I’m pretty familiar with this family. In fact, I work with the mom and we’ve been to the birthday parties for each other’s kids. But this is actually the first time I’ve photographed them. That has happened often enough for me and it reminds me that just because you know someone well, it doesn’t mean that they’ll be comfortable in front of the camera right now. I’ve chosen just a few photos of the boys here. As you can probably tell, one brother was much more happy than the other to be photographed

This mom and daughter are really familiar with me and having their portraits taken. This is the 6 or 7th event/portrait session I’ve had which has included them and their extended family. Needless to say, I didn’t have to spend much time warming them up to capture their wonderful smiles. Just a few highlights from their fall session.

It’s pretty rare when two older children are BOTH into having their photos taken. But with the ‘L’ family it was actually pretty fun since both kids were giving me ideas about poses. It makes for a much more interactive session and it shows in how close the family is and how they appear in their portraits. Here are some highlights from the ‘L’ family’s portrait session last fall (yes, I’m still catching up!)

Continuing with updates on recent family portrait sessions, the ‘M’ Family was a lot of fun, but kind of a crazy session. As you can see, they have one older daughter and two twins which means it’s more kids than parents! It was actually pretty funny getting all three settled onto the couch or on the rug for a photo with all of them looking towards me. After the first few minutes I realized they were playing games with me by moving JUST before I was about to take a photo so that was actually pretty funny.

Anyways, hope you enjoy!

Continuing with a series of family portraits from last fall, here’s the ‘A’ family with their 4 month old daughter. Look at those cheeks!

I had a lot of fun photographing families at the end of last year. It’s actually a refreshing change from wedding photography since the interactions are so different with a family that’s relaxed and having fun in the park (as compared to couples living through the most important day of their lives!!)

So here’s the ‘T’ Family that I photographed in Mountain View on a crisp Saturday morning. As you can see, we did a little bit of posed family portraits then let the kids (and parents) have fun in the play area. It’s amazing how much of a motivator it can be to tell two little boys that they’ll get to play on the swings & slides after the photos are done! There’s a lot more to share so keep your eyes peeled for more blog posts coming soon!

Well hi there! It has been a looooong time away and I’ve got a very good reason for you. Let me introduce you to my son, Aiden. He was born on the first of this year and I’ve been rather busy with him These are copies of his birth announcement (photos taken by your’s truly). Now that I’m getting back into the swing of things, you can expect a lot more updates from me!

I just had to share a few photos I did for baby A. He’s such a darling and was just 7 days old during this first portrait session. He was just barely 6.5 pounds when born so you can image how tiny he was! Luckily, this little guy was so sleepy that we had a really easy time taking these wonderful photos of him. Welcome to the world little guy!

Following up on last week’s post about Family Holiday Mini-Portrait Sessions, I wanted to share some options for family holiday cards. Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, the holiday season is the time to reconnect with family after a busy year. And we all know that cards are one way to do that.

The cards that I offer are really great quality press-printed cards with a luxurious pearl finish. In past years that we’ve offered them, the first reaction upon seeing them has basically been “Wow, these are so cool!” and “Wow, why doesn’t Costco make these?” Well, safe to say that these cards make a statement and will be remembered amongst the stack of cards arrive in anyone’s mailbox – way nicer than those Costco big-box cards. Here are just four of the options you can select from. Remember, these are all customized with your own photos and text so that they’re personal just for you! And don’t forget, if you’re still wondering what to do about your holiday photos, sign up for your mini-portrait session coming up this Saturday November 13th!

It’s that time of the year! Holiday family photos!

And what easier way to get wonderful family portraits than with Samay Studio’s Family Mini Portrait Sessions!

Why you should choose a Family Mini-Portrait Session TODAY!

• No boring studio backdrops
• No awkward family poses
• Just relaxed, natural photos of your family to last a lifetime!
• These sessions are short, but they still have just as much love, creativity, and artistry as every photo session we do.
  

More about your photo session:

• Your mini-session will last 25 minutes and include a mix of family group photos as well as candid moments with your children.
• The photos will be in a park setting with the option for children’s playground & benches.
• Up to 5 people can be included in the session (additional people are $25 each).
• We will have some props to be used during the session, but feel free to bring your child’s favorite toy to help ensure a personal experience.

