Many reasons why I like to photograph here.

One of my favorite family photo locations is the San Mateo Central Park Japanese Tea Gardens. Many factors makes this a great spot: (1) easy, free parking, (2) gardeners are excellent at maintaining the place so I'm guaranteed to have lovely backgrounds, (3) shady and sunny options, (4) greenery and human-made features, (5) variety of greenery, (6) never crowded, (7) no entrance fee, (8) giant koi pond makes everyone happy, (9) I know the place so well I can stride around tour-guide like and lead my clients to picturesque spots, (10) is outside of SF and is thus most often SUNNY, (11) too pretty to be bored here, (12) surrounding high wood walls shelter from wind (13) small enough not to get exhausted walking around and (14) proximity of snack/lunch potential for post-shoot munchies.

Of course there are seasonal changes, which affects the light and the shrubbery, but surprises are kept within a familiar range, unlike locations such as in the Golden Gate Park. I've learned to keep track of festivals and such at the GGP, because post say, Outside Lands music fest, the grass will be trampled to an unattractive muddy pulp, with a generous sprinkling of litter.

Eleven Months

Sibs - eleven months apart! Consequently, they're very close. Usually sibs this age - especially if they are a boy and a girl- don't want to be near each other for photos, or very grudgingly sit together for just a moment. These two however, made life very easy for me. They even very nicely shared bubbles, and took turns (without being told to!) making bubbles/ chasing bubbles. Impressive.

It was a cold blah day. Oh San Francisco. When will summer come? Anyways, I tried to take the blue-ness out of the photos, and to make the colors more vibrant to counteract the weather. These two didn't seem affected by the gray day at all.

On A Brief Foray Into Chinese Medicine

Much like Bodyshop or McD's, one can smell a Chinese Herb Shop long before you see it. I'd passed many of these in my Hong Kong youth (20+ years ago), and always peered in the windows to try to spot the weirdest ingredient - usually this was the dried seahorses. However in all this time I'd never considered trying Chinese medicine myself. It wasn't that I rejected it; it just didn't occur to me. And I'm Chinese.

Now I live in an area of San Francisco which is in an odd way, more Chinesey than Hong Kong. Much of contemporary Hong Kong is modern, with shiny supermarkets and imported foods from all over the world, speed walking suited persons, high end designer stores. I'm sure there are still herb shops, acupuncturists, tea shops - but they are all tucked away from mainstream city life. Here in SF, I can walk one block and find acupuncturists, reflexologists, herb shops, and little markets that sell funky smelling Chinese ointments.

I decided to give acupuncture a try when I sprained my ankle over a month ago. Mostly because I was immobile and miserable for 3 days, and then someone had insisted acupuncture would be effective.  It was. Swelling was down immediately, and I went from crutches to hobbling without help.

Apparently, people often consider acupuncture as a last resort, instead of a first option. My acupuncturist wishes eastern medicine were more integrated in hospitals and such, so access would be easier. Some MDs do get a certificate in acupuncture; however, this is a two month course as opposed to the years an acupuncturist spends studying the art. And though acupuncture is an ancient medicine form, its techniques constantly evolving, even employing some modern technologies, while the principles remain the same. Like linking the needle (which incidentally, are not so bad - I barely noticed them) to a light electrical current.

What are the principles? Hmm - this is my interpretation, which may or may not be accurate - but acupuncture medicine is based on a person's natural energy flow within the body - known as "Chi". It's not just circulation, or nerve connections. Chi is not quantifiable by scientific equipment at the moment.

Acupuncture comes with being an herbalist (Herbology? Like at Hogwarts - But not?) - which means putting together packets of dried herbs to treat conditions. For reducing abdominal muscle pains (digestive or lady cramps), fresh ginger in hot water. It worked for me. With a red date thrown in for good measure. No longer need the Tylenol.

For other issues, it gets more complicated. Above is a simmering pot of some 16 ingredients. As far as I can tell, they are all plant based. It is alarming how pungent smelling plant bits can wind up smelling, and how startlingly bad the resulting "tea" can taste. So bad, that to be honest, I only managed to consume half of my 3 cup presciption on my first day.

