Life on the wild side.

…or in other words, wildlife.

I mentioned earlier in a previous post that Dr. Stephen Chen, my dentist is a photographer too. He likes to shoot wildlife, so we’ll go shoot wildlife together, these are some photos from a recent trip.

Stephen said this egret (below) looked like it was doing tai chi. ha! he’s a funny man.

This guy thought he could camouflage himself in the trees to hide from me. This little bird sucks at camouflage.

This bird below is what I believe a North American Mallard. The same kind of ducks you used to shoot in Nintendo’s Duck Hunt.

I have  almost an exact replica of this in a painting form that I painted when I was younger.

This is the big bad wolf. Or maybe it’s a coyote, and it’s not that big. He looks pretty haggard, I have some friends that look like this on the weekends.

Meet Dr. Stephen Chen (SAF), He’s my dentist.

This is a continuation of my SAF (shoot a friend)  Project. This is Dr. Stephen Chen, and he’s my dentist.  Technically, I guess this should be labeled shoot a dentist, but the acronym would then be SAD, and that’s sad.
So in this shoot, I wanted the concept to be for my dentist to be the dentist. I thought it was quite amusing. I had a lot of fun telling him what to do, because usually he’s the one telling me what to do.
He’s also an amazing dentist and a great person.  Since he has had a very successful dentistry for a really long time, I asked him for advice for someone who’s starting their own business (me, basically) and this is what he said.

-Maintain good quality in your service.
-Listen to your clients so you can understand what they need/want.
-Don’t think that your way is the only way. If a client wants something done in another way, make your suggestions but do not dismiss what a client wants.
-Instead of complaining, fix the problem.
-Finish your deadlines on time. Make good on your promises.
-Client referrals give the best business.
-All businesses take time. It’s hard in the beginning, but your must persist.
-Be happy about yourself, and your others will be happy too.

It’s not word for word on what he said, I had to do some translating and rewording because he was speaking in Chinese some of the time.

New York, here I come!

I have some exciting to tell you. I am going to NYC! I will be there January 9th-17th. If you are going there (or already there) any for some reason and you’re engaged, I will be willing to take your engagement photos there for free.

Other upcoming Travel plans as of right now.

March 7-11 Las Vegas.
July 17th ish Hawaii
Possibly a San Francisco Trip somewhere in that mess.

These are photos from my last trip. This is a metro station band.

At a dock on my way to see Lady Liberty.

Central Park.

Meet Desiree and Claudell

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to shoot at UCLA, which was cool. But not all that exciting because I’ve been to UCLA many times. I have not however, been to USC! So I was really excited to be able to shoot Desiree and Claudell at USC.  Lucky for me Desiree used to be some sort of tour guide so as we were walking around I got to learn a thing or two about the campus.  The vibe is very different from UCLA, I’d describe USC as a little more serious than UCLA. Hm, yeah that’s it. I read that USC beat UCLA in its recent football game. Congrats to USC! But Claudell tells me USC lost to Arizona. So sorry about that USC.

Introducing Erwin and Betzy Gomez Part 2

The Gentlemen!

The ladies!

Yes, she is expecting

I asked him to wink at me. Wink: Fail. Cuteness: Win!

Any reception that starts off  with a shot(s), is going to be a good reception

Photographically, this isn’t the greatest photo. But let me tell you! This one man band whose name is Danny held his own all by himself with a guitar and ukele. He played amazing music! Anyone who listens to his music would agree. And you know he’s good when everyone (including me) went up to him to ask for a business card. Not only is he talented in singing and playing the guitar, but according to his business card he’s also a swing dance instructor and a gondolier. In case you don’t know what a gondolier is, it’s one of those guys who row a gondola (skinny Italian boats). His music can be found on myspace.com/dannymaika.

These next two photos are what I call brotherly love.

I love this guy, and I don’t even know his name. During his toast he said he cut his shoulder length hair just for Erwin. That’s love man.

This is my good friend Elaine! She’s Erwin’s sister and she’s doing her best not to fall apart emotionally while giving her toast.  Elaine and I used to take advertising class together, and we’d be big procrastinators in our homework, that’s how we got along so well.

The end of the mother and son dance.

I like this photo because he’s all up in there.

The guy wearing a fedora hat is the father of the groom. I don’t know many Asian dads that can pull off a fedora hat, he is the man.

The gentlemen in the pink shirt pulls up a grandma to dance on the dance floor. Shameless! and I love it.

Introducing Erwin and Betzy Gomez! Part 1

This lovely couple gave me some of my best engagement photos up to date. I’m very proud to present to you the wedding photos of Erwin and Betzy! This is part 1.

Ceremony: St. Denis Church

Reception: Green Parrot Cafe

You might not be able to tell but the dog has a little vest on. Nom nom nom.

Behind the dress, is the refrigerator. Inside the refrigerator is the milk. Betzy really likes milk.

Father of the bride on the right and little dude on the left.

The best bowl cut since Dumb and Dumber.

Betzy!

This of course is Erwin and his Entourage. A very fun bunch.

Here comes the bride…

Make a wish!

Part 2 Coming Soon with bride&groom shots, bridal party, and reception shots!

Papaya Holiday Clothes!

In lieu of the holidays, I wanted to put up some of the holiday clothing that I have been shooting at Papaya recently. Also, to get more into the spirit  I put some snow on my blog, kinda cool isn’t it?

I also really really like this zip up hoodie. If I were a girl, I definitely buy this.

Meet Erica Liang (SAF)

This is a continuation of my SAF project.

This is Erica, she’s an amazing artist and lip-sync-er. She’s also a whole lot of fun. We talked a whole lot over some pho and boba about life, church, and people. It was very fun and so are her photos. The concept for the first part is breakfast! I wanted to use fruits one would normally eat for breakfast in some sort of fun and interesting manner. The concept for part two was just kinda random, because I like random.

Part 1

Part 2

I threw a ball at her neck in this photo.

Catch of the day!

My dentist is a photographer and he likes to shoot wildlife.

So sometimes we’ll go out and shoot wildlife together. This is my favorite shot of our photo expedition.

Tacos! Beer! Mariachis! Mucho Comida!

When Maribel and Maria have parties, they have them big. Real BIG. They rented out an entire venue for their father’s 60th surprise birthday party. There were at least 300 people there. Not impressed?

They also had TWO food vendors. My favorite being al pastor tacos (shown below). The other was a buffet line. Still not impressed?

They had an enormous bounce house for all the children to run around anduse up all their energy, so they don’t bother the adults. Still not impressed? You should at least be a little bit by now. For a birthday? It’s impressive.

This is the adorable Kaylene! Last time I photographed her, she was only 1! Now she’s three, and she can say my name! I love her!

And there’s another one! That’s Kaylene’s little sister (I believe.) Super adorable!

This is Javier! It’s kinda funny, there was an older gentlemen who walked in a minute before he did and I started snapping photos of the other guy. Then I realized it wasn’t Javier.

Okay back to the amazing aspects of the party. They had a full on mariachi. I think there were 5-6 of them, I know only two of them are show in the photo.

I don’t know what these dancers are called, but there were a crew of six very talented dancers.  Still not impressed?

Well if you’re still not impressed yet..they had a full-on band/mini-orchestra in there marching around and performing on stage.

This is the very wonderful Maribel. Thank you so much Maribel!

Maribel dancing with her father.

Back in my day…we had gameboys.

So if you weren’t impressed by all that you must be a baller. And you need to invite me to your parties! But if you’re like me, I think you’ll agree that this was an incredible party filled with fun and good food.

Thanks again to Maria and Maribel!