Man, I’ve been waiting to post these photos since before I even downloaded them from my camera! And I finally get to share them with you all.

Smita & Vikas just got married over the weekend and I was holding these wonderful portraits so they could surprise their guests with a lovely slideshow. Now that the couple are married I can give you all some peeks into this wonderful session. I actually took portraits of Smita several years ago at Stanford. Now that she was getting married to Vikas, they wanted some relaxed portraits in San Francisco. So we started off at the Palace of Fine Arts for some formals, then moved onto the Letterman Arts Center, and finally to Baker Beach. All of that was scheduled around the Laker finals games which were in full force at the time!

During the session I kept finding new “session favorites” even before looking on the LCD and I couldn’t help but chimping with Smita & Vikas during the session to show them how great things were looking. This actually lead to a really interactive yet casual session. We mixed some poses with some downtime where I just quietly took photos of the couple as they whispered to each other. I knew I was doing my job when Smita asked me “Are you taking pictures of this?” as they were hugging and talking to each other. So now you see why I’ve been anxiously waiting to post these!

So let’s jump right into these as I’m sure you all will love this couple as much as I did…

Congrats Smita & Vikas, I hope you enjoy your portraits for years to come!

As long as I’ve been passionate about photography, I’ve been a voracious learner. I openly learn from people who I think have something to offer. Case in point is that I subscribe to a whopping 144 different weblogs ranging from technique blogs to other wedding photographers’ blogs. By keeping track of so much out there, I really feel like I’ve improved my photography end-to-end by leaps and bounds. And for the last couple of years, I’ve really tried to make it a point to share my experiences and learnings from wedding & portrait photography with others. I mean, what have I got to lose? Call it “Paying it Forward” if you will, but it’s all about offering something to others.

So last month I lead an outdoor portrait workshop with 11 colleagues in San Francisco (North Beach & Baker Beach). Since it’s something I’m quite familiar with, I felt I could help others learn some tricks to taking better outdoor portraits. I tried to break things down as much as possible to make sure I could actually deliver against what I was offering to my students.

Before the photo shoot, I held a discussion session about what folks should prepare for with a portrait session including goals around style & location. I didn’t want to dwell on equipment and settings since I felt it would get us away from most important part of the photo session – the couple. I used this presentation as a guide to help everyone focus and reference what I thought were the important things to keep in mind.

You can download the powerpoint presentation here.

After the session, I followed up with each student to ensure they had some specific examples of portraits which they wanted to refer to during the photoshoot. Yes, I had them all do homework I required this because I wanted the students to find what THEY loved and not just try to re-create photos I’ve taken. Not surprisingly, the students showed me a pretty wide variety of reference portraits.

Well, with ALL that said, here are some of the results!

I’ll start with some photos which I took during the photo session. While taking these photos, I was trying to provide specific points for the students to keep in mind and show where & how I position myself for the photos. Again, I tried to stay away from camera settings, but was happy to clarify how to accomplish a shot from a technical nature.

Here’s a selection of the photos from the students. As students were taking photos, I would chimp with them and ask about their settings and most importantly, if they were getting shots that they liked. I was also trying to setup poses/shots for each student based on their personal goals. I’ve picked 3 photos from each that I think represents their time & efforts very well. The photos were taken by the students, but I did the final editing:

After the photoshoot, I’ve spent time with students to go over their experiences before & during the photo shoot. I really want to understand if they learned what they had hoped for and how the session could have been improved.

I certainly found this session very challenging! I know there were just too many students at the session to really give each student the time I think they deserved. Many times I made the mistake of basically just telling the students “okay, go for it” and simply let them shoot away. This confused the students and the couple being photographed. A huge creative concern for me is that I ended up relying too much on poses during this session. My usual portrait sessions are a mix of poses & really casual/romantic stuff. With so many students, I tightened up a lot and just went to “winning poses” for the couple. Certainly, the poses aren’t bad, but I do think the variety of photos and the more casual nature of my usual portrait sessions isn’t represented with how I lead this larger session. I have other areas of improvement I’m still mulling over and I’m collecting feedback from the students about this.