I wonder how the first person to stew up a particular root or branch decided to consume the resulting liquid - s/he must have been lacking in smell cells and taste buds. It seems that most Chinese (and maybe even Korean) people have at some point in their lives been subject to (by their parents, or acupuncturists) drinking Really Awful Tasting concoctions for good health. The worse tasting, the better for you, naturally. No you can't dilute it, or sweeten with honey...

Happy Trails

He followed pill bugs along in the dirt, ate blackberries off of bramble plants, had endless fun with a stick, and gazed patiently out at ducks on the water. Documenting a family walk along a trail sounded ideal, but I did not realize the trickiness of family-on-trail photography - I can only either shoot from behind or in front - very little flexibility for different angleage. Top it off with uneven speckled shade, and much of the time spent looking at the ground for insects (not me, I mean, the little boy).

I did appreciate the nature-friendly parenting style; instilling a gentle curiosity for things living under logs, being unafraid of dirt and scratchy bark, the encouragement to clamber over tree roots, and complete enjoyment and entertainment from being outside and away from things human-made.

Viking Bride-To-Be

With sun coming directly into camera, I'm never sure what will happen, but always: the effects are fun. I wish her face and jewelry were better resolved (maybe with a little photoshop work), but I do like the tendrils of hair, like white pencil lines.

Square Newbie

Why, it seems I have a continuous supply of newborn photos to share! And another photo to demonstrate that props are not necessary for newborn portraits. The original photo did not have all that negative space. With a plain background, I can make space around the subject by enlarging the canvas. Gives it a whole different feeling than a closely cropped rectangle. I would try wider crops while taking the images with my camera, but given my set focal distance portrait lens (50mm), camera crop factor (at 1.6, as opposed to full sensor; maybe I will attempt to explain this another day), and height (I can only hover so high above a baby), I usually wind up cropping close. This is a part of my aesthetic as well, to get intrusively close to faces.

Perplexing

How perplexing it must be to a newborn, to be placed in an unusual position with headgear and then stared at by the giant glassy black eye of a camera.

Warm Happy Afternoony

Some of you will know that it is Winter in San Francisco right now. Heavy cloud layer, windy, cold, any time of day it is dismal. Like today. Yesterday however, was an amazing, warm, cloudless, beautiful day - I was overjoyed! Just in time for a maternity shoot, out at Baker Beach. Our backup plan for a cloudy day had been Conservatory of Flowers - at the very least, we'd have colorful blooms to brighten things.

There's a forest that lines the edge of Baker Beach. Much of it is dry and covered in yellow weeds and ankle-twisting pine cones, but towards a small ravine the ivy vines grow lushly up tree trunks. I gasped. A shaft of late afternoon light fell on a clearing and yelled: Take A Photo HERE.

I'd been looking forward to experimenting with some of these pics for a day now, so I set it as a reward for getting a set of standard baby edits done first. The little pic is pretty much the original with minor tweaks. I decided on a square crop because those dark, ivy-in-shadow areas were rather heavy and distracting. When taking the photo, I'd angled so as to bring the frame of unfocused foreground sun-lit weeds as high as I could to integrate those dark parts, but the weeds weren't high enough. Oh well. I could lighten them or crop. Right now I like squares, so there you go. I threw a glowy orange/pink texture over the square, so it feels very warm happy afternoony.

Objects and a Dog

More fun photos from the Levi's Print Workshop. That glass eraser jar would make a good terrarium. What woud one do with tiny Levi's labels? Not sure.

Many of the women wore those heeled gladiator sandals. I was very un-mode in my flats.

G'nite.

(Faux, comprised of white sheet clipped onto shelving, great window lighting and one gentle umbrella fill light) Studio Baby!

Moss Mangled in Terrarium Attempt

As you may know, terrariums (as well as printing) are in vogue right now, the cutting edge of interior decor. Actually, not really. Every plant store has a selection of terrariums for sale. More like blunt edge of interior decor.

It is landscaping in miniature, the urban dwellers momentary escape. Not to mention, requires far less hard labor than outdoor gardening. Like my dreams of a Fall line of Newborn Knit Hats, I also envisioned fantastical glass enclosed worlds of moss, fimo-clay birds and toadstools, fern forests and strategically placed sculptural stones and wind-knotty branches.

