ranch Golf Club in San Jose with a sunset that casted a golden glow on the couple, literary.

As usual, Tiffany Chiang crafted a beautiful bride into a princess in both her hair styling and makeup artistry. Although we have never photographed in The Ranch Golf Club of San Jose…in fact, we have never been there but with 5 minutes of prep time and blessings of a beautiful sunset, everything beautiful was showcased in light.

Jenny Chang & Josh Curtis, aka (JC)² got hitched at Hotel Valencia in Santana Row this past weekend!! It’s about time too. These two love birds are the sweetest couple. They are hardworking, intelligent and outright impeccable.

Jenny is none other than the wonderful architect who drew our studio remodel plans a few months back. Her wedding this past weekend drew a tear in my eye. I get more and more sentimental as I photograph more weddings. I thought it would be the other way round but it didn’t turn out that way.

Their post-ceremony photos in Santana Row are fun and took less than an hour to create. Tiffany, our makeup artist & hair stylist did her makeup and hair. She was thrilled with the results, which prompted her review in Yelp about us and her. Check out the photos!

We are very blessed to be one of Yelp’s highest ranked photographer in the bay area. Yup, with approx. 50 FIVE STARS reviews, we feel loved. However, today came an email stating that we now have a negative FAT ONE STAR review in Yelp! A one-star what?!!

We’re breaking the mold ! Making history and causing chaos in the industry. People officially now hate us on Yelp!

- Michael Soo
Sad Photographer of the Year

I’ve known Ben and Christine for a year now.  What started out as a client/photographer relationship has bloomed into a wonderful friendship.  They are a great couple and as I got to know them better, I saw the beauty in their personalities and everything around them. Their wedding was a clear reflection of that natural beauty.

Both Christine and Ben enjoy hiking, cycling, rockclimbing, and any activities related to nature, it seemed.  It explains their love for Yosemite National Park, a place that also happens to be home to many beautiful dogwood trees – Christine’s favorite flowers.  This is where they chose to celebrate one of the most important days of their lives together – their wedding day.

The Ahwahnee Hotel was their selected wedding venue and so my assistants and I were given wonderful accommodations there as well.  This is the best resort in Yosemite, where anybody who is anybody, basically all the celebrities, get to stay.  Whoohoo for us!  I may not be a celebrity but it sure was a pleasure to stay here and feel like one, and get to spend time with the bride and groom too.   It was the perfect rustic setting for a Yosemite wedding and the location, with so many interesting picturesque backdrops, was a photographer’s dream come true.

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On the morning of, we sat down for a quick breakfast where I managed to capture a reflection of Christine’s favorite dogwood flowers in her cup of coffee.  The couple loved the picture and this image quickly became one of their favorite pictures as well as mine.  I followed along as Christine and Ben went on their scenic morning stroll.  The misty fog provided a nostalgic, romantic portrait on the bridge by Yosemite Falls.  In another photo, we captured the waterfalls gushing behind as well.

As the bride prepped for the wedding, I ran around busy, snapping shots of her wedding details.  Her M by Marinelli shoes, which she bought from FootCandy in Santana Row, had sparkly silver straps and encrusted jewel ornaments.  It was definitely pretty eye candy for the feet.  We did a photoshoot of them against a soft yellow silk cloth, where the handmade paper leaves (their wedding favor tags) were strewn about as if they had gracefully drifted off the trees. The round jewels on her shoes reminded me of her brilliant 6-carat engagement ring.  The ring itself was impressive and looked even more so when stacked on top of the other rings that they were using for their wedding ceremony.  The stack included two other especially meaningful rings – one for their daughter, Olivia, and one for their son, Nicholas.

Ben and Christine’s wedding was decorated with white flowers and some pops of yellow.  They included round-petaled white orchids, large white lilies with yellow centers, some smaller butterfly-like varieties of yellow orchids, and more.  The bride’s bouquet was also white with tinges of yellow centers and included a few feathers for flair.  These flowers and the white and yellow color combinations created an effect reminiscent of dogwoods.  They were the lovely designs of Karen Baba of www.plandecor.com. 

