It’s already February of 2010.  I can’t  believe I haven’t blogged yet. More entries coming soon. My first blog entry of 2010 is about “Giving”. This isn’t to boast what I do or how much I care.  I just wanted to  remind all of us who are willing to give but don’t get to do it as often as you should.  Here is recent article on Haiti if you are not following.  There are people like Sam and Stephanie who can organize big events like in such a short time, but also there are some of us who can only do little at a time.A friend asked me if I can fill in for few hours to cover this Unicef charity event to help Haiti Victims at the Orchid Restaurant and Cafe last Thursday. I am happy to give my time and talent to charity. If you are an organizer of non-profit events or charity events and in need of photography please don’t hesitate to contact me.  If I am not booked and if it’s something that I believe in, I will be there. The Orchid restaurant is an awesome place for your special events, very airy and modern.  This place was filing up quickly as I was leaving, I am sure the even was very successful. Thank you for allowing me to be part of this Stephanie and Sam!

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as I was leaving the place was filing up fast so I am pretty sure that the event was very successful.

********GIFT FOR YOU ******* 

It’s not too late, I can still mail out beautiful gift certificates in time for Christmas and I am currently taking an appointments for January and February “XOXO party” for group of 4 -8 or a private sessions in my Brentwood studio or at your choice of location (Boutique hotel rooms, your bedroom or if you are a brave girl let’s do it outdoors) Great gift for him or her. Packages begin at $99 ~$1,600 which includes a beautiful custom designed leather book and ownership of entire digital negatives. Great for birthday parties, bachelorette parties, surprised parties or just to celebrate NEW YOU! If you are interested please contact me for more details, tammie@ambientphotostudio.com

For a woman like me who has been married for a while and also known significant someone for a long time (AK and I have been together for 15 years now). I often face that I run out of gift ideas for many occasions we have. ( Though AK will be very happy with Bestbuys or Frys Gift cards ).  A woman came to me asking if I can create “Not so Vain” or “doesn’t look a like trying too hard” photos, so I said “Why don’t we give it a shot?”  Here is what we ended up with that I am allow to post on this blog.  We saved hotter ones just for her and her husband. Our shoot started out with nervous laugh but ended up with these intimate ones which we did not discuss at our pre-session consultation.  Here she is wearing one of our studio props that I recently started to collect for those that need help getting the right piece for the shoot. She loved it so much so she got to take that one home. I received a happy phone call from the client that her husband loved his birthday gift and thought I did a pretty good job at capturing “her”.  * All photos were edited with the client and posted with her permission 

 These were taken towards at the end of our session. Thank you Mrs. H for letting me use these shots for my promotion.  I had a lot of fun! 

I would kill to have her body, wish we had more time. I’ve done fine art nude sessions, but this was my first “so called” boudoir session. I must said I enjoyed the shoot much more than I expected. I love the creative freedom I have when I am shooting one person.

 Love how this one turned out. I gave her litle bit of Hollywood glamour lighting

Ola everyone!

I know you all have been waiting too long, but there are so many great photos that I want to share with you so you will have to go sign up here to look at rest of the photos of yourself.   The gallery will be ready next week.  Click here to sign up to get my email or just visit this link again later.  Please don’t be disappointed I had to keep this slideshow under 10minutes so you all can stay awake.  I have many other photos to for you to smile at.

I must begin with this post with huge gratitude for making Andy and I feel as though we were on a family vacation.  Season and I met as a client and a newbie photographer hired to photograph her sister,Courtney’s wedding since then she has become one of my biggest supporter and a great friend. Not just Season, her family and friends… I cannot describe how thankful I am to have your support and love.  Once again, thank you for letting me document this intimate event.  Congratulations, Season and Eric!  And Season, regardless of many things didn’t turn out to be way you wanted, your wedding was beautiful. I hope I captured everything, Enjoy this teaser!

