Angelin + Linh Proposal - Guglielmo Winery, Morgan Hill, CA

December 29, 2014 in portrait, proposal

Angelin has been one of April's very best friends since college, and I have been friends with her since I met my then-future-wife. Being one of April's roommates, Angelin had every right to sniff around when a stranger started spending a lot of time with her friend; luckily, I passed the sniff test, and ultimately found the love of my life.

Over the years, Angelin went from being "April's friend" to simply "my friend", so April and I shared equal excitement of the news that her boyfriend, Linh, would soon be proposing to her. Linh is the best gift Angelin has ever given to me, just a truly great guy who is amazing with the infectious joy of his personality and his uncanny ability to make anyone comfortable around him. Angelin and Linh are great together, and April and I always have a great time with them, so we couldn't pass up the opportunity to watch Linh propose.

Guglielmo Winery in Morgan Hill, CA throws an annual Holiday open house, which Angelin and Linh have made an annual tradition; speaking as a photographer, it worked out beautifully since the property is full of rustic wine country dioramas and a beautiful vineyard out back. On the day friends and family met there to watch Linh surprise Angelin, there was also some pretty amazing near-sunset light.

With that, the stage was set for the proposal, and after a little bit of misdirection, we got Angelin in the vineyard with Linh in just the spot that we wanted, and it all went down. After hearing all sorts of great things about the camera on the iPhone 6 Plus, and actually having April's handy, it became the tool of choice. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it did a great job! I think the iPhone did a great job capturing the moment that Linh dropped to a knee, raised a ring while Angelin put a hand on her mouth in surprise. All the photos featured in this post were shot on an iPhone 6 Plus.

Of course, the rock.

It was a true honor to be there to document watching some of our favorite people embark on this next phase of their lives, and we're both really excited for their wedding day!

PS - Phone cameras are pretty capable these days.

Matt, Roxanne & Family - Stanford Golf Course, Palo Alto, CA

December 09, 2014 in family, portrait

It's been hit-or-miss with the weather recently, so heading out for a couple hours to the Stanford Golf Course was a bit of a leap of faith. The morning of the shoot, I checked my usual web sources and was convinced that asking Roxanne to load up the car with the husband and kids would work out. Thankfully, luck was with with us, and the worse the skies could muster was a light drizzle and we still got some teasingly warm golden hour sunlight filtering through the clouds.

I've been looking forward to meeting up with Matt, Roxanne and the family since it hit the calendar because I knew that the warmth between them would come through the camera. I wasn't disappointed, and I have to say that getting to know their three girls, Abbey, Cati and Madi was a huge bonus. The three were definitely their parents' kids in that they all expressed an intelligence and verve for life and family that could only come from the top down, but they were all distinct in their own right. There was no way I could confuse Abbey's playful exuberance, with Cati's utter cool or Madi's assuredness and confidence. I watch a lot of Top Chef and kinda grew up in the 80's, so I would describe the kids as "Rad; three ways".

It was a pleasure to photograph this family, and I hope to do it again. All I had to do was find a few nice spots of light with pretty stuff around, set them up and watch magic happen. Just a beautiful family.

I hope that you enjoy the set as much as I enjoyed shooting it!

-Joseph

N+R Wedding - Napa, CA

November 26, 2014 in wine country, wedding, indian wedding

I have seen a healthy gamut of weddings, all of them special for their own reasons. There is a charm and feeling that comes from an intimate wedding in front of a cottage overlooking a vineyard that is distinct from one that might have a guest list into the hundreds. I feel that these larger events are at no deficit of “connectedness” or emotion, but the scale sometimes necessitates that the bridal couple share their emotional energies with their guests rather than between themselves; this isn’t a fault or a misstep, but is natural when a couple is amongst so many of those who care and love them.

In this way, a characteristic of larger weddings is the tremendous energy trading between the couple and their guests. This is why big weddings “feel big”, and it’s really great to take part in it. This wedding on which I assisted Duy Ho Photography in Napa was notable for its scale and details. Hundreds of guests hosted on an expansive, California wine country resort? Check. A beautiful bridal party almost 20 strong? For sure. Choreographed dance numbers, heartfelt speeches, studio lights shining on a big dance floor in the middle of a beautifully decorated event hall with high centerpieces? You got it. Oh, how about a bridesmaid on a hot pink electric violin covering Daft Punk and Calvin Harris to get the dance floor going? Yeah, that happened.

Despite all of that, what is special about that day is that as distance in time grows larger from it, the smaller this wedding it feels to me. A few months on from this wedding, all that really sticks out to me was the intense connection between the bride and groom. What comes immediately to mind when I see any of these photos are all the times the groom would look intently into his bride’s eyes, not break gaze, a tell her how much she means to him and how happy he is; the way the bride would look at the groom and hang on his every word smiling with tears of joy welling up in her eyes. How the enormous, beautiful reception room seemed to disappear around the couple during their first dance.

For all the grand preparation, awesome floral arrangements, and concert atmosphere, what I remember most about this wedding day are the bride and groom at the center who, together, outshone the spectacle of their big wedding by making it small.