Styled Living

05/21/2020

I was walking around the neighborhood during my lunch break two days ago and I was just meandering through all homes in my area. I wouldn't say I was overwhelmed with nostalgia as much as I would say "awash". I would say that I'm a local of San Francisco more than my own neighborhood these days. I mean, who actually goes out to walk around the suburbs? It's really boring. I kind of associate that type of traipsing with unemployment, being in primary school, and now, a pandemic with a shelter in place order.
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But it's definitely refreshing to just stand under a tree with a mild breeze drying the sweat off my brow across the street of a schoolmate's home all while remembering her family inviting our 1st grade class to tour her bakery. Memories like these, they feel like distant dreams at this point.
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In frame is Helen, she's as much a dream as she is real. And considering it was warm that day, my BO was probably pretty real dreamy too. 😂

05/21/2020

Perhaps it’s time time post again! 😔
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Not gonna lie, but this whole situation with being sheltered in place has been challenging. Mental health isn’t great for anyone when you’re stuck together with people or even when you’re alone. Can you imagine how it will be for the first explorers to Mars? How about intergalactic trips as in Morten Tyldum’s 2016 hit, Passengers? Or even just in space in the International Space Station for 12 months? I don’t think anyone likes being forcibly stuck anywhere.

I suppose the most important thing is to just take a breath, but don’t try to “stick to a routine”. Now is the time to be creative, to force your mind to create and come up with amazing ways to awaken yourself. We’re two months in this together and a lot of us are just in that holding pattern. Well, you know what? I’m giving you that permission to move forward and improve yourself. Pretend you’re in college again, pretend you have a presentation to complete, pretend you have summer vacation to look forward to. Until then, work *hard*, work *deiberately*, and most of all, work with *passion*.
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In frame Marie. We’d been talking about doing a shoot together for nearly a decade, and we finally got a chance last year. Let me know what you think, I think we totally killed it. ❤️

03/31/2017

people take comfort in the cliche "more than the sum of its parts" because they believe they are magically more than were individually when in a relationship
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i don't believe that
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i think it's like comparing what made you fall in love with old girlfriends or old boyfriends, or comparing who's the better parent, my mother pr my father. it's just simply different
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as couples, together they are not anything more, together they are not anything less, it's just that this journey that they are now embarking on is a new chapter in their lives as they move on from the old one.
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cina luks produced by

03/29/2017

The world bends to the wills of the power couple
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Cina and Kyle produced by Andrew Ho

03/24/2017

03/23/2017

maiah rose
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when life gives you lemons, you grind them into a pulp, meet the f***er in the church lot after school and rumble
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emerging from the rubble like a phoenix isn't limited to mythical birds, but for those with nothing to lose

01/21/2017

chau \\ assist by tiff \\ 12-31-2016
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let’s be real for a minute here.
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the intention of this photo isn’t to create an authentic moment in you. it’s not to say that an authentic moment was even felt or generated by the subject. what this photograph means to me, what this photo feels like for me, what this is for me .. whatever that is, it is not for you.
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i did not create this for you
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you’re only seeing this through my eyes but through the filters of your own feelings
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that’s why it feels inauthentic, fake, and fabricated.
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but whatever steps it took to take this shot, then tinker with the colors, and then to write up this statement, it’s what i genuinely felt when i hit share. and that, right there, is authentic to me.

01/20/2017

chau // assisted by tiffany // sutro baths // 12-31-2016
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i really only care about color
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i guess i have progressed to the point where i can shoot what i want how i want. this bucolic scene with chau was accented by the fact that my sister was able to shoot a little bit and draw some attention away from myself as the photographer. when i take pictures i only really concentrate on the the feel i see as a vo**ur. some call this creating “authenticity”, but really we are attempting to imbue the image with made up feels.
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call it what you like, for that is none of my concern.
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once the composition is done, what really catches me is color. i do not use anything complicated or crazy but simply adobe camera raw. i might play with a few presets to get me to a starting point but from that point on, every single slider, curve, adjustment does not go untouched. a bump in orange and yellow makes a typical cloudy san franciscan day seem balmy, a bit of blue and green sends a forest shiver down my spine. photoshop is relegated to cropping, alignment, resizing and unsharpened mask duty. some days i might fix eye bags or pimps, but more often than not, i do not need to.
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once i have found something undeniably right about my subject, nothing else really matters.

01/01/2017

The last shoot of the year with the most transformative model I have had the privilege to work with in 2016. This last shoot also marks the first shoot that my sister and I have been able to work on together.