When Miranda told me that she and Jordan wanted to do their engagement session where there were railroad tracks, tall weeds and orange groves, I was super excited because I’ve been looking for such a place!!  ”Well… look no more” says Miranda!  She found a road somewhere in Redlands that had all the above.

We started off at an abandoned train station… (somewhere in Redlands).

We drove pass their wedding venue on our way to the second location.  It’s a BEAUTIFUL mansion!!  Here are some quick pictures in the front of the mansion.  We’re saving pictures at this location for the their wedding day!!

So… we finally pulled over after Miranda was done teasing me with so many beautiful locations up and down that road.

Some of the places where fenced off so we joking said… “haha… imagine if someone weird dude comes out with a shoot gun and tells us to get off his property.”  Funny thing is… after we said that, we looked on the floor and there were a couple rounds of shoot gun shells!  Miranda, Jordan and I decided that it would be best that we stay the heck out of that property!!

I completely forgot that some of the dry weeds have torn and ouch do they hurt when you walk through them!!

Here are my favorites…

I’ve always thought a kiss on the forehead is “UPER” yes… “Uper” cute!!! There’s something that is so genuine about it…

I LOVE this picture!!!

Anyone want oranges???  because I now know where we can go to get them!!  LOL…

From dry weeds to beautiful blossoms…   These last few pictures were actually in front of some random person’s house.  We were driving back to pick up my car and I can’t help to pass up a cute photo opp.

I was thinking… how am I going to explain it to the owner if the swing broke.

You can see their entire engagement session here

Jamie and Tony were brainstorming for engagement session ideas and stumbled into Scripps College in Claremont through a magazine.  We later found out that Scripps College is rated as one of the top 20 most beautiful colleges in the nation!!  And  indeed it was… even in the rain!!  I’ve been wanting to photograph in the rain; so when Jamie and Tony said they were up for playing in the rain for their engagement pictures, I was super excited!!  Thank you guys for being such troopers!!

Speaking of the rain… it’s raining cats and dogs as I am sitting here writing this blog entry and sipping on some delicious wine.  It’s been raining ALOT lately… and I am not used to all this rain!  It drives me crazy because one day it’ll be nice and sunny and next it’s pouring outside.  Sadly… most of the time it’s on weekends!  I have this love-hate relationship with the rain!  I love it because it cools things down and there’s something about the rain that makes it oh-so romantic.  Imagine… it’s raining and you’re inside next to the fire-place snuggled next to your significant other (or loved ones) watching a movie or drinking hot coco while playing video games!  On the other hand, I’m not so fond of it because well… I don’t want to be inside all the time!  Can’t do much when it’s raining! I’m an outdoors kinda person so being indoor for days will make me mad!!  And I don’t like driving in the rain…

I woke up at 6:00am on the day of because the rain was coming down so hard.  I thought we’d have to call off the shoot but it started to die down a bit as it got closer to noon.  I talked to Jamie in the morning and we’re on.  As soon as we got off the phone, it started to pour again, but that didn’t change the plans.  When we got to the location, it stopped raining completely, in fact there were some blue in the sky!  Crazy…

Puddle???  No problem, I’ll take advantage of it and use it for pictures!!

And finally… it started to rain in the middle of our shoot!

So romantic.  The idea of just the two of us…  just you and me… (and um… our wedding photographer) in the rain!

The campus had a little orange orchard!  Cool huh???

cute…

It’s really not an everyday thing where Tony attacks Jamie with the umbrella!!

I love the following two pictures!!

After Scripps College, we headed over to Claremont’s Village District.

This picture makes me think of stamps!  heehee… do you see stamps too or am I just weird???

You can see their entire engagement session here.

Thanks guys!!

As you may have remember, it was raining last week and the forecast said the chances of it raining on Sunday (Super Bowl Sunday) was pretty high as well!  Nina and I were soooo looking forward to doing their engagement session in the rain.  I even had planned for them to bring  umbrellas as prop for the shoot.  Bummer we didn’t get a chance to play in the rain, but we still had an awesome engagement photography session at the Getty Center.  From the Getty Center, we ended the engagement session in Santa Monica (with some beautiful sunset pictures).

Nina is an English teacher in Beijing, China.  She and Nathan met a few years ago when she came home (to the states) for summer vacation.  March 8th (Monday) will be their big day, and I am happy to be their wedding photographer in Orange County.  Nina and Nathan are having an Orange County wedding at Tivoli Terrace.  After they get married, Nina and Nathan have decided to move to China to begin their adventures together.

