What it is like to Experience Yellowhale Portrait

Every family has its own story. As a family portrait photographer - I get to enjoy the most beautiful and real family stories from how the couple fell in love, thirty-hour long labor, to first birthday, and so many other episodes. I love being part of the family stories. More over, I want to CREATE unforgettable memories for them to cherish. 

Today, my client, Jennifer and Sung visited the studio for the Big Reveal presentation of their family portraits photographed three weeks ago. We had planned this special celebration since January, selecting the style, color, location, what to wear. Jennifer and I share so much in common (like all other moms out there! ^^) how much we love our children and what the family means to us. So the designing her photo session was quite similar to what I would have done for my own family. Their children are pre teens and it is the stage where they start to feel uncomfortable smiling at the camera or hugging or kissing their mom and feel a little shy about being in front of the camera.  As I understood, her main focus of the photo session was to capture the children's natural smile (not posed or forced) and show the love of the family.  I had planned to play a little game with them to relax and have fun during the session. The session took place at the studio to create a modern, yet formal look that will go really well with her living room decor. I loved how everything we planned came together at the session and the result turned out exactly how she wanted!

Below is a short video clip that I was able to capture during the REVEAL presentation and I so wanted to share it with you all. I took this video with my iphone with their permission. ^^

After she left the studio, I received a little note from her saying...

“Thank you Kyung!

You have far exceeded my expectations!! And I had high expectations too.. haha! You have captured the love in my family... the great love and joy we have for each other and from each other. You have captured them all in your images. You are so gifted! And a special thank you for capturing my son Nathan. Your images display what I see when I look at him. When I asked Nathan “Do you recognize yourself?”, he said “no” and I told him “This handsome young man is you my Nathan! This is exactly what you look like in real life!”. Your pictures are treasures that we will cherish forever. From beginning to end the whole experience was a wonderful one and the results speak for themselves. Thank you so much!

”

— Jennifer

I am so so so happy to be able to give the family the most beautiful images to cherish and see what their love and happiness is like. Below is some of my favorite images from their portrait experience.

Jen and Sung, thank you so much for letting me be part of your life journey. Being there to document what is already beautiful was my privilege and I am grateful for that. When this image is magnificently installed over your mantle, not only your children but also everyone who visits your lovely home will be reminded of love and joy shines through the portrait. - Kyung

I can not believe it is already MAY (one third of the year 2017 has passed already!).

If you are interested in reserving your family portraits this spring, I still have our $99 Portrait Special sessions available for June. It is an amazing value and would be a perfect gift for the MOM you love for Mother's Day (May 14th!). You know mothers like Jennifer and myself, we would die to receive our children's portraits as a gift than anything...  CALL 202.870.6773 to schedule your session and click HERE  for more information.

Happy Mother's Day

Being a mother is learning about strengths you didn't know you had, and dealing with fears you didn't know existed.

-Linda Wooten

I realize more and more about how amazing and fearless my mother was raising me as I raise my children myself. She was so strong and wise. She still teaches me how to love more and nurture deeper through her life. As a family portrait photographer, celebrating the greatness of motherhood became the pure focus of my passion.

Without her, I would not be able to understand how profound a mom's love could be. Without her, Yellowhale Photography would not even exist because the heart for motherhood is what grew my own. Happy Mother's Day to my very own mom and to all of you mamas out there.

Joyeuses fêtes

At this time of the year, I would like to take a moment to embrace the beautiful and grateful year we had and to look forward to a wonderful new year.

At Yellowhale Photography, I loved the opportunities to document growing families and to share a pieces of life every year with our clients and families around. That a year it has been! 2015 was filled with happiness, love, and share from you all. Some of you brought new additions to the families. Some of your little ones came back with new braces. Some of you visited the studio for the first time... Thank you for being part of Yellowhale! 

I am beyond excited about what the new year will bring to you and can not wait to witness the adventures with you.  Cheers to 2016!

Whatever is beautiful,
Whatever is meaningful,
Whatever brings you happiness...
May it be yours this Holiday Season
and throughout the coming year! 

Lots of Love,
Kyung, Luke, Ethan, Eric,
& Yellowhale Photography

Our family images were photographed by the fabulous Ethan Yang photography in April 2015.

A day in the life of the portrait photographer: Behind the scenes of the Evelyn Alex Launch photo shoot

When Leanne and Sue first asked me if I could shoot the launch of their clothing line Evelyn Alex in January, I didn’t think twice about it. I decided I would do my usual natural-light fashion photo shoot, which I’d been doing for more than a decade.

As a natural-light portrait photographer, I always thought sunlight filtering through a window was the most flattering light solution for portraits. It took me years of learning, practicing, and mastering to take beautiful portraits using available light. When it comes to natural light, there are two challenges that can’t be overcome: unpredictable weather and the time of day. (Below images are some of samples of my previous work of natural light fashion photoshoot) 

As you can imagine, the launch of a clothing line involves stylists, hair and make-up artists, models, and numerous outfit changes. So it’s an event that can’t easily be rescheduled if the weather is bad.  This was especially true in this case, since Evelyn Alex was in time crunch and needed the images quickly.  