What defines the bride the most is probably her wedding dress.  Christine wore the much coveted Melissa Sweet Saffron dress and the matching veil, a look that has caught the eyes of many ladies browsing the Priscilla of Boston website or Gabrielle’s Bridal Atelier in Campbell.  The Saffron dress is pretty to many because of its beautiful, soft silk organza fabric and its detailed embroidered flower appliques that are touched with Swarovski crystals, but the dress appealed to Christine in even more ways.  The sweet, little embroidered flowers reminded her of dogwoods and the whole dress itself had the rustic feel of Yosemite.  Even the veil was decorated with a border of dogwood-like flowers.  It’s a girl’s dream to be enveloped and surrounded by her favorite flowers on her most special day.  Christine had that, but even better, both she and Ben were surrounded by nature, all that they loved and all those who loved them, in the middle of one of the most beautiful national parks, Yosemite.

Who do photographers go to when they need a photographer themselves?  Do you know that 50% of our clients are photographers?!  We get doubly excited when our clients are photographers since their expectations for quality is significantly higher than everybody else’s.  That gives us wonderful challenges that we can work towards!

We get our share of camaraderie with fellow photographers since we teach photography & photoshop workshops, we have a forum with over 1,500 local photographers and we are setup to be the smug leader for Smugmug Pro in the Silicon Valley fairly soon.

Aaron, a good photographer in his own rights and a member of our forum (I say “our” because I see the forum as a property of the community) and Lani have been together for 9 years! I really enjoy the fact that they are shy at times but do finish each others sentences. Lani loves Mexican and Aaron loves sushi. I did suggest them to live near a Jap-Mex combo restaurant (we did pass a Chinese-Mex restaurant on our way to the engagement shoot. So these things do exist). Engagement photos below,

…all shot within the confines of a water temple, golden gate park, japanese garden, golden gate’s baker’s beach. It was a really fun day where the sunlight was kind to me, allowing me to craft such portraits for them to enjoy for a long time to come!!

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The past two months has been nothing but a truly humbling experience for us. We have been blogged, reviewed, voted and published. Here are some of our recent delightful encounters that made us blush to no end…

• As of today, we’ve been voted to TOP THREE of the BEST Wedding Photographer in the entire San Francisco Bay Area by San Francisco Chronicle. Help us Capture The Love become #1 !!!

• Queensberry saw our work and they love what they saw!

• Profoto, a high end international professional lighting company interviewed and blogged about us

• James Robinson, a fellow photographer found us via the Profoto Blog and went ahead to interview us

• Our work was published by both Gizmodo AND Engadget at the same time!

• We got into the front cover and numerous pages of the highly successful Nesting Newbies magazine!

• We’ve taught in several highly successful workshops in Santana Row and were requested by Smugmug to be the South Bay’s Smug Leader, proceed to give talks and organize activities for hundreds of local photographers!

We feel really blessed and we’re definitely counting our blessings and appreciate all the support and love we have gotten over the years from everyone!

I wanted to help Nancy and Kevin create a dream photo shoot, but what inspires one to dream? Is it the dress? Is it the location? Or is it just that magical feeling of love?

For this engagement shoot, Nancy wore the English Garden sheer strapless dress from Ema Savahl Couture. Detailed with sparkling flower appliqués made in the warm shades of nature, it is a romantic, dreamy gown. The dress, blooming with flowers and made of airy fabrics gave Nancy an ethereal look. It was the inspiration that turned the backdrop of the Pulgas Water Temple into the home of a Roman god, the columns of the Legion of Honor into a rendezvous spot and Golden Gate Park into a fantasy world of love.

And so the dream began:

She was a beautiful maiden who lived in the woods. She never ventured outside, for she had been warned, “Once you step outside, you may never be able to return.” But that one beautiful day, she could not help but be drawn to the light beaming from the other side. Wandering to the edge of the woods, she stopped to embrace the light, ready to step out of her world and into another.