In retrospect, I have a MUCH better understanding of how tough it is to run a formal learning session (call it a workshop if you want). While I put a lot of time into the planning, I still think I have a many improvements I can make to such sessions. I know the students appreciated the time & opportunity and I’d like to ensure that any future learning sessions I lead provide the most for everyone’s time & effort.

Last, but certainly not least, I’d like to thank our models, Krystal & Deven for their time and patience with us! They were real troopers with the posing and the weather. It was quite cold & windy out on the beach. While I’m used it (I was in a t-shirt & shorts), I think I was the only one out there so unaffected by the cold! I wish you two the best with your wedding later this year and I hope you enjoy your portraits for years to come!

Earlier this summer, I took Aparna & Jeff all over San Francisco for their engagement portraits and what a fun time! We got to try out some new spots on that beautiful summer afternoon so it made for some wonderful moments. It was also great since they didn’t mind a little public display of affection while we were taking their portraits

We started out in North Beach, then headed to the Presidio, and finally to Baker Beach. With each location, since we had extra time, we were able to find some cool little spots that helped their photos to be as unique as possible.

Here are some samples!

I just love this next portrait due to the wind blowing Aparna’s hair just so and especially that look in her eyes!



Aparna & Jeff, I can’t wait for your wedding next month!

One of the most popular spots for taking portraits has been Stanford University. While it’s not as popular nowadays as it has been in the past, it still provides some really classic elements like the columns you see in the background of the first photo. There are also great little spots around campus which provide for great variety. In addition to the Stanford campus, we took a little trip to downtown and had some fun walking in the streets of Palo Alto.

This shot is one of the very few where I do any really visible editing. Usually, the photo speaks for itself, but in this case, I felt that adding in the layers of texure & blur helped to give the shot some extra oomph!

When we moved onto Downtown Palo Alot, I was just in love with all the brick facades!




Raj & Jag, congrats and I wish you all the best in married life!

Catching up on some Spring & Summer sessions we’ve had…

I met up with Shefali & Hitesh after a bit of extra planning & coordination…I live in the Bay Area, but Shefali was in San Diego and Hitesh was in Chicago. So where to meet for portraits when everyone’s in a different city? Los Angeles!

It was actually a lot of fun planning this session out. Shefali really wanted to do some interesting with modern architecture as well as mix in some traditionally romantic photos. So we settled on 3 great spots in LA & the Westside…the Disney Center in Downtown LA, the UCLA campus in Westwood, and the pier & beach in Santa Monica. So let’s get onto the photos!

I just love, love, LOVE the Disney Center’s architecture. The shapes are just so interesting and offer a lot of options for us. And when you get closer, this awesome exterior surface of the walls just draw your eyes in.


This is one of those little nooks that I love about the Disney Center. It’s such a tiny spot and it’s the type of thing I love to find.





For this next shot, Shefali & Hitesh look totally calm, but what doesn’t show on their face is a bus hurtling at them at full speed I didn’t know about this bus until after I took the shot since my back was towards it. Needless to say, we ran very quickly

And moving onto my alma mater, UCLA is always a fun place to do portraits. It’s always so relaxing there on weekends and it really lends to a more fun & relaxing shoot. Plus there’s so many spots for a lot of fun stuff. Here’s just a few of the spots….



And who could complain about Santa Monica on a nice spring afternoon?!

Out of the entire shoot, I have to say, this is my favorite shot. It wasn’t something I asked Shefali to do, but the look in her eyes is just so memorable for me.

And with that, I’m going to end this post. Shefali & Hitesh, thanks for a wonderful afternoon of portraits. I can’t wait for your wedding next month!

Kinjal and Alan were the lucky winners of our Engagement Portrait raffle last year. We started our shoot at the Embarcadero center in San Francisco and walked over to Union Square. We had certain places that we definitely knew we wanted to cover in the photo session. However, as usual, we stopped and took impromptu pictures as we made our way through the City trying to capture the essence of San Francisco.

With great weather at San Francisco and a fun loving couple, it was no surprise that the 3 hours session just flew by

Congratulations Kinjal and Alan, it was a pleasure spending the afternoon with you!

