You know what I love most about my job???

I love it when I know my clients are super happy!!!

It is such a rewarding feeling to know that I did a good job and they love their photos. The Lee Family surprised me with this lovely note and a sweet gift. It really put a big smile on my face! So I just wanted to say a BIG THANK YOU to the Lee Family. You guys are just too sweet for words. I also look forward to documenting your love for one another in the near future!! You guys rock!

I think this is why I love photographing people so dang much. It’s never boring and it’s always challenging. I always find myself finding new ways to take a picture. I am always finding new ways to help get my clients comfortable in front of the camera. I am always trying new angles, new composition, and new poses. I love it! It’s never ending of possibilities.

So just as this post states….I love to “keep it fresh”!  If you’re new to photography and you’re confused about what your “style” is…just keep practicing. Develop a sense of what you like and don’t like about your photographs. You will soon develop your own style and flavor. When I first started I kinda knew what my style was, but then over time I realized my style is ever changing and evolving. Through practice and experience, I am more confident in knowing who I am as a photographer now. I know I love to capturing people! I love capturing details in order to help tell a story. I also know that I love joy and happiness in photographs. I’m not really trying to dramatize anything or anyone. I’m simple and I love capturing the simple nature of what love is.

Love to me is….

….sweet

….playful

….kind

….laugh out loud silly

….thoughtful

With this in mind, I aim to capture these moments. I think it’s important to not only get a pretty picture, but it’s equally important to set a tone, to capture the emotion, and to tell a story.

Here’s a few random shots taken recently with some friends. Just having fun and shooting around…=P

Big thanks to Diana and Victor for coming out and having some random fun with me. Diana is a singer and is pretty amazing. Check out her work at http://dianalimusic.com/ !

That’s pretty much how it happened for me in a blink of an eye. I was always working in the corporate world and being a busy bee. Then one day, I felt the need to try something new.  I turned to photography. It was a great outlet for me to get my creative juices flowing. But once I incorporated the business side into things, it really reinvigorated me and my life. I felt refreshed. I felt revived. I felt alive. I now have the opportunity to not only have fun and be creative, but I also get the opportunity to challenge myself in the business world. I get to use all my business skills and knowledge to use and learn about marketing, accounting, legalities, and other fun business areas.

I’ve learned that it’s not just about being good with the camera. It’s not just about knowing Photoshop. It’s about having a creative “eye”, thinking ahead, being a good planner, being flexible, being courteous and respectful to my clients, knowing the business and the industry, and being myself. I worked hard to learn my craft. I worked hard to show people I am a professional. I worked hard to live my dreams.

This is NOT a hobby for me. This is my passion and most importantly this is MY business. It’s my livelihood and is my career in life. We as photographers are not only artists but we are also entrepreneurs and business-minded folks.

I wanted to post this because I want everyone out there to understand that you aren’t alone! Whether you are a photographer, wall street big shot, college student, or someone who is just confused about what to do in life…..I want you all to know that we all just want one thing…to challenge ourselves and to be the best at what we do. It’s as simple as that. We’re all doing our best to make a decent living. We all want to be doing what we love. It’s a risk we take when our careers are “artsy farsty” but we do it because we love journey!

Sure, there were times I wanted to give up. Sometimes I just wasn’t sure if I was “good enough”. But you can’t let the frustrations get to you. You must endure the heartaches and frustrations and keep trekking on! I realized that I don’t like to ever give up. I may not always win or succeed, but I continue on with a smile on my face and with hope in my heart. I continue to challenge myself and improve. It’s the journey that I’m enjoying and I hope that my little blog post helps refresh your mentality on life. You must never give up on your dreams. You must work hard to achieve them. You must be true to yourself.

And what is a blog post without a picture?

Here is my little Vinylmation which is something I collect since I’m always at Disneyland. Vinylmation’s are Mickey figurines. There’s like a ton of them to collect! I just snatched myself this adorable Yoda vinyl…he’s cute!

Growing up, I have always been just Sarina who was never really “cool”. I was never in with the popular crowd, I was always picked on for being either chubby, smart, short, small, weird last name, and a peep-squeak voice.  I never ever felt like I could ever fit in. I never felt like I was wanted by my peers. So I always strived to be accepted by them.  I always wanted to fit in somehow. But over the years of always trying to be like others, I realized I could never be like anyone else but myself.

I am reminded about this through my peers in the photography world.  When I first started out about 2 years ago, I was struggling with the fact that there were so many photographers. I mean, anyone can just go buy a DSLR nowadays and call themselves a photographer. It’s just that easy! There’s just so much competition out there. The only way that makes me different than photographer Joe next door, is the fact that there’s only one Sarina in this world. *waves hand* That’s me!!

