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!

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!

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!

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!

Wow, what a fun afternoon with the Qureshi sisters and their kids! I’ve been itching to post these photos to the blog and now that we’ve presented the photos to the family, I’m happy to show you some of the highlights.

As we’ve been doing some work outside of the usual Indian weddings, I’ve found family life sessions to be so enjoyable. There’s a very different vibe with an entire family interacting with each other. And notice that I called these Life Sessions, not portraits…after all, the time we spend with these families is about capturing their lives together, not just about posing for a camera. So during these sessions, we do the usual group portraits, but most of the time is spent finding those family interactions which are so special and will be remembered forever.

Anyways, onto the photos! I know the family from Tayyiba’s wedding about 3 years ago. We covered many of their events and so it was a great chance to see the family again, especially how the kids have grown and to meet the newest member of the family, Tayyiba’s son, the little Z-Man!

Enjoy the photos!

We started off at the Ferry Building in San Francisco….
Talking about family interactions, this is one of those moments which are so common between a mother and her child. I decided to take this simple moment and make it a bit more special with some extra post-work, tying in textures & illustrations for something which highlights that special bond.

Little Inaaya was a bit shy when posing for her pictures, but she just loved showing me her dancing skills! So here’s a few shots I took while she showed me how to dance.




From the Embarcadero, we moved onto Baker Beach. The sunsets there just can’t be beat!









And this is an example of the unique montage enlargements we like to provide. It’s a way to take a wonderful photo and turn it into something really special that will look great in the family room, living room…anywhere you please!

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!

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.