What a beautiful new world she had never seen! Through the lavender fields, she frolicked, her airy chiffon gown flowing behind her. Was the sweet scent wafting from the flowers in her bouquet or was it just the magical scent of her beauty? Her presence caught his eye.

Who was this beautiful maiden, wandering about? He had to know. He greeted her on the plains of his meadow and offered to share his world with her.
It began with a friendly stroll through the meadows…

They spent much time together, roaming about his land. They had many a secret rendezvous. Some were hidden behind the columns where she gave him pecks of love on the cheek.

With spring breezes blowing by, their love bloomed with secret kisses underneath the flowering cherry blossom trees.

This beautiful maiden completed him. He could no longer ever live without his soul mate.

However, as time passed, she missed her home. They both knew that she soon would need to return to the woods.

It was then that he realized he needed to be with her and so he gave up his world to be a part of hers. She was now his world.

 
Wedding album design isn’t a chore for us. It’s an exhilarating part of our wedding package and photography process. It gives us a lot to look forward to.

Ever tried to buy a special gift for someone close to you, carefully wrap it and place it under the christmas tree? Despite Christmas being a week away, you can’t wait to see the expression of that special someone when they open that present, right? THAT’s exactly how we feel when we design wedding album.

This particular album is done for Christine and Ben. We were so excited about showing them the album that we photographed the albums and email them these teasers,

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(Ben wrote me an email within minutes saying, “We’re on our way over”)

Now, what makes the Queensberry line of albums from New Zealand, our selected album maker is beyond their scrumptious leather, suedes, silks, buckram and bengalines. It’s their hand crafted treasures, an extension of style, design and absolute exquisite photographic albums that retain memories. Their albums are the absolute best out there and we are glad that we are a selected few in the country that carry these albums. Don’t take our word for it, check out the guest album and engagement album that we created for Christine and Ben for their May 15th Wedding in The Ahwahnee Hotel located within the Yosemite National Park. Wedding photography in Yosemite and the Ahwahnee will be absolutely fun and exciting. I can’t wait to photograph there again!

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What turns a landscape/fashion/wedding photographer on? An engagement session in Yosemite National Park, California of course!!! I was like a kid in Disneyland, frolicking from one spot to another, having a field day!!!

This was for Christine & Ben’s Engagement shoot. They are expert photographers themselves, in their very rights. Their home is sprinkled with amazing landscape imagery from wall to wall. Absolutely stunning work! Ben showed me his Phase One P45 digital back and a Mamiya 645AFD. For those who doesn’t know what I’m blabbering about, these are Ferraris of cameras. Yes, if you were to sell the above two equipment, you can easily buy TWO Toyota Prius. Although with the current recall situation, I would avoid Toyota for now.

Being a photographer, Ben’s awesome, he’d spot interesting camera angles to be photographed. I was impressed and told him that he should quit his job in Google to come be my photography assistant. For some unknown reason, he just ignored me.

Their wedding is set for May 2010 at The Ahwahnee Hotel, in Yosemite Valley. Being in Yosemite is fun enough but in The Ahwahnee Hotel? Oh my God! There is just no comparison when it comes to the Ahwahnee. With the distinction as a Four-Diamond hotel and designated as a National Historic Landmark, Queen Elizabeth II stayed in the Ahwahnee when she visited Yosemite. So did a host of celebrities and royalties; Mel Gibson (while filming Maverick), John F Kennedy, Herbert Hoover, Eleanor Rosevelt, just to name a few.

The temperature was 36 degrees Farenheit and Christine wore nothing more than a bareback dress. She is such a trooper. I do also have to say that she is possibly one of the most delightful person to be around. I’m not exaggerating when I claim that everything appears so much more joyous and lively when she walks into the room.

The amazing engagement shoot is featured in the below cinema. I choose Feb 14 to blog about this, not just because it’s Valentine’s day, but rather, they are on my mind and their Guest Album and Engagement Album JUST arrived. More on those in my next blog!

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