Gavin and I had an Traditional Vietnamese Wedding  in Vietnam this past December.  Many people have asked us why we decided to have a wedding in Vietnam… and the answer is because I want my Grandma and the rest of my Dad’s side of the family to attend.  Although I left Vietnam when I was little, I still have a very close relationship with everyone there.  It’s probably because I go back to visit them every 2 to 3 years.  I feel very blessed to have such an understanding fiance who was more than happy to travel over to Vietnam for me and my family!  I’m also very thankful that my Mom’s side of the family (who lives in the states) all flew there to attend.  There were 30 of us on that ridiculously looooong flight to Vietnam.  It took 13 hours to fly from Los Angeles to Narata , Japan.  From there, we had to switch planes and flew another 7 hours from Japan to Saigon, Vietnam.  Aside from the flight, everything else was a blast!!  Check back soon for pictures from the trip!

For the wedding day, my parents hired a traditional Vietnamese photographer and videographer.  Knowing that this wedding was mainly for my family, Gavin and I pretty much let my parents took over with the wedding planning.  However, Gavin and I still wanted artistic wedding pictures so we found another photographer (Aidan Dockery), to do the day-after session.  Aidan is an English photographer who shares our passion for photography and has a similar style to ours.  He has lived and worked in Vietnam for about 6 years.  We were so lucky to have him agree to photograph our session.  Thank you so much Aidan for the beautiful photos!  It was truly a pleasure meeting and working with you!

You can see more of his work here:

http://www.abdphoto.net/weddings.html

http://blog.abdphoto.net/2010/01/binh-duong-wedding.html

Here are some of our favorites from the day!  Enjoy…

On our way to Dai Nam Park, we saw this beautiful rubber tree orchard!  As wedding photographers, we can’t let the photo opp slip by…

With 3 professional wedding photographers, this was a piece of cake!  LOL…  The only downside was… it was blistering HOT and there were humongous red ants crawling everywhere!  They were at our feet and were not very happy that Gavin and I stepped on their homes and killed family members… so they decided to take revenge!  Not fun… but I thought it was so worth it for the pictures!  =D

I especially love the following two pictures!  It looks so dreamy!

We finally made our way into Dai Nam Park.  It’s a huge theme park that was build a few years ago.  The park has a zoo, a water park, a Buddhist temple, a movie theater, coaster rides, etc…

Love the reflection off the floor!

Gavin has a blue belt in Brazilian Ju-Jit-Su… so every now and then he has the itch to put me in a choke-hold!

We ended our shoot with a beautiful sunset!

One wedding down… one more to go!  I can’t wait to start planning for our American Wedding this coming December!  It’s actually the same date (Dec. 26) as our Vietnamese wedding, just exactly one year apart!!

It was great hanging out with Jan and Kim today; I felt like I’ve known these two for years!!  For their engagement session, Jan and Kim wanted a modern look so they suggested doing a shoot at the Mondrian Hotel in West Hollywood.   This hotel definitely has a luxurious, modern and edgy look and feel.

To start, we hung out by the pool.  We pretty much kept the shoot low key because The Mondrian Hotel did not allow photography without a permit.  I thought we played it off pretty well though.  When anyone would ask, we were just friends meeting up for a drink and the reason they are dressed up is because they had a nice dinner to go to later.  Our waitress kept asking questions like,  “oh… so where are you guys going to dinner tonight?”  Jan and Kim of course didn’t expect that so they kinda hesitated answer.  Then the waitress answer her own question by saying, “oh no… I’m ruining the surprise huh?!”  We laughed and nodded… “yes”.

I LOVE what I do and do not even consider it to be work!  And even if it is work… LOL I get to drink during working hours!!!  =)  Jan and Kim treated me to a awesome Lychee Basil Martini at the Mondrian Hotel.  This drink is not very strong, but the after taste of the lychee is just … WOW!

And here’s Jan and Kim… chilling by the pool side sipping great cocktails!

I saw the way the sun reflected off the mirror and loved the way it casted shadows of the trees on the wall.

Inside the Mondrian Hotel is very simple and classy!

After hanging out at the Mondrian Hotel for a while, we decided to go hotel hopping!!!  Yes… Hotel Hopping!

On our way to the Standard Hotel (also in West Hollywood), we stopped by the back lot of The House of Blues for some quick pictures.

I love texture!  Any structural buildings with rust or other texture is always great for photos!

As we made our way down the strip in West Hollywood, the sun was beginning to set.  I love this dreamy look…

At The Standard Hotel, we found two “bubble” chairs!  It looked really cool, so I asked Jan and Kim to have sit and work the chair! LOL

We then headed to the pool area again… for another drink!  Coffee… that is….

On the way back to the car, we walked passed the House of Blues again.. but now it’s nicely lit!

After hanging out with Jan and Kim, we went to the Stinking Rose for dinner!  These two are super sweet!  I insisted that we go Dutch, but they said they wanted to treat me to a belated dinner!  They even had the crew from the Stinking Rose come out to sing to me!  It was a wonderful day!

Thank you Jan and Kim!! I can’t wait to photography your wedding on 12/12/09!! I know it’ll be lots of fun!