Joy + Rick Wedding

Family, friends and love...these are the basic ingredients you need for a wedding. Although it'd be nice to have a Platinum Wedding it's not neccessary. If you took away the nine piece band, dj's, fancy lights, flowers, ice louge bar, old castle venue and what do you end up with? Family, friends and love.

I love how Joy and Rick decided to have their wedding at their house. It was just a lovely little intimate wedding with their closest friends and family. And to keep it as intimate as possible the groom's sister got certified to be the wedding officiant. We even had a chance to sneak away to nearby White Rock Lake for some portraits.

I get asked this question a lot, "how many of your pictures are posed?" Except for the bride and groom portrait session at the end of this blog, none of the pictures below or slide show are posed. We like to stay as photojournalistic as possible and document the wedding day as it happens.

You can view their engagement blog post here.

These are some of our favorites from the day. Their slide show can be viewed here.








Photo by Shirley Liu





Photo by Shirley Liu
















I love the following sequence.

Julianna + Eli Engagement

Even though we purposely didn't book any weddings in August just so we can catch up, it's still going to be a busy month. We've got lots of albums to design and will be updating our website with some of our more current work. All the pictures on there now are all from last year. So please check back in the next few weeks for a website update.

Julianna and Eli are two of the coolest people and lots of fun and easy to work with. They were so comfortable with each other and with the camera, it seems like they forgot I was even there! They were just lost together in their happy little world. Here are some pictures I liked from their engagement session. Look for their wedding blog post coming soon.

Taiwan!

2009 was my first time back to Taiwan in 25 years. I never knew how much fun it was back "home" on the tiny island. There is so much to do at all hours of the day and the food is so good and cheap. Since then I've been back three times.

Click to see some pictures from my first and second trips to Taiwan.


Scooters out number cars 3 to 1 here. They even have scooter only lanes on the highway. So fun!

We took the Taiwan High Speed Rail from Taipei to Kaohsiung. It's capable of going 186 mph cutting a 4.5 hour train ride to 90 min.





We took a road trip from Taipei in Northern Taiwan to the western coast then across to the eastern coast. We got a flat on the way. What's an adventure without some mishaps right? Good thing we got the flat while we were in the country and not on the narrow twisty mountain roads.








The wedding business is huge over there. This is one of the many wedding photography shops along a busy street intersection. In the US people want pictures that capture moments during the wedding day but in Taiwan wedding photography puts more emphasis on the bride and groom portraiture. Their style is a bit fantasy Glamour Shot-ish and a lot of posing.

We stayed with my uncle who lives right in the Shilin Night Market. The night market is similar to Taste of Addison or Dallas except the food costs about one quarter less and tastes waaaaay better.

This is a random night during the week at around 11pm. There are always people here.

"Big Big Fried Chicken" is basically a giant piece of chicken dipped in batter, seasoned and deep fried. There is always a huge line that goes into the street for this.


This is where we had breakfast everyday for two weeks. For about 8 American dollars you can get breakfast for 8 people and get full. Beat that McDonalds!

I didn't know this until my aunt told me but my dad donated some money 30+ years ago to build this temple in the Shilin Night Market and his name is carved in one of the marble pillars.




This was my favorite food I had on this trip. It is THE beef noodle soup that won the best beef noodle soup award in Taiwan. I tried the soup from three or four different places. They were all good but yes, this one deserves the award! I would recommend it but the place doesn't have an english name.

I can't wait for my next trip on the other side of the planet for some more award winning beef noodle soup!

Kristi and David Engagements

Needless to say it's peak wedding season and It's been really busy here. I haven't had much time to blog but I will try my hardest to post more often.

Here are some of my favorites from an engagement session we did with Kristi and David last month at the Dallas Arboretum. It was about 150 degrees outside with a full sun and no breeze. It didn't matter, nothing was going to stop these two from smiling and laughing when they were together. Even when Kristi locked her keys in the trunk of her car after the shoot, they kept their spirits up. Of course David couldn't pass up the opportunity for some teasing. Thanks guys for braving the heat. I think the pictures we got were worth it. Can't wait for your wedding next month!