Never Ending Love Affair with Peonies

This past spring was the forth consecutive year I’ve photographed peonies. During that time, I was greeted by darkness when I returned home from work, making it hard to squeeze time to photographing in natural light. My beau suggested we invest in studio lighting to help with my dilemma; he could also use the lighting for when he's painting and so we did.

So far artificial light is proving to be a beast (I really should look into attending a workshop on this subject). Lately, I’ve been really drawn to direct light. I love it for so many reasons but particularly for the moodiness, drama and beautiful shadows it creates. This photoshoot was inspired by the very talented Gentl and Hyers’s Botanicals found as a part their portfolio. I came across their work through Alice Gao, another amazing photographer I admire. I love the way they all use light in their photographs and I often spent time looking at their work, especially still-life, to study the lighting.

For about a week, I got to enjoy a dozen of peonies sitting in my living room. Everyday I'd watched them unfold petal by petal opening up as they do that so well in the warmth of the apartment. When they fully bloomed, I pulled them part to photograph.










Peonies // Photography Notes

Direct light, from the source of artificial light in this case, was difficult. My challenge being the ability to balance providing sufficient light all around while trying not to blow the exposure on the areas that were in the direct light. It can be harsh shooting with direct light and my goal was to achieve the perfect balance between the two.

I also played around with diffused light and found that it added a softness to my photographs which I equally loved (image on the right) but I can't decide if that's still considered direct lighting?

All technicality aside, I am perfectly happy photographing peonies all day; they are just so beautiful!

Past Photoshoots with Peonies:

 2013 // On Black and White Film 

2014 // On Digital 

2015 // Dried Up Peonies

The Princess and Her Flower Crown

As little girls my sisters and I would sit outside for hours in our poofy dresses and crooked pigtails picking as many flowers as our little hands can carry to create flower crowns for each other. I was never good at making flower crowns. I could never figure out how the girls at school could make such robust lively flower crowns while mine always looked dehydrated and depressed. 

I count myself bless to be able to say my sisters and I still get together (minus the pigtails) to do this. A few months ago we create flower crowns for a photo shoot we're planning this summer. Days later, Mailee, my baby sister shows up to a family dinner after work wearing this exact outfit with my flower crown. How she can work 8+ hours and look this good? I have no clue. I couldn't resist snapping a few photos of her. 

Thanks Mailee for your willingness to model for me whenever I want to practice shooting. In my defense, you're gorgeous and such an easy subject to photography. 

Peonies in Black and White

These are the last boutique of peonies I picked up from the market. Peonies are my favorite flowers and they are so beautiful but I think I love them more so for what they represent to me. Peonies are usually available in the spring and if you live in Seattle you can understand how long and gloomy the winters can be. When peonies floods the market, I feel like better days are yet to come with new beginnings, sunshine and warmer weather. 

Taken on Kodak Tri-X 400 film.

C&H

C& H. 

Celebrating eight years. 

If You're a Bird, I'm a Bird.

My good friend, Jodie asked me to shoot photos of her and her beloved for their Christmas card this past December. Initially I hesitated mostly because I've never shot photographs of a couple before. Most of my work has been around runway shows and fashion related events where I am not responsible for directing the subjects in front of my camera but positioning my frame to capture what my heart saw. Because Jodie is a good friend I wanted to do this for her and after our session ended I was really glad I did. This photo shoot wasn't so different from shooting the runway shows that I love because I can easily see the love between Jodie and her beloved. Jodie and I have been good friends since high school therefore we've been through so much together. From the awkward teenage issues to the 'what should I do with my life' phase and then there's the heartbreaks and tears we've shared over the relationships that didn't work. When it comes to love, today we are both in a much better place and you can really just see the happiness in her face in these photographs. It wasn't difficult for me to capture the pure joy that was oozing out of my friend from being in love. Her beloved can make her laugh with just one silly stare and he can instantly comfort her with the simplest touch of his hand. For my friend, Jodie I hope that she will always be this happy and that love will always be by her side... 

 

 

"If you're a bird... I'm a bird..." - Nicolas Sparks

Happy Halloween

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays to celebrate! I love getting dressed up and owning my costume... speaking like I'm from the 40's, being a little proper asking for my cigarette to be lit even though it's fake. ;) Here's part two of our Halloween series of smoking in the bathroom...

 

 

 

Happy Halloween!

Love, Youa

Smoking in the Bathroom

How gorgeous is Mailee as Audrey Hepburn for Halloween?! I took these photos of Mailee in my bathroom as we were getting ready. Mailee made us these super cool vintage cigarette holders and we pretended to smoke. I guess practice does makes perfection because I almost got in trouble at the Halloween party we went to when I pretended I was smoking in doors...

More Halloween photos to come...

Autumn

It was a warm September evening and we were experiencing what people would call an Indian summer. Exploring my mom's backyard, we found some fun places to shoot our autumn themed photoshoot.  Mailee wore the cutest outfit so appropriate for this autumn shoot...

Fall Beauty Looks To Try

One of the many great things about having sisters is the ability to play dress up! I remember growing up my sisters and I would sit around the house and spend hours playing with make-up and dressing up just for the fun of it. Let’s just say we all had big imaginations!

A few weeks ago when I purchased my Pentax K1000 I was really excited to test it out. I text my baby sister Mailee asking her to put together a few fall beauty looks for a quick photoshoot that day and when I showed up to her house she literally took 5 minutes to pull each look together. What a pro right? Those days of playing dress up totally paid off! ;)

Here are Mailee's three beauty looks she will be wearing this fall…  

One. Light smoky eyes and nude lip.

  

  Two. The bright red lip. 

Three. Big hair.

All the above images were shot with my Pentax on Fuji film. I love the grain on film. The last two photos really set the mood for the dark fall look we were going for. Here are two digital photos to compare the two formats.

Isn't Mailee so gorgeous...?