One of my favorite client whom I  just photographed his first born e-maild me the other day to ask for my advice. I spent some time answering his questions via e-mail so I figured I should blog about it as well so everyone else can benefit from. My client is a lawyer, a very smart person. He had done his research so he kind of new what he wanted but he wanted my point of view which I very much was appreciated.
1. He didn’t want to spent too much money. His budget was $500
2. He wanted to know what kind of SLR to buy to photograph son?
3. Nikon vs. Canon?
I am not going to bore you with technical terms. The guys at Digital Photography Review do wonderful job at it. I am just giving you a my point of view as a professional photographer. It is true that higher-end cameras produce better quality image files (Ha! but not always make the  better pictures though) ,but for your candid family photos these entry level DSLR should do their job. You need to learn how to use your tool. None of these cameras should take blurred photos of your kid chasing after the dog.  And photographers what I am about to write is very basic entry, please do not send me angry emails about the technicality.  I have a degree in commercial photography but I am not writing my thesis here. I just wanted to make it super simple for the people who are shopping for holiday.

1. It’s more but buy the newest one that you can afford, but the newest one isn’t always the best one. There may only be very small differences like size of MP which isn’t so important. Buy the next one at lower cost usually they offer pretty good discounts on older models. Digital technology changes so often and the digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras have shorter life spend than the old film SLR cameras. To me it makes sense to buy newest one you can afford. Buying photographer’s back up equipments are also very good idea. They are usually well taken cared of and used very lightly.

2. MP-Megapixels are not as important as ISO
: Manufactures are keep adding the megapixels to make you think as though they are worth spending your money on. Well, it’s good to have if you are into blowing up your pictures to the size of billboard or to use them as a mural at your home but 3megapixels were enough to print 8″x10″ size photos couple of years ago. Now you get the idea?
ISO/ASA was used to indicate the film’s sensitive to the light. Meaning if the film had a higher ISO it would react faster to the light. Therefor you can still take nice pictures in low-light situations. Now in digital camera ISO is used to indicate the camera sensor’s sensitivity to light. You basically want the camera that can give you the higher ISO number that you can afford. This means you don’t need to use a flash to light your subject. Well, it’s a personal preference. Do you want to know more about MP, ISO and lighting? You can take my photography workshop next time. Please check for blog update or email me about my classes.  These classes will be offered at my Brentwood Studio or on a location. tammie@ambientphotostudio.com

3. Buy the package if there is a package offered with the DSL body and the lenses. Though the lenses included in these packages are not so great, but the wide angle lenses such as a 18-55mm comes handy when you travel. However for those nice blurred background portraits, you will need a lens that is longer than 85 mm. You can use standard 50mm lens too but generally 85mm and up are considered as a portrait lens on a 35mm camera. Lenses try to stick with same brand as your body, but I like Tamron lenses as well.  If you can get lenses that can cover 2Xmm -1XXmm  with  smaller f number (Aperture) that you can afford to or even 2xx will be great.

4. DSLR requires much more accessories than the point and shoot cameras.  So If you are not going to take time to really learn what your DSLR can do,  just buy higher-end point and shoot camera ! I can assure you that you will be surprised what you can do with these little cameras.  They can even create HD videos so you can always capture those precious moments of your kids in short video.  Canon powershot G11 is often used by professional photographers as well.  Nikon P3000 is equally good.

5. Where to buy? Internet store vs. Local Camera Store
I suggest going to local Camera stores and ask them to match the internet price because they can help you when you need to have your camera serviced.

So here is simple ABC steps to buy your new camera.

a. Go to manufactures sites to see which camera came out most recently. I suggest Nikon because I believe that Nikon has more affordable consumer level DSLRs than Canon at the moment. Both brands are equally good . As of today these two cameras seem to be the ones that are suitable for your family portrait need.

Nikon USA
Nikon D3000

Canon USA

Canon Rebel Xsi

b. Do your research, read the consumer reviews such as on Amazon.com or google

c. Stick with your budget.
Especially when you go into the camera store, the sales person will try to sell you many accessories as possible. Just stick with your budget.
One thing you must buy! Please buy the lens filter. Just a glass filter should do since you are not buying super expensive lenses. It doesn’t have to be super expensive ones. I suggest Tiffen or Hoya filters. This is just to protect your lenses from scratched. You can upgrade your body every few years but you can keep using these lenses  until you have enough money to buy really good lenses.  Maybe I will talk about Optics on my next entry about photography. Please send me your questions via facebook or e-mail. I will try to answer them within my knowledge.

