Jerry Yoon // PHOTOGRAPHERS

i just came back from the most intense and exhausting workshop ever.  it's called the foundation workshop or FW7 for this year.  next year it'll be FW8 and i hope to either be attending again or be a volunteer for it.  but more on this in another post, i have way too much to say about it to do it justice here. 

over the last several months we've been on a journey to discover what we are as a photographer/artist/wedding photographer/photojournalist/portrait photographer/documentarian/director.  when we were first starting out all we cared about was getting some great images out there to be able to market ourselves better.  we didn't really consider ourselves as having a particular style, because we were trying all sorts of things.  the next step after figuring out our style has been to see what kinds of relationship we were forming with our clients in relation to the pictures that we were producing.  it gets a little convoluted and multi-layered after a while, but long story short we're constantly thinking about how our body of work fits into the universe.

kathryn and q, coming into our studio and commissioning us to shoot them was an affirmation that we're heading in the right direction.  we're drawn towards the gritty/moody/edgy/raw type images in our work and that's exactly what kathryn and q wanted.  we love the emotional extremes that it brings to the table in a world where weddings are supposed to be super fun and fantastic.  we love capturing the real fun moments and also drawing from the opposite well.  this is the style that i believe sets us apart from other photogs out there and not everyone is going to be into it.  i loved loved loved shooting this session with them.

jerry is in texas right now at the foundation workshop and i stayed behind to hold down the fort.  i've been secretly, patiently waiting for this moment when jerry can't edit my entry and slap my knuckles so that i can....

....POST CRAZY NASTY PICTURES OF HIM!  YAH!    

just kidding.  i will save that for a different time, when he is out of the country, perhaps.

jacqueline and ray were our first wedding of 2009.  it was a cold january outdoor(!) wedding, but jacqueline and ray are so ridiculously awesome and in love that i don't think they felt the cold.  i love the venue, i love their style, and i love them!  

i want to touch upon the selection process for blog images for just a second.  i think image selection for your portfolio or blog is very important.  many times we're tempted to put up a ton of pictures because the shoot was great.  photographers feel the need to mix in the mediocre/standard images with the cool avant garde/edgy images to balance things out.  that's a pressure that brings down the impact of the set as a whole.  we're guilty of that too.  images are powerful.  they stick to your brain and leave their mark for days if not months.  why water down the impact of those few powerful images with bland white rice? 

with that said, candice and burton's shoot was chock full of great images that were hard to whittle down.  they were definitely ready for their shoot.  candice in her cute black dress with pockets and burton decked out in something his fashion forward sister picked out for him.  we had so much fun goofing around and playing around like kids.  can't believe how lucky we are to be working with them in baltimore for their wedding!

walking around and exploring nooks and crannies around a city is what i love to do on a shoot.  you get the overarching plan of hitting up a spot and then you quickly veer off course into the netherworld.  in this case with terence and maggie, we ended up in mexico buying hats and churros while touring around downtown los angeles next to the union station. 

if you're brave enough to let us guide you into an unfamiliar situation with reckless abandon, the only thing i can guarantee is that you'll come away with engagement pictures that no one else has.  that's why we love terence and maggie, because they let us do that and all four of us ended up with new hats to keep us warm. 

some highlights from our fun-filled adventour.

don't you just love it when you meet someone new and you just hit it off right at the get go?  that's the way it was with juhui and alvin.  they are such a warm couple and shooting them was so easy.  we started off at the golden gate park's deyoung museum and worked our way up to marine headlands for stunning views of the golden gate bridge.  

it was freezing cold that day, especially up on the cliff, but they were troopers and i managed to keep my fingers from freezing to the shutter.  we warmed up with some coffee afterwards with our second studio shooter, aubrey, who'll be shooting their wedding in july!  can't wait to see how awesome those pics are going to come out.  

this was the last wedding that we shot in 2008.  certainly the best year in our studio so far.  it was the longest year for us as we aged twice as fast every week shooting weddings.  the amount of energy that we expelled getting these shoots off the ground probably required lots of brain cells to be overworked and driven into cell heaven.  now we're working off of half the brain cells for 2009 and by 2013 we'll be vegetables sitting on the sidewalk with a camera strap hanging around our tomato stems.  so what does that mean for prospective couples that want us to shoot their wedding?  ... 2013 outlook, not good.  but hey, it's only 2009 and we still got it!  

i'm so glad that we ended 2008 with jenna and kevin's wedding.  how fortunate for us to work with a couple that had a quirky sense of art just like ours.  for their engagement session kevin painted jenna's body on a white paper canvas.  now our friends come up to us and say, when'd you guys start doing nudes?!  

we got to shoot their getting ready shots at their very classy home in san fran.  kevin's paintings were hanging on the walls and you know how we love shooting textures.  we even got to hang out on the metro rail with them and take some fun shots around their neighborhood.  finding nooks and crannies in and around a neighborhood is a very rewarding experience.  

we can't thank kevin and jenna enough for being so fun to do everything with.  you guys are definitely the heavily dyed maraschino cherry on top of a great 2008 year.  

our church had a christmas party and i got to setup a photobooth and harass people. good times. some of the highlights.