Chase and Charissa Baptism

Easter Sunday, I went to go photograph my cousin's twins getting a baptism. Of course, I couldn't help but photograph other parts of the day. :)



Chase loves being thrown in the air. Over and over again. lol He's an active one.



Here he is with daddy.


The baptism:





Mini photoshoot up in the baby's room. haha It went from "Chase, lean back so you don't fall over. Keep your hands down! Look at me!" to "Okay, I'll let you do your thing and if you laugh at me once in a while -- Score!" :)





Charissa is a shy one. It's so cool to watch their personalities develop at such a young age.




Okay, Auntie's gonna feed you. Good thing they taught us how to do this at the orphanage. lol



And make a mess on your face just to take a photo of you. lol



Chase loves talking on the phone. He laughs and smiles whenever he hears a voice on the other end. Who is it? Is it daddy?


Last but not least, Chase and her Auntie. :) He kept trying to pull of my glasses, but finally I managed a good photo with him.



Baby photography is different from photographing adults and kids. No matter what they are always so comfortable in front of the camera and always have natural expressions. But there are a lot of similarities as well, because you have to get these expressions out of them. Cooperating with your vision is a whole different story. haha

Sometime during the process of starting my photography business, I started to lose sight of my love for photography. I always had a fear that when you something you love into a career, you could quite possibly lose your love for it. It did happen as I started focusing more on the networking and business aspect of it. I stopped taking my camera out for anything other than photoshoots and weddings, and began to think what's wrong with this picture?

I am so glad that it's days like this, spending time with loved ones and capturing the day that make me realize how much I love what I do. Even my six month trip overseas made me rediscover my passion for photography and my absolute love for people. Photography is my medium to love and serve people. Getting paid for it is just frosting on the cake. :) This is always important to be reminded of.

Jean and Mike E-session 2.

Wow. I am so stoked with these photos from their session, I need to do a second post in a row. This has been unprecedented in my blog history. I stayed in Friday night working on photos, and it looks like tonight is looking very much the same. I have been toying around with different post-processing, but so far I'm really liking the new look. Btw, what happened to textures? I came back six months later, and it doesn't seem like photographers are using them as much.

Here are just a few more photos from the session. I just couldn't resist! The next time post about them, it will be their slideshow.

They wanted to incorporate their smart car into the photo, and I told them I'll see what I can do. Lucky for them AND me, I may have found myself a new favorite photo of all time!! :)


The reflection off the car. We tried to use a dirty old sock to wipe off the pollen, but it never goes away. Let's just pretend that they're reflections of stars, or even better, a texture! :)



So peaceful.









I'm finally able to unleash all this creativity inside me now that I am... what's the word? Shameless. And this is in the most positive way you can think. haha Also, it usually helps when the couple is willing to do just about anything for a good photo opportunity. :)

I think I have always had some amount of insecurity with whether the couple would be comfortable with me during the photoshoot, whether they would cooperate with my ideas, or would I even have good ideas?! There's a lot to think about. Lighting. Location. Posing. etc. etc. etc. It can be overwhelming if you're not confident in what you're doing. You always have to expect the unexpected and know how to make lemonade out of lemons.

What changed? Two things. The first is practice. I do believe with more practice, we are able to be more at ease with ourselves in our giftings and abilities, and we're able to explore new territory. Second, I feel a lot more free in the way I interact with people. I'd like to think that God has given me this gift and career for some greater purpose. I want to be able to pour my heart out into my work and into the people I work with.

And of course at the very least, I want us to just have a good time. Having fun on the photoshoot is just as important as nailing the shots. Usually they go hand in hand as well. :)

Jean and Mike E-session.

The weather forecast was rainy, but luckily for our few hours of shooting, the rain stopped and the sun peeked out. Finally the weather cooperates with me! Then the storms of life rolled in afterward. My car battery died TWICE. Once in the parking lot, and the second time while I was driving. Good thing I was too paranoid to drive on the highway. I was stranded for three hours, and then had an emotional breakdown because I really needed to go to the bathroom, but my key was stuck in the ignition. lol Then I asked if it could get any worse. haha Never ask that question. It started raining, then hailing, then a tornado. Yes, I said tornado. I saw a tornado on the way home and huge chunks of hail hit my car. Yesterday was probably the longest and craziest day of my life. Now, I can sit here and laugh about it. Hey, it's not so bad. I had a great engagement session where the weather cooperated with me, then got a new car battery, and I survived a tornado. I think it was overall... a great day. :)

Now the e-session. I was only going to post up two or three teasers, but I could not stop myself from finishing more photos. First stop, Jean and Mike's favorite date spot. I can see why. They're creme brulee french toast was amaaazing! :)



They were telling me how they took a roadtrip to NYC to buy these shirts. That's exciting. "Hey, I want to buy a shirt. Let's drive to NYC." hehe :)





Dave and Busters. Game time!