We love taking couples out on portrait sessions. We love it even more when they get to show off their photos to all of their guests! To that end, custom sign-in books are a great way to show off photos and create a topic of conversation at wedding receptions.

Well, Bhumika & Bharat just got married over the weekend, and here’s the sign-in book I made for them. We printed it in a really nice 10×10 hard cover book, metallic finish on the cover & thick, lay-flat pages inside:

A little springtime vacation meant this blog was quieter than planned! Sorry about that

Here’s a few shots from a fun portrait session we had in Half Moon Bay with Mayuri & Kunaal. This shoot was ALL about what they love to do and what’s meaningful for them. As you’ll see from the sampling of photos, we started at some local stables since Mayuri grew up with horses. We went to the Half Moon Bay Ritz since that’s where they became a couple. Had some fun on the putting green, and had a little picnic on the beach. All in all, a very unique session since Mayuri & Kunaal really spent time thinking about what they love about each other and what they love doing together!

On to the photos!

The stables had this AWESOME barn. And the light?! To die for!


A little wine tasting never hurt anyone…

I personally love the whole series of these putting green photos. Mayuri & Kunaal had so much fun there, it’s hard not to notice how much they love each other…




I just love unplanned shots. We found some green spots along the way to the beach and couldn’t help but spend some time there…


Champagne on the beach? Yes!





Thanks for a great portraits session, see you guys later this month!

I had the lovely opportunity to photograph Bhumika & Bharat who are getting married next month. Even though they live on opposite coasts, they wanted to do a fun session that was all about their time in the City together.

The shoot was a lot of fun, just like the two of them. As you can see from the favorites I’ve picked out, we went all over the city and founds lots of neat little spots.

As everyone who know me will realize, photographs for me aren’t about the location, they’re about the emotions. And I’ve gotta say, this photo in Union Square is my absolute fave because of Bhumika’s smile. I just love it!

It was actually pretty difficult to get these two to NOT smile at me

Busy, busy, busy…Bharat struck this pose without Bhumika knowing and she kept wondering why I had a funny smile on my face.

And who can complain about the colors of these murals! We could have stayed in this area in the Mission all afternoon if we didn’t have to get back over to the Embarcadero!

Bhumika & Bharat, we can’t wait for your wedding!

We got the chance to photography Sharan & Manny on a really quiet weekday in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago and we couldn’t wait to share the fully processed photos. We took Sharan & Manny to the Palace of Fine Arts & Baker Beach for a wonderfully fun afternoon. Even though we only met in person for the first time during the photo session, we had talked on the phone a lot before so it really helped to understand what Sharan & Manny wanted. As you can see in these photos, we were definitely going for a really romantic look and the additional processing you see like the textures, blurs, and embellishments are all about bringing out more of that in the photos. Hope you enjoy!

This weeping willow is always so beautiful, but the location is usually way crowded. Lucky for us, it was pretty quiet and we got more than enough time to get some really stunning angles. Funny enough, this is the only photo in this blog posting that doesn’t have significant artistic post production done to it!

This is my ABSOLUTE fave from this session. As usual, we time our sessions knowing where the sun will be; Asad noticed this angle and we just had to stop and get some crazy cool backlit photos with some sharp sun flares. Yes, there’s artistic post work done on this photo, but a lot less than you’d imagine Yes, the sun’s real, yes, the blur’s real…just some texturing & color touch-ups added…

Sharan & Manny, thanks for giving us the opportunity to photograph your engagement portraits!

Kalpana & Ramesh came to us last spring looking for coverage of their wedding and some classic engagement portraits. The Stanford campus fit them perfectly so we took them out last summer for one of the more classic portrait sessions we’ve done in a while. But, as you’ll notice in the photos below, we tried to mix things up with a variety of stuff over the course of the shoot.

We’ve been amiss lately due to some travel that both Asad and I have been doing. But getting back into the swing of posting some highlights from our recent shoots…

We actually took Sunny & Gary out back in July a little while before their wedding. Now that the fall chill is upon us, it’s actually kind of nice to see these warm pictures

On to the photos!

Although we only met Sunny & Gary for the first time at the shoot itself, it was actually really easy to get into the swing of the photo session. We normally start things out a bit slow & formal, but I quickly realized that there was no need for that.

