2009-12-12 New Portrait Concept ? BOB Portrait ? "Baby On Board"

We shot this Fun portrait TWO days after Carla knew she was pregnant for 6 weeks. Carla knew she was pregnant on Friday and called me immediately and we did this portrait on Sunday.

Carla and Jamie were just so excited to know the pregnancy news and couldn't wait to share this to their parent ... in a fun way.

Is the Big Belly those kinda pregnancy pictures a wonderful way to capture this important journey in their life ?? Sure, no doubt.

HOWEVER, before we even capture the physical changes in a woman's body, the ANTICIPATION, the EXCITEMENT RIGHT NOW is such an amazing moment for them to remember in the rest of their life , I think is very meaningful to all the parents-to-be !

Look at this beautiful mom-to-be 's bridal portrait before she got married :)
http://www.chungliphotography.com/p/carla



Watch out ! Bump Ahead !!










The best way to showcase the picture...a BIG CANVAS !

2009-12-1 Ever see me photograph my sister ??

Alright, this is the first time I post my sister's (AMY LI) pictures here :) The reason you rarely see me post pictures of me and my sister is because we live really far away from each other ... How far ??? I live in California, and she lives in UK, yes, that far !

We planned to meet up in the beginning of this year and want to have a fun trip together, WE MADE IT, we just finished our wonderful trip together in Maui, Hawaii , together with Andrew and Florence you saw in the previous post.

I like to photograph my sister, she is a good subject to me, she always follow what I said without complaining :) I specifically selected this red-orange SaRong for her in Maui, I know it is going to pop in the picture, the blue one was also bought in Maui, to match with her white tank top .

Chung LI + Amy LI = Fun Time

on the Road to Hana (near black sand beach)


at the hotel (Sheraton), they have some pretty cool tropical plants there


at the beach near Lahaina




in a cave (form by lava) near black sand beach


at the beach in front of the Sheraton Hotel

2009-11-28 Andrew & Florence's 1st year anniversary portrait in Maui, Hawaii

What is the best way for a married couple to celebrate their 1st year wedding anniversary ? Spending a week in Maui sounds like an awesome idea, and thats what Andrew and Florence just did !! And hows the feeling shooting portrait in Maui ?? It is absolutely BEYOND awesome ! All the tropical plants, all the beautiful beaches, magnificent scene everywhere.

Lets look at some highlight of Andrew and Florence 1st year anniversary portrait we took in Hawaii last week.

2009-11-18 Shooting in Hawaii (Maui) from 11/18 - 11/24

Getting so excited for the Shoot/ Vacation in Maui from 11/18 to 11/24. Stay tuned for a lot of images !!! Looking forward to snorkel, to see the Sunrise from the volcano top, to hike in the forest, and see a lot of waterfalls !!! And of course a lot of images for the anniversary shoot of Andrew and Florence. Four of us, ME, Andrew, Florence and my sister !!! Fun time ahead !

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.