2009-11-10 A Wine Maker's Love Story | Cecil & David

Hightlight slideshow <<<<<<



























Cecil and David got to be one of my favourite couples. They visited me couple months ago, said they were planning their wedding in 2010, but they wanted to do some formal portrait and some engagement type portrait first. Cecil had couple locations in her mind before the shoot, she wants something San Francisco, something unique and something that can show their personalities. As Cecil is a wine maker and we decided to include one of the shooting location in a private winery in San Francisco, and I totally made this a Wine theme as u can see in the highlight slideshow below.

The best customer service ! I mean THEY provided me the best customer service , funny huh ? We began our first shooting location in the winery, when I got there with my equipment, they've already dressed up and what pleasantly surprised me was... they have glasses of white wine ready for me already. How could I not love them , first time I could enjoy glass(es) :P of wine before the shoot ! NICE !!!.

Oh, I haven't finished yet, Cecil and David was so kind they even gave me a bottle of wine they made as a gift to me and appreciated my hard work. Yay, I love people who appreciated my creativity, I love people who appreciated my effort taking care of them, I love people who appreciated photographers !!

Hightlight slideshow <<<<<<

2009-11-1 Sneak peek of the fashion shoot today

It has been a while since the last time I did fashion shooting, yes, it was like 6 months ago. Today, I did a fashion shoot with 3 other photographers for Image Procateur . Here are some quick sneak peek images from today's shoot in Vallejo ! Love to do fashion once in a while to just get inspired.

2009-10-23 Album Design Album Design

Haven't blogged for a little while, Working Working Working. While I'm still editing a wedding I shot in the Hakone Japanese Garden couple weeks ago, I have been busy catching up with some album design for couple clients ( some 12"x12" and some 11"x14" flush mount albums ) . It is a busy album design month for me, but it is very satisfying to put together all my clients favorite wedding images together in a book format. Stay tuned !!!

2009-10-8 Personal Fun Project (Video)

Last saturday I attended one of my very good friends Mayumi & Zach's wedding at the Byington Winery in Saratoga. To make sure I will have enough time to enjoy myself and have fun, I referred them another good photographer Ricky from wphotography to take care of the photography part. However, I told them I can do some video here and there using my Canon 5D mark II cameras and made the following 8 mins movie clip. Just for fun, and they love it !

Mayumi & Zach 's Wedding (Canon 5D mark II) from Chung Li on Vimeo.

The gear I used was :

two Canon 5D Mark II ,
50mm macro for the close up shots during preparation.
24-70mm for most of the wide-medium shots
70-200mm for closeup in preparation / ceremony and dancing
17-40mm for the walking/moving camera shots.

2009-9-27 Attending one of my best friends' wedding | Garden Court Hotel Palo Alto

Too busy too busy, I have been asking myself to blog about this special August wedding asap. I have attended one of my my best friends Ellie and Eric's wedding last month in Palo Alto Garden Court Vincci Hotel . I met Ellie (half Japanese, half Italian) when we went to business school back in 2003 for my MBA. We are good friends ever since. I still remember 5-6 years ago, when Ellie looked at my travel pictures, she said "Chung , I think you should be a photographer !". Well, I am now :P Life is fun , Life is exciting !

I'm very glad to be able to help my great friends Ellie and Eric to capture their wedding day, this meant a lot to me too. I originally told Ellie I'm not going to photograph her and Eric's wedding as I really want to totally participate and enjoy their wedding day, and I said I'm only going to help her on the outdoor portrait part, and just shooting here and there. I think the highlight slideshow below can pretty much summarize the whole day :)



Highlight Slideshow : <<<<<<


This is one of Ellie parent's favorite pictures. Ellie's whole family getting ready before she walked down the aisle.


Ellie doesn't need any fancy expensive wedding dress to make her look pretty. She looks simply elegant with this evening gown.

















One of my favorite pic of the day




Thank you for my assistant of the day , Mari ( Ellie's sister ) helping me to do some test shots. She has a great sense of style, is it because she is a stylist or is it just because she is from Italy ???

2009-9-13 Martha's Vineyard Destination Wedding (Sneak Preview) | Massachusetts

Alright, you have seen some of the rehearsal day images of Heather and Tom's wedding in the last blog post, what an awesome location to have a wedding in Martha's Vineyard Massachusetts. Lets see more images of this beautiful destination wedding.

I spent whole 2 days with Heather & Tom , as well as their families and friends in this island ( the 3rd day was my own vacation day, hehe :) , everyone treated me and my 2nd shooter very well and I love clients like Heather and Tom who showed total trust of our work flow and our creativity. Is it much more work for us to shoot destination weddings ? Well, honestly, YES, all the preparation work, the travel, the portrait locations scouting, but I love what I am doing, I love to shoot in locations totally new to me, I am so inspired by all the new things I see. The whole 3 days trip in this beautiful island was definitely a treat to myself and I love the New England flavor. The recemony was at a private property and the reception was at the Beach Plum Inn. The Portrait session we shot part of it at a private beach - Lucy Vincent Beach near the Beach Plum Inn.