I decided to start small. Started by looking in thrift stores for glass containers. I wanted chunky glass to evoke yesteryear cabinet-o-curiosities feelings. I bought some charcoal bits and gravel from the local (aquarium) fish store, and soil from Target. Mossy plants ("ground cover" plants), and a Venus flytrap. I wanted my venus flytrap to be surrounded by a velvety carpet of lush moss.

The first problem was apparent as soon as I compared the venus flytrap height to my glass containers. Venus was too tall. I think I had Tiny-Model-Ship-In-Jars-With-Tiny-Neckhole dreams as well, as I quickly realized that I could not smush a plant through a small neck using chopsticks as I had planned.

Even though these are mini landscapes, there needs to be space to work with, like shoebox sized space. Need to be able to get hands/fingertips in there. So I settled for planting moss. (1) Thin layer of charcoal - this is supposed to soak up bad stuff. (2) Soil layer, with big divot into which to shove plant roots. Plant roots take up way more space that one would expect. The soil layer wound up being quite deep - another reason why a bigger container is better - so the soil doesn't hog up most of the space. Oh yes, there's a worm in there - couldn't be bothered to pick it out. I put (3) gravel over the soil and around the plant when I noticed aesthetically, there was too much soil.

Problem 1: once I dump gravel on soil there's no separating them. I tried scooping out some soil, resulting in an indistinct border between gravel and soil, as you can see. Aesthetically yuck. Problem 2: moss plant was mangled, I'd knocked off flowers, and it was covered in soil bits. I used q-tips to clean and untangle. Hopefully Mossy Plant will live, and if it outgrows this container, well I'll deal with that then!

Printing is In. Learn how to do it!

 They told me: "Oh, it's a cocktail party." They did Not tell me: "It's a PRINT themed cocktail party" which, is Infinitely funner! This is the Levi's Print Shop, a workshop. In a temporary space for two months, a fully function printing press studio has been set up at 580 Valencia in the Mission, open to the community. Here, this will explain it better than I:
http://workshops.levi.com/about/

This is up there will photographing Rubik's cube championships and kids DJ-ing. All different kinds of print presses, many of them huge metal clunky things weighing tons, were set up and pro printers were ready to give demos and quick training to people to make their own prints. It was set up like an exhibit, of different print methods through the ages, up to digital printing.

And... it's all free!  Besides workshops, there are talks, book releases, exhibits, live music. I ought to go down to the Mission more often. It is a hub of interestingness and all things artsy.

It's true. It's a miracle when one finds jeans that fit. With ill-fitting jeans the most likely problem is the butt.

Below: Very sparkly chocolates. The edible glitter gets all over the place when one takes a bite out of them; hard to rid of the evidence.

MishMash! Borders, Hats, Felt Flower Covered Balls

I am experimenting with borders. I just bought a digital pack of borders called Photo Edge FX from littledreamerdesigns.com, $5 for 20. The risk with such things is that plopping in borders can make a photo look over-edited, cut+paste-y. It takes some blending (finagling of opacity, overlaying with filters) so that the border melds with the photo. By the way, if you are a digital scrapbooker, that website has piles of scrapbooking design stuff.

Hats. Baby hats. I perused Etsy for hand made baby hats, which run about $20 on average. I've decided however, that I want to try to knit hats for myself. This way, I can control yarn texture, make different sizes, choose specific colors, add my own adornments. This is assuming that I do not fail at knitting. It's been a long time since I've knitted anything - I think the last thing I made was a 6"x6" square when I was about 10. I already have envisioned all the awesome hats I will make. I'm getting a book - I think I've decided on "Itty-Bitty Hats: Cute and Cuddly Hats to Knit For Babies and Toddlers". This will also be useful as friends seem to be hatching babies left and right. Maybe useful for dog heads too.

In other news, my pics are finally starting to appear on TinyPrints' card examples such as:
http://tinyurl.com/28bpuu8
http://tinyurl.com/2b56yru

Neat, huh? They look... professional! For the first time, a client actually found me through the TinyPrint recommended photog listing. These days, most clients are from referrals/repeats, followed by Craigslist, then a tiny number from Yelp. I'm definitely getting fewer CL responses these days, since my rates have gone up. It makes sense, as most people going to CL are looking for cheap deals.

