KJ comes from a very traditional Hmong family and wanted one of her outfits to be the traditional Hmong attire. I love the contrast between the bright colors and silver ornamental jewelry pieces. We decided to photograph a few frames with the customary bridal umbrella. Traditionally, the umbrella represents the union of not only the bride and groom, but also of both their families. (We think.) =p

Above: a pose from yester-year… And below: a pose of today, casually simple.

We were lucky enough to find the perfect bridge for this particular shoot and came away with a pretty neat heart shaped frame for KJ and John.

The road ahead…

… is full of big laughs! Yays These two have the best smiles!

Once the traditional clothes were carefully put away, they slipped into something a little more comfortable. This intimate moment is one of Ty’s favorite frames from that day.

We found a beautiful jetty at a nearby beach. Kajua was so beautiful in this dress and it caught the wind just right! Great job finding our always insisted on “flowy” dresses.

Here’s another favorite, “The Ring” shot.

When you are around KJ and John… you quickly notice how much fun they have with each other. Water always adds an interesting element to photographs and thankfully, they weren’t afraid to get a little wet, who could ask for anything more?

We finished the session with a trip to the State Fair! Our pretty couple surrounded by pretty lights, it was the perfect way to end the evening!

One of my favorite sequences of the whole session. John loved being the lucky recipient.

The carousel lit up their tender moment perfectly.

How’s the saying go? What’s yours is mine, what’s mine is mine? ;p

What’s a carnival without games and prizes!?

You know love is in the air when, KJ is still willing to kiss John looking like this!

Kajua and John: You both are so inspiring to be around. Thank you for letting us catch a glimpse into your lives together and at a beautiful thing called love. =) Can’t wait to capture your wedding day!

The resulting photos are below… but keep reading and you’ll see a bonus set of beach photos too!

Above: Chrissy brought along the perfect goddess dress that flowed so beautifully in the breezy afternoon. I loved how this wider frame turned out… the endless maze of trees behind her felt like an entrance way to a fairytale straight out of a C.S. Lewis creation.

Below: Chrissy looks so tall and regal.

Below: The “Ethereal flight” sneak peek photo from a few weeks ago.. one of our favorites. Kay calls this the Princess “Nah meh nu nah” photo lol (butchered spelling no doubt!… Thai(?) movie where the princess floats down from the heavens with her sisters to frolic in the ocean and a prince comes upon them; he is so taken with her that he hides her “wings” leaving her stranded on earth… anyone know the title?).

As if the amazing ivy-covered trees weren’t enough…there were calla lilies growing everywhere too! How incredibly perfect was that! This place could not have been more picturesque!! Here’s a detail photo of Chrissy’s blinging crown and the lilies.

Of course, I wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass without a photo of her in crown and sash. But, we wanted something different than the usual pageant pose and glued on smile that I’m sure has been done a few thousand times already.

After the session under the trees, we rushed down to a little jetty by the beach. Being our first time there, we struggled to find parking and barely missed the magic light! Dang gonnit! But of course, we made due anyways… “didn’t get all dressed up for nothin!” (another probably misquoted movie reference ;p.. name that movie!)

It may not seem like it from the photos, but it was super windy and cold on the beach… cool thing about it though was the wind gave Chrissy a semi-Marilyn moment.

Hope you’ve enjoyed the photos. More of Chrissy’s session to come!… the more playful pinwheel theme. Stay tuned.

BTS info:

Chrissy, thanks so much for braving the breezy afternoon with us. You were awesome out there! A special thanks must also go to the wonderfully talented Karen Her for her hair and make-up work.

The forest photos were all taken under natural light using mainly the D700 + 50mm f/1.4. With the right frame and proper direction of light… the results can be magical. From time to time, we did use the TriGrip diffuser to diffuse the dappled lighting that fell across her face. Unlike the usual disc reflectors, the trigrip diffuser works great outdoors because of it’s rigid handle.

With the beach photos, because we missed the golden hour, we were forced to use a bare flash (Nikon SB-600) to light her up. Umbrellas were a definite NO under the super windy conditions. Without the flash, the quickly fading ambient back light turned the subject pitch black… this goes to show how great the auto-focus of the D700 is. The infra-red focus beams from the SU-800 wireless flash commander was all that was needed to get pretty darn good focus from about 20-30 ft away in very dim light (what I would photographically consider to be total darkness).

On the upside, the Oregon Dunes kick some serious California hills butt!

It was a perfectly cloudy day when we dug our feet into the silky windswept sands of the spectacular Oregon Dunes. As it came into view, my face was literally pressed to the window with eyes all 0_0 when I saw the combination of sand and flourishing forests. Who was the genius behind that?! Of course it would be a woman, thank you, mother nature! It’s wondrous what happens when rock, wind, and water share a little time together.

“For nearly fifty miles of southern Oregon coastline, from the mouth of the Siuslaw to Cape Blanco at Coos Bay, the largest area of dunes in the country lies between the Pacific Ocean and the Coast Mountains. In places, the dunes extend 2.5 miles inland, and some are as high as 500 feet.” -duneguide

Sand can give you quite the resistance workout. We had fun hiking up the hills and even more fun coming down them! As always we had to grab a few natural light snapshots. =)

After exploring the sandy hills, we wanted to see what Oregon beaches were all about so we made another quick stop …with our lighting gear in tow this time. The beach we went to was covered with these marvelously smooth rocks that were stepping stones all the way to the ocean. We ended up using them as weights to keep the light stand in place. =D

Anyways, I’m looking forward to exploring Oregon more so stay tuned for updates! (I will keep a look out for waterfalls for you too nyab!)

Geeky stuff: Here is another example why I love speedlights.. they are so portable it makes on-location shooting so much easier. Add two of them together and you can easily use them in broad daylight to overpower the sun. Also remember to use the sun to your advantage, it makes an excellent back/edge light.

BTS shot:

Gear used:

• Nikon D700
• Nikon 50mm/f1.8 lens
• SB-600 speedlight x 2
• Photoflex Lightdome Q39 medium softbox
• Radio Popper PX

Everyone says Doan looks like a Hollywood celebrity haha! Which male actor do you think he looks like?

Here are some shots, click through to see more:

Gear used:

• Nikon D700
• Nikon D90
• Nikon 50mm/f1.8
• Tamron 28-75mm/f2.8
• SB-600 speedlight
• Nikon SU-800 Wireless Speedlight Commander

{Miss Kitty as The Little Mermaid}

{Baby Jon’s baptism; he loved the attention, really}

{A sister reunion required jumping for joy}

Corona Del Mar

Me and the boyfriend decided to stop at the beach this weekend to capture some night shots….which basically amounted to a lot of blur and noise but a few came out really nice so I thought I’d share them. I love how you can see the stars in the very last picture and someone decided to take their sailboat out so we got a cool subject to work with too. =p