Frank Chu and the Nine Billion Galaxies

Damn....what are we gonna do about them galaxies?

Day of Remembrance

Whelp, the annual Day of Remembrance event came and went. I wound up designing their advertisement material again. I did it last year too. It first involved designing the postcard. The photo I chose is from the National Archives. I believe it's a photo by Dorothy Lange.

The the detail on the old man's image on the left was completely washed out and I had to retouch in the details via photoshop. I used the halftone filter to get the dot pattern on the image and then colorized the images using layers.

Then came the editing of the text which took up the most time. Working with someone who changes her mind often means making a handful of drafts until she thinks she got it right.

They got it printed at PS Print in Oakland. They wanted everything yesterday, so they also paid an overnight rush fee.

That seems to be my niche. Doing things for community causes. The trouble is, there's never a budget to pay commercial rates, so I wind up doing these things for peanuts. Yet when it comes to paying the printer, they don't hustle them for a discount. But it's ok....it's a cause for the community.

After I laid out this design, I also did the flyer and the brochure cover.

Rich Tokeshi said he is willing to do the design next year.

Obituary Portraits

I'm sure a lot of wedding photographers go through this. It's just that they don't like to talk about it. After all, us wedding photographers photograph happy occassions, not sad ones.

Years after the wedding, the couple would contact me. Some as long as over twenty years ago. I'm excited to hear from them after so many years. Expecting them to say they want to hire me to photograph their children's weddings, it turns out that they had a death in the family, usually a parent of the bride or groom, asking to look for an old negative to use as an obituary photo. I would go down to the garage and pull out their negatives and bring it to my old lab to get a print. I have done this many times.

Recently a client of over twenty years ago called me to do exactly that. After searching, I remembered that I have given the negatives to them a few years ago and now they couldn't find it. Panicking...they supplied me with a proof print which the person was only a small part of the 5x5 proof. I use textured paper too so it was impossible to get a good scan. I asked them for their wedding album to see if I can work off that. But they eventually found the enevelope of negatives in the file cabinet in the garage. Now I have to get the portrait to them in three days. It looks like we'll get the portrait to them in time.

What really gets me is why do people not get their portrait done by a professional photographer every so often? I can do a nice portrait for $350 and I will bring the set up to their houses too. How should I market myself for this? "Be ready for your funeral...Get your portrait done today!"

this blog

i just can't get used to using this blogger. i can't upload photos. and it seems like it's set to invited guests only.

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one two three...say gout!

I've been out and about with the gout for the last five days. Gout on both feet! I have not had a flare up in two years and when it rains...it pours. First my left heal hurted, then my right toe joint hurted. They both swelled up. Good thing I didn't have a wedding to shoot. I should network better with my fellow photographers. Who knows...the night before a wedding, I get a gout attack. I have to find someone to substitute for me.

Susan and Sam's Wedding

I photographed Susan and Sam's wedding yesterday.

The ceremony was held on the fourtieth floor of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in San Francisco. The had two rooms in the hotel. Johnny Nagano and I got there at 9:05 and slowly made our way up to their rooms at 9:20 am.

The ceremony began at about 11:15am and was very simple. The fourtieth floor patio had a great view of the Transamerica building and the Coit Tower. Though it was in the shadow and a bit cold for a lot of people. Photographically wise, it was tough with the bright background and ceremony in the shadow. The beautiful background was blown out.

After the family formals, a reception followed down at the second floor restaurant. The pickings were slim by the time we got there.

No outdoor photo session.

We drove down to San Jose by 3:20pm. It was not hard finding the Dynasty restaurant. But wow...the whole area is a V-Town!

They were about 250 guests. What's different for me was a background set up by the restaurant for photographs with guests. Most Vietnamese weddings have this set up. I found myself doing one group after another. I wished I brought my tripod and a stool.

I witnessed a purse snatching while I went to the car to grab a diet Pepsi. A hispanic male, late 20's, medium build, very short haired baldish on a bicycle grabbed a purse from one of the wedding guests and rode off into the darkness of the night. Interesting how security just happened to be not there at the moment. It's wild out there!

Anyway, the rest of the evening went okay. Got my shots. This guy complained about me being behind the couple while they were cutting the cake.

I didn't do too bad considering I did not sleep the night before due to an upset stomach.

posting photos on the blogger

I had trouble uploading photos last time and it appears this time too...i get a ding ding ding when I click the upload photo icon. Maybe this whole blogger thing is shitty.