Here I also included a sneak peek slideshow I emailed them 3 days after the wedding while they were in their honeymoon in Maui.

Sneak Peek slideshow (wedding day): <<<<<<

Sneak Peek slideshow (rehearsal): <<<<<<


It was my first time to shoot the brides' preparation outdoor :)
















Yay, heading to the beach for some portrait after the ceremony.






Thanks for my 2nd shooter Garvin got this shot for me shooting at the beach.

















Heather and Tom's parents treated me very well I have to make sure I got some good portrait for them :)


Bonfire after the reception.

2009-9-8 Just flew back from the Martha's Vineyard destination wedding shoot

AWESOME TRIP !!!!

Just came back from a 3 days trip from Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. I was so excited to be part of Heather and Tom's wedding in this beautiful island on east coast. I shot Heather's Sister Joanne's wedding last year in Palo Alto and Heather was the bridesmaid and I couldn't wait to photograph her wedding and meet Joanne and Todd again.

It was a long trip for me and my 2nd shooter flew from SF , but the experience was just amazing.I and my 2nd shooter flew took the red eye flight depart from SFO airport at about 11:30pm Friday night and arrived Boston Logan airport Saturday morning at 7:30am ( ZZZZZZzz it was 4:30am SF time ZZzzZZzz ). Then we took a 1.5 hrs ride from the airport to catch the 45mins ferry ride from Woodhole to the Martha's vineyard. Saturday was the rehearsal dinner and the wedding was on Sunday. I have a lot of images to share with you, let me post some images I took in the rehearsal dinner first and will post some more wedding day images in the next post. Guest what we have in the rehearsal dinner ? Yes, a super nice Lobster dinner everyone loved it !


On the ferry to the Vineyard from Woodhole





My destination wedding shoot gear


At the Rehearsal




At the rehearsal dinner


I like my clients serve me well ! ( e.g Good food :P )

2009-9-3 Heading Martha's Vineyard (Massachusetts) this weekend for a wedding Shoot

While I'm still recovering from the east coast Rhode Island wedding shoot 2 weeks ago for Jessica & Cory, I'm again packing my gear for a Martha's Vineyard wedding this labor day weekend in Massachusetts for Heather and Tom. It is definitely going to be a gorgeous wedding in this beautiful place. I 'm leaving Friday night from San Francisco and coming back Monday. Stay Tuned for some awesome images !!
I also have my videographer with me this time and we'll make a behind the scene video promo !! So Excited !!!

something about Martha's Vineyard....

Martha's Vineyard (including the smaller Chappaquiddick Island) is an island off the south of Cape Cod in New England. The islands both forming a part of the Outer Lands region.

Often called just "the Vineyard," the island is the 58th largest island in the United States, and the third largest on the East Coast of the United States.

It is located in the state of Massachusetts, in Dukes County. The island is primarily known as a summer colony, and is accessible only by boat and by air. Nevertheless, its year-round population has grown considerably since the 1960s. A study by the Martha's Vineyard Commission found that the cost of living on the island is 60 percent higher than the national average and housing prices are 96 percent higher.

2009-9-1 Crystel & Juan's wedding at the Saint Ignatius Church | San Francisco

August , for me was the busiest month in this year, photographing five weddings were pretty exhausted, but totally rewarding to me. Here is the wedding I shot for Crystel and Juan on August 8. Ceremony at the Saint Ignatius Church in University of San Francisco. The reception was held at the Westin Hotel near the San Francisco Airport.
It was a fun day for me to work for Crystel and Juan, they are awesome and Crystel looks so elegant !!!!

I want to make every of my bride look their best on probably their most important day in their life and help to make the atmosphere FUN. I want all of them to feel hiring me was not ONLY for the creative images, but the whole experience that the brides and the grooms will talk about for their whole life.

In this wedding, I was also excited to know that I had the chance to work with Matthieu of MVideoM , also Annie of Annie Siu Floral and Events , Great Team !!!

Here is the highlight slideshow : <<<<<<

Here is the email I got from Crystel and Juan right after I released the sneak peek slideshow to them ..... :) THANK YOU SO MUCH CRYSTEL & JUAN

2009-8-26 Private residence wedding shoot on east coast | Rhode Island Wedding

The wedding I shot last saturday in Rhode Island was magnificent , it was an awesome experience to shoot in such a beautiful place and also a fun experience to work with another great photographer Mercedes McAndrew.

A little bit about Rhode Island, it is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area. Rhode Island borders Connecticut to the west and Massachusetts to the north and east.

We started photographing Jessica's preparation at her beautiful house (which is also the reception location ) at about 10:00am. By the time we got there, the tents for reception are all setup already and decoration has already started.

Love all the light blue wall color in Jessica's bedroom blends into the bridesmaids' aqua blue dresses. After the ceremony , all the girls took the trolley to the church for the ceremony. The Cocktail and the reception was back to Jessica parent's house in an absolutely prime location in Rhode Island which has an amazing 270 degree ocean sunset view. During the reception , Jessica's brother had a great idea we took the speed boat drove about 100 yards to take a picture of the entire reception area and the house, such an exciting experience.

Here is the highlight slideshow <<<<<<