When God takes away your apartment, he gives you ... | Izzy + Matt Engagement Session

To me, one of the most important steps in a photography session is brainstorming, because that's when I really get to know my subjects, observe them interact with each other, and understand how they would like to be portrayed in the photos. Therefore, a big advantage I get out of shooting my friends is that I usually have had a multiple-year-long “brainstorming session” by the time when the actual shoot comes up – like the case with Izzy and Matt. Different from meeting some amazingly interesting NEW friends and discovering the romance along the way, such as the session with Fiona and Edgar, this time I had the opportunity to do a “mental walkthrough” of my friendship with two old friends during the shoot, and get to share that memory afterwards with whoever is reading this blog now.

So… how did I meet Izzy? I think the friendship goes back to 8 years ago, when both of us were starting out our internship at the same company. After a long day of orientation, Izzy, who happened to be sitting next to me that day, mentioned that her car was broken and needed a ride home. As I would never imagine myself doing (again) - I offered her a ride, and she accepted it. To clarify, I am not saying that I am not a nice enough person to give people rides. What I am saying is - well to give you some context – one of my closest friends still wouldn’t let me drive her car today, and to be honest, I had actually just obtained my driver’s license 10 days before I started my internship. So, without knowing any of those key info, Izzy, my dear friend - thank you for the enormous trust. 

Fast forward a year, Izzy and I both decided to leave the beautiful Virginia and moved to New York for work. The second year after we both settled down in downtown, Hurricane Sandy hit. Izzy was evacuated from her apartment. What was the old saying again? When God takes away your apartment, he gives you a husband. Exactly – that’s how Matt got into the picture.

I love Izzy and Matt. Looking back at these past years, together we ate a lot, talked a lot, and most importantly, I learned a lot from both of them. For example, one of the life-changing tips that Izzy taught me when we were indulging ourselves in Shake Shack is that, you gotta mix black pepper in ketchup when eating French fries. It is delicious and I am not joking. As for Matt, the lesson is equally legit, which is that you gotta learn to control yourself a bit when showing affections of other people. What was this about? Well… a couple of summers ago when we were still neighbors, Matt and I happened to share the same morning run schedule along the Hudson river and I ran into him for 3 days straight. Every day during those 3 days, I somehow had this amazing ability to spot Matt from quite a distance, shouted his name excitingly (like “Maaaaatt”), ran to him and caught up for 5 minutes. After those 3 days, for some reason, I never saw Matt running again. And after that year, they moved to, Jersey.

Coming back to this engagement brainstorming session, Izzy and Matt told me they liked the idea of doing the shoot in their apartment and recording some everyday moments, which I am always a fan of. Personally, I also LOVE those madly romantic elopement sessions I have seen on Instagram and really want to try a few one day, in the mountains, by the seaside, in the desert etc. But in-home sessions, especially the homes in the New York area, “forced” me to be more creative in more confined space, to constantly look for interesting angles and to detect the extraordinary moments/emotions from the seemingly ordinary life. However, when I was just beginning to ask about the details on their apartment setup and the type of moments they would like me to capture, Izzy cut me off and said that they also wanted to do a few photos in this beautiful park in Jersey and continued to offer more details on the park. I listened on, but couldn’t resist the voice in my head – “Really? A beautiful park, in...JERSEY?” And the fact? Yes, a very beautiful park in Jersey.

Enough blah, let the photos talk a bit.

Each photography session is of course about making good photos and lasting memories. But meanwhile, to me, it is always a discovery process as well: the discovery of the outside world, like a new park, a new friendship, a new photo angle, as well as self-discovery, like the emotion I resonate with most, the quality of my friends that I cherish most, and the type of the relationship I would not trade for anything in this world. 2018, more discovery coming up – stay tuned.

Last but not least - congrats again to this lovely couple!!! 

Something Old, Something New | Jing + Joe Maternity Session

This shoot may be my least prepared session ever. To what extent? The mom-to-be didn’t even know I was going to take photos of her until the moment when I showed up and took out my camera. Well, I didn’t have a choice.

I was away from New York for two months this summer. Before I took off, for some reason Jing just didn’t think she looked pregnant enough for the photo shoot, although to me she definitely looked “super pregnant”. And then when I finally came back and checked in with her, she told me that she was almost due. So, what could I do? I paid her a visit right after, with my camera bag of course.

Understandably, as a 97% due mom-to-be, Jing had no interest in putting on makeup, no plan on changing various outfits, no spare energy to make the diaper-filled and baby proof apartment “picture-perfect”, and obviously was too heavy to move around and get some nice outdoor setting (I am actually not sure if "heavy" is accurate here, as in her own words, she felt like a "(hot) ballon" which could fly away any minute). 

Okay, I will see what I can do. 

At this point, it probably appears to you that I was not treating this client very “seriously”… That’s not incorrect by the common standard of seriousness. In fact, Jing has been one of my best friends since college. We took the same flight from China to the States, many many years ago, and we didn’t hate each other after that 15-hour flight, which was a good start I guess. On campus, I lived in Mary Munford #345 and she lived in #346, which was completely serendipity. We selected the classes independently but ended up having exactly the same schedule in the first semester. I understand that becoming besties requires some commonalities, not just serendipity, and we definitely had that. For example, we had similar sense of time and refused to wake up before 7:45 for the 8:00 Calculus class. Both of us appreciated the beauty of a “carefree” lifestyle and therefore remained to be the messy (but sort of clean) type. So that now whenever Blowfish, who is always driven crazy by my relatively casual housekeeping style, starts wondering how bad my dorm room was in college, my answer is always “It was better than Jing’s anyways”.