More about your deliverables:

• You will receive your fully edited photos in a password protected online gallery where you can share your photos with family & friends (via email, facebook, etc)
• Your online slideshow will take your photos and set them to music – a perfect way to share your wonderful photos in a fun, fresh way
• You will receive a coupon for your 2 8×10′s and 3 5×7′s which you can order directly through your online gallery for shipping directly to you. Any additional orders you make will have a 10% discount applied
• Holiday Greeting Cards are available too! Inquire about selection of our holiday greeting card options. These 5×7 flat cards are printed on a beautiful pearl finished high-quality cardstock and include custom text as well as envelopes. Cards are available in packs of 25 for $30 each.
• You can upgrade your package to include:
  • Full resolution photos which you can use to print photos on your own – $200
  • Slideshow in DVD format so you can watch on your TV – $50

Sign Up Now!

Fill in your information below and we'll get back to you ASAP about your session. If you don't hear back from us within 2 hours, please feel free to email Jigar or call 650-386-6808

Let’s face it…

• You’ve got kids running around the house…or at the park…or having fun with friends.
• You’ve got a really nice camera.
• You’ve got ZERO awesome photos of your kids having fun and living their everyday lives

If that’s the case, then this class is FOR YOU!

Family Photos are perhaps the most cherished items to remember all the little moments that mean so much. It’s the moments between professional portrait sessions, weddings, and class photos. Everyday photos capture the moments that you want to look back upon and smile, laugh, cry, and reminisce over.

This class will help you to learn how to take photos that show those emotions in an artistic and meaningful way. This class is not about taking formal portraits, it’s about learning how to photograph your family as you go about your life!

The goal is simple:

• Walk away from this class with a greater confidence in your abilities and knowledge about photography. So much confidence in fact that you’ll learn to STOP WORRYING about your camera settings and start having fun while you take photos of your family!

What you’ll learn:

• How to address your frustrations with taking photos
• How to use available light to take more natural photos
• How photo composition affects your photos
• And, of course, some technical stuff! (aperture, shutter speed, depth-of-field, camera settings, etc)

What you’ll do:

• Participate in a live photoshoot where you will be coached to improve your photos on-the-spot. Take photos, ask questions and learn how to take a simple moment in the park and create meaningful, memorable, and artistic photos.
• Review your own photos in a classroom setting to see how they can be improved.
• Learn a bunch of tips, tricks, and rules-of-thumb to keep in mind for the future

Click to Here Sign up Now!

As I’ve been sharing more about the non wedding photography I like to do (namely family photos), I think it’s hitting folks that photography isn’t just about the big moments in your life, it’s about all the moments in between. And so it’s nice to do family portraits…for no other reason than, “just because”. And keeping that in mind, watch out for some information about Family Portrait Days I’ll be organizing very soon which should make it easy for every family to have wonderful portraits made without having to set aside a whole afternoon or deal with boring photos from the chain stores.

So with the summer holidays upon us, I spent some time with the Thekdi family for portraits while everyone was in town. We started off at a park near their Saratoga home, then proceeded to some portraits in their house as well as in their backyard. Here are a few I liked from the session. Enjoy!

This first photo is actually montage of several photos laid out for an enlargement…rather than just enlarge a single photo, this is a great way to show off a number of photos all at once. We actually have a number of these in our own home and we find them to be so much more unique:

N. is into tennis and longboarding so we took some time for some fun shots while he was doing what he loves.

If you liked these family photos, drop me a line to setup a session for your own family!

Besides Wedding Photography, I’ve gotta say that I just love photographing children. I don’t do as many children and family photoshoots as weddings, but the fact that I’ve got a 2-year girl at home means I spend a lot of time photographing children! These are just a few photos of my little one…we were taking holiday photos last fall and dressed her up. She’s great in front of the camera so we combined a little bit of light posing and just letting her play in the leaves.

Oh boy…where does the time disappear. After months without an update, here’s something which should make everyone smile. The Qureshi family have been great clients of mine for some time now and when Tayyiba, Cody, and little Z-Man were in town last fall, we got the chance to take some fun family portraits.

This was actually Tayyiba & Zamaan’s second photo session with me in 2009. Here’s some of the previous session with his masis

With family portraits, we never know what exactly to expect, so the sessions are way more loose and playful than usual. As you can see from this sampling, Zamaan didn’t leave us much chance to pose for shots…which is a great thing!