Happy Shopping!

You all know that I am a foodie but this image deserves first place because I couldn’t have done this party without my friend, Jean. She took care of all the food for me. It was like having a professional caterer.  Thank you darling xoxo!  Her red velvet cup cakes were to die for.

Rock of my strength.

So our studio looked like this when Marie and I first visited.  Thanks a million to our dedicated husbands.

My partner in crime, Marie Teagardin

Night before the party, AK putting up my photos. I love you baby!

My royal blog readers, I am so sorry that I fell so far behind updating this blog. I have no right excuses this time just pure laziness. I was busy with work but so are many others. There are a lot of sessions that I want to share with you all but I chose this love story to resume my blog.
I think that the marriage takes everyone by surprise in most cases. Some marry the person from their childhood and some marry the person that they never even thought to meet in their dreams. I married the latter. Yuka and Ryan’s love story is pretty remarkable. In China, a girl who grew up in Japan met a Korean guy who came from the states but grew up in Mexico City. So what did this brave girl did when they fell in love? She left everything behind to be with her true love. I left Korea when I was 16, and I know how hard it is to leave your friends and family behind whatever that reason is. Honestly, I am not sure if I can do what Yuka did if I were to do it over again. Yuka and Ryan, there will be more obstacles as a marriage couple from now on. I hope you two can overcome those obstacles with the laughter that you shared with me during our photo session. Congratulations and I can’t wait to photograph your wedding in few weeks. Here are very few of my favorites!

I am still on my vacation but I wanted share this sneak preview with Linda and David before they went on to their honeymoon.  Linda and David was married last Sunday at beautiful Palmdale Estate in Fremont, CA.  Linda and David, thank you for trusting me to provide you with these beautiful images. Wish you two a life time of happiness and the blessings. More coming soon but here are two of my favorites of the day.

Stunning Bride Linda

Afternoon light at the estate was just gorgeous. We did quick bride and groom portrait before the ceremony.

I told everyone that I shot every girl’s dream wedding last weekend.  I think it was also every photographer’s dream wedding. Roberto Velenzuela, the most sought out seminar speaker and the gifted photographer based in Beverly Hills asked me to shoot this gorgeous Korean wedding with him. Whenever I see Roberto’s images, I am humbled. His images are just simply beautiful. I got to see how he created those award winning images so you can only imagine how happy and excited I was. We both worked very hard for Lynn and Eric’s big night. Lynn and Eric was so much in love just as it should be. Their friends were equally awesome.  Here two of my favorites that I am able to share with you. Please visit Roberto’s  blog for more. Lynn and Eric, thank you for allowing me to be part of your big day. I hope these memories that we help to preserve become cornerstones to build your beautiful life together.  And Roberto it was joy to work with you again!

Now, Strikingly beatuful Lynn moments before seeing her husband to be. In her beautiful Oscar del la Renta dress.  Lynn wore the dress not the other way around.  It was like the dress was made just for her.

Moment when she put on that veil…

I only have just one thing to say about this gorgeous couple. Surjaya and Justin are both one of those people that this world needs more. I can only hope that my images can describe half of who they are. I am pretty sure their friends and family completely agree with this statement. Surjaya and Justin best wishes to you! Once again thank you for allowing me to photograph your beautiful wedding. A very big special thanks to Leslie Talley, who came to document this wedding with me. It’s a photographer’s dream to work with a close friend all the time and I have been getting that dreams come true lately. The wedding day seems so much shorter when I work with my talented friends.

Here are few of my favorites and you know there will be more.

Having so many artistic friends definitely helps. Leslie and I had so much fun photographing these fun details.

Jennifer and Mattieu was married at the Hacienda Golf Club last Saturday.
Here are few of my favorites. Have a great time in Paris you guys! A slideshow will follow in few days.

This last shot was captured by Roberto, A million thanks to my talented friend, Roberto Valenzuela who came to shoot this wedding with me in the midst of his busy schedule.