Meanwhile, we had differences: one was quite fashion-forward while the other had absolutely no sense of that; one could understand the classes without any difficulty while the other couldn’t really take decent notes in the first three months; one made friends and became known quite quickly while the other struggled quite a bit and remained “low-key” (not purposely of course) for a while… I am not gonna tell you which is which but if you know her (and/or me) and can’t tell, you have a problem. Luckily those “differences” didn’t set us apart. She was my private English tutor for all the things I felt too embarrassed to ask; she lent me the notes after class although I actually ended up getting better grades (ha!). She failed miserably to help me become “popular” in college but let me third-wheel her relationship for a few years, until one day, I finally realized that I really didn’t have to accept their “courtesy invite” to the dinner every Friday…

Sometimes I get really jealous when I hear people telling their crazy college time stories. I feel FOMO that I was almost “too normal” in college and never did anything that crossed the line, even just a bit. Now, I could actually think of one, with Jing of course, when we were both working as part-time shelvers at the school library. We two always signed up for the same shifts. I was usually the one shelving the newspapers and magazines while Jing was the one shelving the books back to a very old section of the library. One day, when I smuggled a gossip magazine for her during the shelving break, we both noticed that almost empty book cart, which could actually fit one person in… We looked at each other. After a second of hesitation, I jumped in. Then she started pushing the cart, faster and faster and faster, along the aisles in the dimly-lit library where people rarely visited (thank goodness)… And I think you’ve got that picture in your head. My only wish at this moment is our library supervisor then is not reading this blog.

As I have grown older, I have learned to appreciate and cherish more some “old stuff”: that pair of old flats which I keep wearing when I want to be a bit easier on myself; that old pen with which I know my thoughts will flow out like the rain in the summer; that old friend in front whom I will never be afraid of embarrassing myself.

On the weekends during college, Jing and I visited the most famous shopping mall in town at that time, called the Fashion Square, quite often. One day in the Foot Locker, we saw a pair of super cute tiny baby sneakers. We loved it so much that we promised each other: whoever has kids first in the future, will get that pair of shoes as a gift from the other. So guys - I gotta stop here. I have some new stuff to buy, for some dear old friend.

To Six Years and Counting | Blowfish + Fan At Home Anniversary Session

Since I started dating Blowfish, I have never received flowers/chocolate/cards on Valentine’s day. I still remember clearly how he defined February 14th when I was getting so pumped to celebrate our first Valentine’s day together: the day between February 13th and 15th. As someone who likes celebrating every possible holiday, I almost broke up with him because of that.

Luckily, throughout these years I gradually understood that instead of out right rejecting a celebratory lifestyle, he is just not a big fan of more and more commercialized holidays, which I learned to respect. As a result, we agreed to celebrate the occasions which mean more to us specifically (aka the days that nobody else cares enough to jack up prices on restaurants etc.), like our dating anniversary – there is no such rule as married couple cannot celebrate dating anniversaries, right?

It was our sixth dating anniversary about two weeks ago. By “tradition”, Blowfish usually decides on a restaurant and I decide on some sort of activity we do together. So this year, he picked Union Square Café based on an article he read on a magazine, and what did I pick? A DIY at-home photography session. After a pretty long pause, of course he said, “Yes Dear”.

Blowfish had “a thing” with photos – he does not like being photographed and hates taking photos of others even more, the latter of which explains two things: 1) why I have an awkward snow angel Facebook profile picture throughout four seasons in the past three years already; and 2) why his previous relationship(s) became an ultimate challenge for him. You know what’s funny about life? He married a photographer, ha!

Doing self-portrait is a challenge, especially in such confined place. It involves quite some guesswork and trial-and-error. However, it pushed me to discover interesting perspectives, to be creative about composing the frame, and to capture moments out of the ordinary. Since I was more than appreciative already that Blowfish agreed to do this with (or for) me, I made sure this shoot was logistically well prepared, for him: treats (coffee, beer and snacks) to keep him well fed, jokes to keep him mentally relaxed, working in intervals to keep him physically energized, and some psychological tactics to keep him emotionally devoted. And, you know another funny thing about life? I ended up drinking all the beer, ate all the snacks, requested multiple breaks, while he sat there commenting, “This is actually kinda fun.” Marriage changes people.

Let the pictures talk for a bit.

Above – Blowfish was teaching me how to feel relaxed in front of the camera, which I was not very familiar with apparently.

Above – “Okay let’s see what’s up there… those pigeons had better not drop their crap into our mouths…”

Above – Blowfish showed me the article that inspired him to pick our dinner spot.

If I have to pick a word to describe my experience with Blowfish in the past six years, well, I think it would be “liberating”, just the way I feel a healthy relationship should be. I feel more liberated from my inner struggles with myself, from others’ opinions about me, and from my prejudice to others as well. I feel freer from breaking the curse of “what I should do” to pursue “what I want to do”: maybe I can cut my hair short, maybe it is okay I don’t feel that resonated with stocks and bonds, maybe it is not impossible for me to get six-pack as well, maybe learning a third language is not just a dream, maybe sharing my thoughts and photos through a website is not a bad idea, maybe putting down the camera for a bit when I don’t feel it makes sense, maybe “living a depressing life now” does not necessarily guarantee me “living a happy life in the future”.

At the end of the dinner, Blowfish asked me how I felt about hitting the sixth year landmark in our relationship. “Decent,” I responded. “Wanna do another six?” He asked. “Sure.” I said.

So cheers, to six years and counting.