Mamatha & Ranjeet got married a couple of years ago and I was lucky enough to photograph their wedding in San Ramon. Fast forward to this spring and they had a son just a little bit after we had our own daughter. So it was a pleasure doing a life session focusing on their one year old son, Ishaan. We started off with some clean portraits with a background then moved onto their backyard and finally to Piedmont Park nearby. I’ve gotta say, photographing a child in his or her own environment is key to capturing great moments…

I went a bit more abstract with some of the editing. Since I was getting so many great expressions from Ishaan, I just had to go out on a limb with some of these photos.





The dreamy look in this next photo really just hit it for me. I knew it was out of focus when I took it, but I couldn’t let go of it. I’d say it’s my second favorite from the afternoon.

And what’s my fave shot from this session? The next photo! The sheer joy on Ishaan’s face with Ranjeet in the background is what these sessions are all about!


And finally…the happy family!

Thanks guys for inviting us to your home. We had a great time and hope to see a lot more of Ishaan as he grows into the rockstar he’s destined to be!

The Gellons are close friends of our’s and with their son Zaver’s first birthday coming up earlier this year, I wanted to make sure they had memorable portraits before his birthday. Instead of going out to a park or the beach, we decided to take advantage of Vic & Sophina’s lovely home. We all thought this would not only lead to fun portraits, but make them much more personal.

I had trouble narrowing down the selection of photos for this session, so enjoy this cute and handsome young fellow!

The next bunch of photos are actually from the galf course which is in their backyard.

We did a fun & relaxing family session last month in Avila Beach. Where is Avila Beach, you ask? It’s in Central California near San Luis Obispo & Pismo.

We photographed Tejal & Nalin’s wedding last year. And this year, her big sister, Roshni, wanted to do family portraits before the first birthday of her twins. So I joined the whole family at Avila Beach close to where their mom lives. And what a wonderful day it was! The weather in mid-June had been so unpredictable, but we all lucked out and get an absolutely gorgeous day at the beach. Besides the awesome weather, it was great catching up with the whole family since I hadn’t seen them in over a year. It was also pretty cool doing 3 or 4 mini portrait sessions since the whole family was there.

Here’s just a few of the photos from the session:











Happy Birthday Aiden & Alina! I know your mom loves these photos…when you grow up, I expect you to love them too

Catching up on one of the many portrait sessions from the Spring, here are some highlights of the Patel Family from a sunny April afternoon in San Francisco.

We started out at Baker Beach…it was Aarav’s first time at the beach and above all, he was just confused by all the water and sand. So it was definitely cute to see him make new discoveries about this ‘wierd stuff’



We then moved onto a nearby playground where Aarav really opened up. When photographing kids, I always love to catch them in moments that they just LOVE. In this case, Aarav just loves swings and playground equipment…






And just in time for Aarav’s first birthday party, the family had a couple of gallery wraps made to hang in their house. We wanted to do two completely different looks so the first one with black & white photos just have a simple background. The second one is more playful and colorful.


Aarav, I’m glad we got the chance to spend an afternoon photographing you! It’s going to be a blast watching you grow up!

Well, I don’t like to gloat, but heck, I will

The previous gallery wrap montage which we featured here on the site has won “photo of the week” honors from Pieces of the Picture.

If you’re curious about family photography, Pieces of the Picture goes beyond the typical photography tips type of site since it’s about more than just a “how to”…it goes into a lot of the thought process and challenges to capturing a family’s moments. Have a look at their site as well as their Flickr group if you have a chance.

As we’ve been getting more into family portraiture, we’ve been trying a lot of different things so that our work is fresh and can provide lasting memories for our clients. So that might mean portraits in front of a backdrop or outdoor portraits. The way it’s presented, I think, makes a huge difference also. So the online versions of the montages we’ve shown might look great online, but I love seeing people’s reactions when they see these huge wraps in person.

Here’s the winning photo montage again in case you didn’t see the previous blog post:

We’ve been getting such a great response on the Gallery Wraps using photo montages, I figured I’d share a personal example of my daughter Sophia. These gallery wraps have a lustrous metallic finish to them and hang without any need for a frame. It’s great any where you want something a bit more modern, but as you can see with the background, we can mix it up for a wide variety of look.

This was a Valentine’s Day gift to my wife and now hangs in our family room next to the couch. Safe it say it brings a smile to our faces every time we look at it!

If you’re interested in a portrait session for you or your children, or you just want to create a unique enlargement like the example here, drop us a line.