1st 2009 Wedding and last 2008 wedding (on the Lunar Calendar)

Interesting enough this was my first wedding of 2009 and also happened to be the last wedding of 2008. On the lunar calendar that is.

Being Chinese American, the lunar calendar had always boggled the mind. Everything is a month off from the "new" calendar, but the dates dont exactly correspond.

This is especially confusing because the dates for chinese new year are always different! So I never really know until I look it up.

But I digress! Congrats to Sabrina and Andy! We definitely had some great pics! Great thing traditional chinese weddings have a break in between. That allowed us to tour around the city a bit and capture some awesome photos.

I actually got to shoot with my new Canon 5D Mark II as well. Something I will be posting about very shortly. I have the good and the bad about it, but I think it will be good overall.

Thanks again!

Website refresh!

So I finally go around this month to work on my website and revamp it completely. I simplified the interface a bit and also made images come out in much higher resolution! Also the menu is now easier to navigate with left hand navigation only. I also took my best work this year and refreshed the images. Overall Im happy with the site but I will be working on a mobile friendly/HTML version in the next couple of months. Or I might just translate the current site into HTML. All alot of work but I hope everyone enjoys this new site much better. Great start for the new year.

When you least expect it

Sometimes the best photos are caught when you least expect it. I love candids, thats probably why I like photojournalism as my style of photography. I do traditional as well when time permits but most weddings are so hectic you dont get the chance even if you schedule the time. Adriana and Ramiro's wedding gave me a pleasant suprise when they found this little place in Santa Clara I've never even heard of. The timing was perfect at right around 4pm and at this time of year the lighting is so beautiful at this time. Thanks you two, this is a great photo I love, I hope you do too.

Natural light shots

I love natural light portraits. I've always felt that flash and strobes have their place and look great too, but something about how natural light (especially through windows) is very soft and classic looking. Not much PP was done in this photo and has a very classic look with it. This was done with a Canon 85mm 1.8 (if I had 3k to burn I'd get the 50mm 1.2 and the 85mm 1.2) and for the price gives still stunning results.

Nothing like a wedding on a rainy day

They cant all be sunny, blue skys and sunset right? Just so happens Laura and Andrew got married on the on rainy weekend of this season. That doesnt make the pictures come out bad though =). So I made my clients step out onto a rainy balcony in the rain.. but the results were great.

It was also the first time I had to be restricted to shooting from that far away from the actual ceremony. I was probably 50ft away at all times. I was completely restricted to using my tripod as well. Lesson learned, dont bring a precise tripod head for weddings. You need a quick ball head.

But again, congrats you two.

Congratulations to Vaneeth and Priscilla

Congrats to you two! It was a very unique wedding experience for me. I've never done a hindu wedding before and this was the most detailed one I've ever worked on. Vaneeth didnt ride in on the horse though!

The colors on everyone were so vivid and colorful. There were also so many small details to take pictures of as well. From the shrine, to the flowers, and even the henna tattoos it was amazing.

Thanks again and I hope you enjoy my work.

Blizzconn 2008

10/10/08 - 10/11/08

This was a very fun experience overall. I am a big fan Blizzard games namely Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo and they had all 3 of their latest at this Blizzcon. Nothing like packing for a 3 day weekend and your camera to get pics. I had to shoot in almost complete darkness here so it was a challenge overall not to get blurry pictures.

What was really fun was covering the costume contest. I wasnt able to get all of it but I did get a good later part and the costume finalists as well as some closeups with Jay Mohr. I only 1 camera and 1 lens and left the rest of my gear at home. I didnt want to drag 50lbs of gear with me and just wanted this to be fun more than anything else.

There was some very fun pics here. This gallery can be found at


http://moy-photo.com/blizzcon08