The guy was nice enough to let us only pay for two people to get on the ride. ;)







End. Btw, I needed to add this one last pic in here. This would be hail that I found on my lawn when I got back. Crazy day.



More will be posted on facebook. ;)

Meet Tian.

Meet Tian. She's made some appearances in different music videos, but I have a feeling something much bigger is around the corner! ;) For those of you who haven't seen the music video Kiss Me Thru The Phone by Soulja Boy, check it out!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhwQay4QiOw. Very cute song! Especially for you long distance couples. ;)

Here are a few teasers from the session yesterday (the two on the left are from the music vid):





There are flowery fields everywhere. It may have just been a small one, but I'm definitely glad we stumbled upon it. :) I was threatening to move to Cali, but Atlanta does have them afterall. haha





On the way back to go grab some food:



Needless to say, after rolling around on the grass all day, we deserved a big meal an Donqui's.




More pictures from her session to come soon (I may post a few more here and there on facebook before I write my next post about her).

Now, off to an e-session today. It's rainy weather, so wish me luck!

One of those mornings.

What a tiring night. I stayed up all night trying to clean my room. My project to clean out my entire room and sell my stuff turned into a disaster. I can't believe I destroyed my room. But nothing a few all nighters cannot fix.

Yeah. It was just one of those mornings. I slept at 9AM and woke up at 1PM. lol I am going to sleep like a baby tonight.



So it went from this...



to this:



Quite a huge improvement. This is what is left of my clothes. I think I tossed 80% of my clothes!! Did I mention that I love scarves? :)



I like how with these kinds of projects, you always dig up interesting gems! ie my Care Bears record player that actually works!! lol



And allows for creative ways to decorate the room. I used to have bare walls. It was time to do something about them? I'm starting with the wall above my desk and filling it with postcards of places I've visited. Hoping to add to it soon. :)



I'm also selling lots of books and DVDs. I started putting them up on Amazon yesterday, and they are already selling. Craziness! I wrapped them in calendar pages to add a nice touch to them. lol Beautiful, huh? It just saves me shipping when I don't put them in boxes. :P

Camels and Pyramids!

Awesome day to ride camels and see pyramids. Horrible day for skirts.



My view. These guys are a lot harder to ride than you would think.



Buddy would not get in line. He kept bumping his head into my leg and threatening to spit on me. :(



My fav pic of the day. It takes skills to ride a camel and take photos. LOL In all seriousness, though, I almost fell off several times!



Das ist Julia.



That's me!





Breath mint, anyone?



Group pictures!





Hmm not so happy ending for this fella. We saw him on the way back.



Think I may have a few more photos up on facebook. If you're interested in checking them out, feel free to add me! :) Link on the right (navigation bar).

Days like these.

I went to have lunch with a dongseng (younger "brother"), because I had promised to buy him lunch for almost an entire year and never got around to it. When I began heading to midtown (which is maybe 45-50 mins away from where I live), I realized that I never put the number in my cellphone. The only place that the number was saved was in my facebook inbox. Problem.

I called several people to see if they could help me out. For some reason, they happened to ALL be busy (coincidence?). Then, I called my dad at home and tried to talk him through facebook to get the number. This was for about thirty to forty minutes with no avail. He had no idea to navigate through facebook. We were so close... yet so far! God bless him for his efforts, though. I was so stressed out and frustrated. I know I took it out on him, and we hung up knowing that the conversation was not going anywhere.

Good thing that this was not the end of the story. I came home and folded my pride and apologized for being a jerk and for being impatient with him. It was completely my fault for leaving the number, and he was trying to help me the best way he knew how, but he just couldn't. As I was driving back and preparing myself to talk to him, I was so thankful to realize how gracious God has been to me. How patient He has been with me. I have SO much more to grow... especially in this special area of patience, but God gently pushes me to grow through these types of challenges. I can actually say that I am thankful for times like these. Even though it shows me that I have a lot more to grow, I know the direction I'm walking, and I know that God is faithful. Therefore, I can boast all the more in my weaknesses! haha So thankfully my crazy morning just pointed me back to Him and now I can be more hopeful. I love days like these.

This is an old pic of my dad. Maybe from 3 years ago? Seriously! I cannot believe I had such a hard time finding a photo of him. I need to reorganize my photo library. It is a mess!

Just wanted to say: Dad, you are still very awesome! Thanks for always being there. :)



I still need to update my Egypt photos! I promise at least ONE update this week. :)