We started the shoot over at The Palace of Fine Arts and then moved on to Baker Beach. Something about Indian skin tones, blue tones in clothing and the Palace of Fine Arts just goes together….

We actually spent way more time at the beach and for good reason. They were game for lot of stuff including getting wet in the water.

This shot obviously has a lot of work done to it with the color tones, textures, etc, but it spoke to me even before I started editing it. It’s actually posted on Flickr and it’s one of my most viewed shots there. Asad actually took the shot and I wouldn’t be surprised if he counts it as one of his annual faves




This is one of those serendipitous shots…totally unplanned and unposed (just a bit of shoe arranging), but it’s one of my faves from this year…and it’s a nice way to end this post.

Sunny & Gary, congrats on your wedding!

Back to the portraits!

Just a few shots from a shoot we did in June in San Francisco. This was before the usual summertime fog in The City so the colors & light were just so wonderful.

We started off the formal shots at The Palace of Fine Arts. Even though there’s a lot construction going on there, we still find several great spots. And even though we shot at mid-day, the light bouncing off the Exploratorium was just wonderful.

I think these next two shots show off Neera & Trushar’s personalities better. Getting out of the formal outfit and onto the beach on a nice hot day can certainly help loosen things up

And speaking of small worlds…if you read our last post about Manisha & Ashwin’s reception theme of Vegas…I mentioned that they were introduced to each other by mutal friends. Well, it was Neera & Trushar that introduced them to each other…aww how schweet

Anyways, it was a wonderful afternoon photographing…especially since we got to cool off a bit in the nice cold water! Congrats guys! Hope you love the shots!

So ya think we’ve been doing a lot of outdoor portraits lately?

We actually shot Anju & Rajeev’s engagement session quite some time ago, but we’re only getting around to blogging about it now. This was a great session since the couple wanted to experiment a bit for themselves and we had been looking for a pair who wanted to push the boundaries of what most Indian couples want for their portraits. Not to say these shots are out in left field or anything, but they were up for a lot of fun during the shoot.

Anyways, on to the photos!

From a photography perspective, this was one of the first shoots where we limited ourselves with the lenses we used. Why would we limit ourselves, you ask? Well, by human nature, when there are limits placed, we find a way For me, when I challenge myself with situations that I don’t normally face, especially when it comes to photography, my mind races with the possibilities and I come up with things which I normally wouldn’t.

And so with Anju & Rajeev’s buy-in, we purposely challenged ourselves photographically…

Especially this calendar year, we’ve really been going to locations with interesting angles & lots of energy. Regardless of how crowded the location is, we’ve found this energy really adds to the results. Not just in terms of cool features, but also on the faces of our clients.

One of the few basic poses we did with Anju & Rajeev…

Mixing up this Stalker shot, it was interesting finding something which would be rather different than the usual columns or trees.

Gigantic chess board? Of course!

Now a storefront that’s under construction doesn’t usually lend itself to portraits, but I just loved the designs on this walls and they so nicely with Anju’s dress. What’s more, I just loved her expression.

Rajeev had a little fun with the metal gratings. We didn’t want to break them so we only did this one once and then ran for it

Personally, I found this shoot really opened up a new world of ideas for me. Asad has pretty much said the same of his portraiture too. I think taking this calculated chance with Anju & Rajeev is a no-brainer in retrospect, but I’m glad we actually made it happen!

What’s more, they loved their photos A few words from Anju after she saw her photos…

Asad and Jigar,
We wanted to thank you guys for doing our engagement portait. We really had a lot of fun doing it – even Rajeev did and he HATES taking pcitures. It gave me a feel of what models do, and believe me having two guys capture your every move on camera is a lot of fun!! Thanks for doing this for us and making it so enjoyable.

Look forward to seeing you guys soon!

Take care,
Anju

The happy couple are actually already married now so congrats to both of you!

I recently took Daisy & Gary out to Stanford for their portraits. They wanted something unique in this area so they came all the way out from Sacramento & Yuba City for this session!