Gearing up for holiday season already. Thinking of what might make useful props. Did some research at Pier 1 and found these large (1.5 ft diameter?) spherical cushions covered in felt cutouts of different sized rich red stylized flower shapes, crowded so that the "petals"were pushed upwards, creating a fantastically textured ball. $40 a ball... could I make something similar? Hmm. All these crafty projects! I require an Ikea research trip now.

Expansion in my Newbie Department

Newbie! As I've mentioned before, I like to keep newborn shoots simple, like in these photos. However, I am finding that some mothers request props, and when I say I don't provide props, they look elsewhere. I figure, it wouldn't be so bad to have props. I can stick to neutral, organic colors - greens, browns, off whites. Props can be tasteful! I looked on Etsy for such things, and there are whole Etsy stores dedicated to Newborn Photography Props. They sell knit hats, cocoons (knit tubes in which to stuff the baby so that s/he peeks out the top, papoose-like), knit "bowls" - a stretchy bowl shaped thing that holds the baby in curled fetal position, baby hammocks and such (like knit versions of that bag-thing in which a stork would transport a baby), which suspend the baby while stretching around the baby shape. And tutus.

So, I wish I were a knitter so I could make my own such props, but I am not. However, I can make a tutu, which requires minimal sewing, and mostly the knotting of long strips of tulle onto a strip of elastic. I will also hunt down some wooden containers. Places like Pier 1, Costplus, Target, Michaels... as well as fabric stores, should have what I need. It's only the knit hats that I'll have to purchase fully made.

=

New Contexts.

 I like to see people I already know, in new contexts. My earliest experiences of this was as a school kid seeing teachers outside of the classroom -say grocery shopping, or holding a baby at the mall. The jolt of familiar with unfamiliar is fun for me.

In this case, I met this woman in ballet context. First in a practice studio, then on stage in a dress rehearsal. A really beautiful, elegant, strong dancer. And, she's a mom! She wears normal street clothes, not leotards all the time. Had I had met her simply through family photography, it would never have occurred to me that she might be an awesome dancer. And while on stage, I never thought about her being a mom. These juxtapositions are what makes people interesting.

SO hard to get her little boy to smile. He only smiled for his parents, and when he forgot that I existed. These were taken at Alamo Square, which is a park encompassing a hillside. I've discovered that small children can't put on breaks when running downhill, and babies learning to walk or sit up will likely tilt over and faceplant if on a slope. Must seek out the flatter areas of the park, even though the hillsides are photogenic!

We dog owners in the neighborhood know each other by sight, and give each other a friendly nod in passing. Just happened to stop to chat to a German Shepherd owner, a barrel-shaped older Asian guy, wears drab-ish clothes and smokes all the time. He said he was off to vacation in Ukraine the next day, so I asked Why Ukraine? And he began: Well... I used to be a part of a Russian Ballroom Dance Company in my younger days... Juxapositions, I tell you! It just takes a little digging and often people turn out to be way more interesting than at first glance.

Zebra Print!

It never occurred to me to pair a newborn (7 days!) with zebra print fuzzy fabric. The baby's room had safari decor, so why not? It works surprisingly well - really highlights the smoothness of baby skin. The fabric is a long scarf-shaped scrap that was wrapped around his lower half then extended around the top half in a horse shoe shape, tucked underneath so you cant see the edges. I may start to bring fabric scraps to newbie shoots. It would give me an excuse to go fabric shopping!

On Customer Service.

Six babies! A few months ago, I photographed a Mom's group's babies. I lean and hover over babies for these eagle eye shots. Always a little scary, because in holding the camera so that it points straight down, I really feel the gravity of the lens. Ideally, I would be supported by a crane, and maybe the babies could be lying in a (gently sloping, padded of course) cone, so that their heads would be tipped to look at the camera, rather than down and out of the picture.

I've been thinking a lot about customer service. The incident last week has lead to actual bad dreams about photo shoots. In one case, I was late and also realized I was in the wrong location, and in another, my clients showed up wearing head to toe: all different shades of Red. Color clashing, apparently, is horrific to my subconscious.

