Hiroki Family

I'm happy that this family is my first posting for 2015.  I know I haven't been blogging for a while, sometimes I get caught up on traveling and photographing and don't have much time to blog all the wonderful places and people I come across.  Hopefully this year I will do a better job at sharing the photos!

Back to this family! I love this family! I promised I will come visit them every year but life happened and it took me 5 years to return to Japan to spend some time and snap few photos of them.  Takuto is almost 7 (you can see his pictures I took of him here) and I was so happy that he remembered me from last time I saw him. And oh Shuto (aka Shu-chan) he is a character.   He is hilarious!!  It was first time meeting him but by the time we had to say goodbye we became really good friends.  And Yoshimi and Kuni and grandpa, they are like my second family to me.  I hope I can see them again real soon (hopefully this summer)!  Thanks for having me! xo, r

Ajay + Brooke = Blake

Aren't these three adorable together?  I was so excited to photograph this family.  Brooke and Ajay wanted Blake to be little older for the first family portraits and 'tis is the perfect time to stroll around Central Park to snap some.  She was such a good baby, just minding her own business crawling around the Strawberry Field tasting the latest fallen leaves and being happy.  Can't wait for next year! She's going to be walking and running around.  xo, r (P.S Brooke is an amazing prop stylist! Make sure you drop by and check her out!)  

JC

Lindsay and I went to college together and we were the most experimental duo who would rent out 4x5 cameras and shoot with them.  (Well.. probably the only two, who would rent them out!)  Although I would say Lindsay was little more experimental than me since she would cut up the negatives and collage them up then go into the darkroom to print, while I liked to keep my negatives finger-print-free as possible.  Since she moved to Florida after graduating we tried very hard to catch up with few of our other friends when Lindsay came up for a holiday visits.  Last time we tried getting together she had to cancel our dinner last minute.  Then we found out the reason for canceling was due to being pregnant with "little bean" (one of JC's many nicknames).  This time I had a pleasure of meeting the little fella at the near by park, where we went to school.  He was pretty big for a 4 month old but still adorable!! Hope I get to catch you guys more while you guys are around!

Shyema

I’ve been so bad with updating my blog posts! So, I finally sat myself down away from my usual environments and started going through my hard drives to do a comprehensive edit and see how the past few years of my life have been.  As I was going through my hard drives, I came across Shyema’s portrait folder.  It took me back to the summer of 2011.  I was away in Singapore and Korea with my family when I received an email from Shyema, who needed a headshot, and she only had that Saturday to do it, which was in 2 days and which also coincidentally happened to be the day I was coming home.  I landed that morning, got home, unpacked my camera and rushed over to photograph Shyema.  I was happy that it was less humid but oh man! It was blazing hot! We could barely stand outside without sweating. But we did it in 30 minutes and now these photos are in magazines and other blogs!

If you haven’t noticed from the photos above, Shyema is Founder & Editor-in-Chief of an awesome blog called Beauty and the Feast.  She combined the 2 things girls love the most-- make-up and food! Pure genius! Check out her blog for beauty tips or recommendations for delicious local joints in the NYC area!  

Charlotte + Brett = Heath

A few weeks back, before "Sandy" came and swept away the coast of NJ and NY, I met a beautiful baby boy named Heath. He was 2 weeks old and weighed a healthy 8.5 pounds when I photographed him. He is a sweet baby with orange hair... Except when you unswaddle him, he isn't very happy about the cold. I know this handsome boy will have a great photo album from having such an amazing photographer for a mom. I just want to say it was such a privilege to photograph this precious moment for Charlotte, my mentor and close friend, and her husband Brett. Thank you so much for having me! I'll see you around Heath ;) Xoxo

Caros & Han

These two love birds got hitched a month before this photo session. They returned from their honeymoon relaxed and free of all the wedding stress and wanted to have a photo session that showed more of their fun personalities.  And that's just what we did! We walked around the park being silly, being sweet and just being in love.  I had so much fun photographing these sillies and look forward to seeing them next year in LA! Xoxo 

Pia

Look at this adorable girl.  She was all about flipping over (from her back to her belly) and singing during the playtime we had.  She also wins the award for most outfit changed baby I have ever photographed.  I believe she changed 5 times and no crying til the strawberry outfit at the very end. (Brava!) I had lots of fun meeting the lil one and spending a quality Saturday afternoon with this cute family. Xoxo