As EA is all about Real Girls and Real Life, we wanted to go with non-professional models for the shoot.  Out of so many of great candidates from all over the DC area, we chose six girls to represent the brand. They were totally new to photo shoots and never had any training for posing in front of camera. I knew I would have to direct the girls to move and pose for the pictures.

As you all know, I don’t like “posy posy” images, and even having a backdrop is not my style. With a fixed lighting set-up to create consistent images for the website, I had to make sure the backdrop and other settings were consistent as well. I looked through lots of fashion websites, posing guides, and catalogues to inspire myself, but none of them really spoke to me.  I finally found a few magazine images that I liked, and I tore them out and taped them onto the corner wall of the studio where everyone could see them. I ended up being creative and directed the girls to jump, fly, spin, cartwheel, and just be happy. It worked perfectly! (And I learned that I just can’t be posy-posy.)

The EA collection I photographed is for spring and summer, so I also wanted to make the scene bright, fun, active, and real, without bringing in distracting props and colorful backdrops. The white backdrop provided a clean, modern look, but I wanted to make sure it wasn’t boring and plain, so I incorporated fresh flowers, headphones, skateboards, and a wind blower.

To make sure the girls were relaxed and natural, they needed to DO something like smelling flowers, listening to music, dancing, jumping, spinning, or skateboarding. I knew posing for the camera would only make them feel shy and unnatural, but with the warm wind blowing through their hair, lighting flashing and loud music pumping, the girls felt like they were at a party. And that was exactly how I wanted it to be!

I also needed to feature individual outfits. Since EA will be launched exclusively online, I needed to accurately show the detail of the garments. I tried to show each style’s true and natural fit, even when the model was in action. My background as a fashion professional came into play during the preparation stage. I tried to see the whole process as not only a photographer, but also from a designer’s perspective.

All the staff members, including EA designers Leanne Moss and Suejin Orlins; and the amazing stylist Jen Roberti and her assistant Lindsay Chaney; my talented assistants Eunice Choi and Beatriz Tuncer;  and of course all six models got together to fit the clothes and prepare the sequences for the shoot. This was about a week before the actual shooting day. Jen planned everything ahead of time and brought all the accessories. This part took longer than I had thought, as we added more styles and scenes as we went along. The girls were fantastic, trying out different sizes and switching shoes constantly. We took some quick photos to make the sequence chart, which looked like the images below. 

On the day of the photo shoot, everyone came to the studio at 8:30 AM. I specifically asked everyone to arrive with a full stomach because I believe the best smiles come from full bellies. With any activity you do, you must give your body the energy it needs! As we wanted to tackle all 18 group sequences and individual shots along the way, we had to move quickly. Make up and hair was minimal – we wanted the real girls’ look, so we did not have to change anything from how they normally looked, and they were gorgeous!  I gave a quick workshop on how to move in front of camera – with the emphasis on what not to do, including the most important two:

1. don’t point your elbow toward the camera
2. don’t do a “CHEESE” smile

We also practiced a few jumps and few head turns, and we were ready to start shooting at 10AM.

The wind was blowing, the girls’ hair was flowing, the fun music was playing – and before we knew it, everyone’s stomach was growling. We realized we had done half of the sequences, and it was noon. Leanne ordered 13 burritos from Chipotle with lots of guac and chips. We all sat down on the floor and started munching. All the girls (they were from different schools, and so they had not met before) had become best friends, and the studio was filled with laughter .

The latter half of the session was a breeze, and it seemed everyone had become experts on what they were doing. It was an amazing transformation from real girls to professional models. I knew the whole session was an unforgettable experience for these girls, and the pictures that came from the session would always remind them how much fun they had that day. Everyone was excited when the final sequence was done successfully! What fantastic team we had been!

I had taken more than 1,000 images total. There were tons of exciting and fun shots – but here are few of my favorites. The video of our session was shot on my little Cannon S90 on tripod. I am so glad that I shot some video clips of the session, to be able to make the BTS video. Here is the video of what really happened during the shoot.

Evelyn Alex clothing is made in the USA. Their styles focus on fun, comfortable, and easy styles for girls sizes 8 to16. If you have a hard time finding clothes for your tween daughter at the mall, you have to check it out!

Check back often for more sneak peeks into what it's like to be a photographer!

Holiday MINI Sessions are here

We are so excited to announce that our Exclusive Holiday Portrait MINI Sessions offer. We are certain that you will LOVE the experience. For more information, please go to our Holiday mini portrait session page here. To reserve your session, please contact 202.870.6773 NOW.

Limited spots available.

(UPDATE- we have 10 spots available as of 10/8/2014, 12:18pm)

Review the gallery of Holiday Portrait Samples from last year below. 

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

All print orders are guaranteed to be delivered by December 15th! You know your friends and family will be so thrilled to receive these beautiful images as their holiday gifts!! and don't forget this special event is sponsored by our favorite baby boutique Daisy Baby. If you are already clients of this baby specialty store, that is great! If not you can become one now. They are offering 15% off of all your purchase until November 15th .