Back to customer service. There are different standards for behavior, depending on whether one is a customer or a customer service (S) person. Customers can lose their temper, be impatient, late, fussy, demanding, have bad moods taken out upon them, and (S)s are expected to pleasantly and effectively deal with that while smiling. Should a (S) exhibit any of those behaviors, they get bad reviews, reported to bosses, or just plain yelled at. Well yes, (S)s are paid and thus have certain expectations placed on them, but at the same time, we (S)s are still human.

Fortunately, I'd say 99.5% of the time, I have no problems at all and customer relations are actually fun. It's one of those unfortunate things that for some reason, bad events are deeper etched in the brain than good happenings. I've had three great sessions since, yet the Bay Bridge Traffic incident eclipses all that. Ugh.  I sent an apologetic email, not expecting any response of course. It's what businesses have to do: apologize. Big businesses must have whole departments set up for apologizing.

Anyways, all of this being a customer service person has made me very nice to customer service people I encounter.

Completely unrelated to mushrooms

There's a first for everything. I've never been unacceptably late to a photoshoot; I'd always prided myself on knowing the Bay Area traffic patterns enough to accurately estimate travel time from any one location to another. So I'd figured 45 minutes would be plenty of time to get to a 4:30pm shoot in Oakland. At 4:15pm I'd not even reached the bridge yet, and I called my clients who were (understandably) frustrated and decided to cancel. I was still amidst the worst traffic I'd ever experienced in Bay Area.

It wasn't until the evening news when I understood what had happened: the Mehserle Trial Verdict had come out early that afternoon, and in anticipation of rioting, many Oakland businesses closed at 3pm, leading to a mass exodus of employees and worried residents as of then. The local news described the mad rush to leave Oakland like the reaction to an incoming hurricane. OK, so perhaps it wasn't That bad, but I've been in rush hour traffic and this was far worse. I still feel terrible about not being able to show up to the session, but at least I feel a tiny bit better knowing this was out of my control.

For those of you not in the Bay Area, in short, Mehserle is white cop who shot and killed a black (unarmed) man, 18 months ago. The verdict was Involuntary Manslaughter. You can imagine that Oakland communities would fear a violent reaction to this.

Sigh. One of those days! I'd never previously done an afternoon weekday shoot in Oakland, and this one shoot had to be scheduled on this day.... these things happen.

On the Newborn Photography Experience

Newborns, left and right! I've definitely never photographed quite so many newborns (week - 10 days or less) before. Compositions are pretty limited. The baby is either held, or on his/her back, or stomach. And they strongly dislike being changed. I'll arrive at a home and find that the mother has laid out some 5 outfits for the photo session. I know we'll get through, oh, 2 max. One change of clothes is already quite ambitious.

It makes a big difference if there is an older sibling around. If not, 150% of attention is lavished on the baby. If so, there's a good chance the older sib (usually a toddler) will have a tantrum of sorts and will try to inject him/herself into the photo. Parents often will leave me alone with the newborn, to tend to their screaming older child.

Newborn sessions always take longer, mostly for feeding breaks. There are other things that come up - such as a disheveled-looking mom - sometimes I gently point out that her hair could use a brush, or perhaps a change in tops because the current one is stained by milk leakage. Yup. I do think it helps a lot to be a female photographer, when it comes to baby photography!

When things have settled and we've figured a comfy position for the newborn to be photographed, the session is fun. Part of that fun is marveling at this tiny unmarred human, wondering how they see life. The other is composing photos. I gave the top 2 pics a grainy B&W treatment, a rather newspaper-ish, photo-journalistic feel.

Turtle Love

I think the groom had just paid her a compliment, because there's nothing I could have done to elicit a radiant smile like this! The giveaway is the eyes. There's something intangible (or maybe tangible, I recall a RadioLab podcast about Lie Detecting, and how certain tiny facial muscle movements are dead giveaways - perhaps not to the ordinary mortal eye...) but definitely perceivable. I added a sort of antique-y effect for a timeless look, and to warm and soften things.

Weddings are a combination of portrait, event coverage and inanimate detail shots. All three things are fun to do in their own way. I rarely ever do inanimate detail shots with babies/kids, unless it's testing out lighting using a stuffed animal. So it's kinda fun to do those at weddings. Anyways, Tahoe is a lovely place for a wedding. Very happy to have been a part of this!