We used to do portraits at Stanford all of the time, but I haven’t done any on campus in quite a while. So it was a cool little challenge for me to take my learnings from the last 18 months since I shot there and mix them into a setting which I know oh so well. Daisy & Gary obviously had a good time there so I think it all worked out

Onto to the photos!
Over the years, Asad and I have come up with names for the basic poses we take our couples through. Simple poses take up very little of the session, but the names definitely make things a bit smoother. And they also add a little bit of levity to shoot since we pick pretty random names. The shot above is called The Stalker Pose And funny enough…we didn’t name it, one of our brides did! So she gets credit for bringing a smile to every one of our clients who want to do this shot. Thanks Sharmila!

I just like the relaxed smiles on their faces here…

Bringing sexy back! The touch of setting sun on Daisy’s hair really completes this photo for me.

As usual…I loves me some glare. With the setting sun no less!

Now what does one do with a spot that’s so commonly used in portraits? For one, don’t pose the couple. For two, get funky with the processing. Textures are in the house at Samay Studio.

Okay, so this one’s posed, but hardly

Near the end of our shoot, it was getting way too dark to do anything in natural light. Daisy & Gary were just chillin’ talking to each other when Daisy looked over to see if we were going to do any more shots. And when I saw this look, I just had to stop her and save the moment. Sometimes, these “poses” just come so perfectly and the light is just so yummy, that I’m glad that I have the privilege of taking photos!

Hey guys, it was a pleasure spending a few hours with you on your portraits. Thanks for driving all the way out to the Peninsula and congrats on your engagement!

Wedding season is upon us and, as usual, we’re finding it tough to keep posting here on the blog since we’re wrapped up in events & post-production. Anyways, we’ll certainly try to do better with keeping things fresh here

So onto Shweta & David’s engagement portraits. The happy couple is actually getting married today! So in advance of that, we went out to San Francisco. North Beach and Baker Beach were the neighborhoods of choice on this shoot.

Washington Square is always a nice little spot to start off the afternoon with. Since the weather was great, it was actually pretty crowded and finding sight lines without sunbathers was a challenge!

Look at David all dapper in his suit!

We found this closed down cafe/restaurant that still had a bench outside. The wierd thing is that the restaurant still had all of the tables with ready place settings..glasses, napkins, silverware, etc. It was like they had set everything up for the next day and then just decided to not open up! Anyways, we got this great little spot just off of the street.

Can ya say GLARE! Lovin’ it!

Oooh, textures. Couldn’t help adding some with this shot.

A private moment as we pretended to change lenses No matter how much our couples want to get candids, we still try and mix it up to give them something they don’t expect…
Can you believe Baker Beach was packed with sunbathers and kids playing in the water? We still found a few angles where we had a clear view all the way to Golden Gate Bridge. Beautiful day!

I love how the light bounces off David’s shirt back onto Shweta. Talk about sun kissed.

And finally…kissing in the sun

Congrats guys! Can’t wait to see what you guys have planned for today!

As wedding season has been ramping up, we’ve been doing some engagement portrait sessions for couple with upcoming ceremonies. So we’ll be posting a few of these before posting another wedding…

Starting off with a wonderfully cute couple we shot in the North Beach and Embarcadero areas of San Francisco. They were up for anything and even got a bit wet while posing in a fountain at the Embarcadero….

In the last post, I mentioned that the programs during wedding receptions have changed over the years. What our clients want out of their engagement portraits has changed quite a bit too. We still capture the more standard posed portraits which the couple’s parents will want, but in the three or four hours we spend with our couples, we’re really trying to show their personalities and express something unique through these portraits…So you’ll see a lot of stuff which may not fly at a wedding reception, but it’s a direction that we just love and hope our clients continue to ask for more of!

Love the texture on this shot from Washington Square.

And as you head off into married life, what’s wrong with a little playing on a playground slide?!

The funny thing with this shot is that Rina & Amit didn’t know this graffiti actually spelled out North Beach until after we took the shots.

We spent a little time getting to know the couple over some coffee. And we ended up with some awesome-tacular light at this sidewalk cafe. Just gotta love unplanned stuff.

Ahem…can you say romantic?
Or would that be steamy?!

I just love that little bit of sun peeking through on Rina’s neck.

And my fave shot of the afternoon…of course it has to involve glare. Meanwhile, Rina was getting her legs soaked from the fountain right behind them. They could only hold this look for so long until they both cracked up from how wet they were. Gamers, I tell you…our clients are gamers!

Congrats on your engagement guys. I can’t wait to capture your ceremony!

Getting back on track since the beginning of the year, we’ve got quite a few events which we’ve neglected to include on the blog.

Starting off with Chanden & Valery’s engagement portraits. What’s great about our clients is that we seem to be on the same page about adding creativity and unique elements to something as common as couple’s portraits. In this case, instead of going with something like the Palace of Fine Arts or the Golden Gate Bridge as a setting, we finalized on the Ferry Building/ Embarcadero area in San Francisco. It fit their desire for an urban feel with lots of things to interact with. We had talked about doing something in the Mission District, but they wanted a little different and this area really clicked with them as soon as I mentioned it. With such a bubbly couple, we definitely didn’t want to stick them in the middle of a lonely park…walking the streets of San Francisco is definitely more their style.

If you haven’t been there, the first thing you’d notice on the weekends is that there’s a lot going on in the area. We actually took these portraits before Christmas, so not only did we have the hub-bub of the farmer’s market, we also had the crowds looking to skate on the ice rink behind the Embarcadero. So much action is not usually what a photographer wants during engagement portraits, but we took it as a challenge and ended up working in the crowds where possible.

Anyways, onto the portraits!

Many photographers try to stay away from the sun when it’s so high in the sky…Our philosophy? Work it! Getting that glare can be something really unique with little extra attention. Chanden & Val were definitely up for it.

What better way to show off The Rock?! This shot was actually pretty organic in the sense that I worked it out with the couple on the spot and it ended up being something none of us planned in advance. I love it when we can brainstorm ideas with our couples. It’s something that we always encourage, but rarely do we have clients who listen to our idea and then very quickly respond back with a variation. Gotta love it!

San Francisco always guarantees a great variety of shots and well known landmarks. What’s more is that it’s a bit different every time we shoot there. If you’re wondering..that’s the Bay Bridge in the background. Visitors to the Bay Area always think it’s the Golden Gate Bridge for some reason….

Central Park? Well, that’s the look Chanden wanted to go for. Just scoping out the area around North Beach and the Embarcadero, we found a little park nestled in between the taller buildings. Perfect fall/winter feel.

Talk about glare! Walking along Market Street, I thought the sun was just something we had to include in this shot.

At the end of our shoot, most couples are usually pretty tired. Taking pictures isn’t an easy thing! At this point in our shoots, we usually have to slow down and give really specific directions to our couples. In this case, Chanden & Val were indeed tired, but more than anything else, they were just so relaxed. We had gotten the exact types settings we had talked about and they knew any extra shots were just gravy. So I let them relax and just stood back. This candid shot is something I just love getting since it’s all on them and without further direction from behind the camera. All in all, a fun shoot.

It was a pleasure taking these portraits….I’ve known Nishi for 20 years! And the wonderful Westside weather didn’t hurt either Starting in Marina Del Rey and making our way north through Venice and ending up in Santa Monica was a great afternoon. The completely different environment definitely got my creative juices flowing and Nishi had to remind me that they loved taking photos, but they had to get going to their evening plans…talk about an ethusiastic photographer!

Anyways…enjoy….

The Venice canals…a hidden gem on the Westside…amazing that they’re nestled just a couple blocks from a major street with tons of traffic!

What always makes me smile is the expressions that couples have on their faces when they’re having a great time. This usually happens during wedding receptions when the newly married couple are dancing together, but I just love Nishi’s smile in this photo. Spontaneous and fleeting…just love capturing that.

Obviously much more posed…the setting sun, beach, and ocean in the background? Makes me want to go right back and take another couple there. Traveling photographer? How about traveling clients?!

Loved the lines on this wood bench and the people nearby conveniently got up just as I wished there was more space on the bench to get a slightly askew shot. Photographing people, I tend to forget about lines, but I just had to get this bench into their shoot.

How can you do a shoot in Santa Monica without looking out on the Pacific?