So over the past 2 years of doing photography as a business/career, I realized as well that it’s just so important to be your authentic self. Anyone can take good photographs, but you’re not only hiring them for their skills, but you’re also hiring them because of him/her. Whomever you end up hiring, that photographer is going to be by your side the ENTIRE day and you will want someone who makes you feel comfortable, helps make the day go by smoothly, and is easy and pleasant to deal with throughout the wedding process.  Luckily for my clients, I’ve always been genuine and real. I don’t know how to be anyone else but myself. I don’t strive to act like other photographers that’s for sure. It’s just not my thing.I just do my own thang and be my friendly, helpful, silly, and hardworking self.  My clients have always appreciate this.

I really hope that with me being so authentic and genuine with everyone I meet, will help everyone to be authentic too. I strive to get real people to feel comfortable around me in hopes that they can let their walls down and showcase their authenticity in front to my lens.  In turn, their photos will be perfect because it truly showcases who they are.

Well, for those of you who know me, you also know how much I love my tv shows.  With continuing with the authenticity subject, I just wanted to share a fun moment I had recently. I’m kinda a secret fame whore and so when I attended Dancing with the Stars “Season Premiere” and got super awesome seats (thanks to my BFF Sonia), I automatically smiled the entire show because I knew the camera was on me. HAHAHAHA  This is probably a bad example of being authentic since I’m obviously smiling because I know I’m being seen. But I feel like I am being authentic because that’s just who I am. If a camera is on me, you bet I’m going to smile!! It’s my television debut, how can I not smile? =D

Now if only I could be as successful as Oprah by just being me, then life would be complete! *sigh* A girl could dream!!!

I LOVE TV! There’s a lot of new tv shows premiering this Fall as well as some old favorites coming back for another fabulous season.

There’s 3 shows in particular which I am quite excited for.

1. Dancing with the Stars
Dude, I am in love with Derek Hough. I think he’s so hot when he dances. He’s just oh so fluid with all his movements! I love it! He also seems to have a really nice personality on top of it. There’s also a lot of really interesting celebrities dancing on this next season but I am most interested in watching Asian comedian, Margaret Cho and The Brady Bunch mom, Florence Henderson. I can’t wait for this season to start! Summer sucks with nothing majorly interesting to watch.

2. The Challenge: Cutthroat
You might be thinking, what show are you talking about? Well, I’ve been a die hard MTV Real World fan since the first season. I even tried out like twice but I wasn’t very interesting enough to be casted obviously. Go figure! lol Nevertheless, I’ve been a HUGE fan of the original reality show. They now bring back alumni’s and do these fun and dramatic challenges where they win money. It’s like survivor + big brother + AMAZING drama! I just love all the drama and all the unique challenges they must accomplish. It’s funny, crazy, intense, dramatic, and sometimes even violent all wrapped into one which creates such a fantastic show. Did I mention drama? Yes, tons of it!! LOVE IT!!!

3. Glee
Yes, I am a GLEEK!! I adore this show! I even got my boyfriend hooked on it and now we sing Glee songs in our car when we’re together. Although he definitely sings it better than I do. Glee is a fantastically written show. It’s so fresh, so creative and innovative. The songs just flow with the stories and the characters so well. I’m really impressed with everything about this show from casting, to storylines, to the way they incorporate the songs and yet revive it with a new fresh sound.  I can’t wait to see Filipino singer, Charice and Uncle Jesse, John Stamos guest star. It’s going to be another great season! Oh, I can’t forget Britney Spears too!

On a side note, I included a few new features on my blog. I included a Facebook “i like” button.  If you happen to like a particular blog post, feel free to click “i like”.  I also included “Share this” where your able to share any postings through your digg, facebook, twitter, and other cool social networking accounts.

Just wanted to share my perspective and remind you all to cherish those around you. Family is so wonderful and so unique. I’ve met so many wonderful families through my profession as a Photographer and I’m always so happy to see them interact with one another and just be themselves and have fun! Capturing moments you’ll remember forever.

Here is my favorite picture from my latest session….too cute!!!

Over the past year and a half of growing my photography business, I have really learned and grown a lot. Anyone can buy a DSLR and take a decent picture nowadays but to truly dig deep and find the art of it, isn’t always easy. It’s a journey that most professional photographers take. I am constantly trying to not just take a good picture, but to truly tell a story with my lens through light, color, and emotion behind the picture.  My mom has always been there for me and always taught me to stay true to who I am and believe in myself. I have to constantly remind myself because it’s so easy to put yourself down and say your not good enough. But thanks to her encouragement, I can finally begin to feel way more confident in who I am as a person and as a photographer. It’s really nice to have an outlet to let all your creative juices flow out!

I can only hope that everyone in this world has at least one person in their lives who gives them unconditional support and love. I’m so thankful that I have her in my life to do this for me. I would be so very much lost with out her. So for people out there, tell your mom how much she means to you. We only live one life and we gotta express our feelings to those around us. I love ya Mommy!! Thank you for all your sacrifices and love and support!!!

Happy Mother’s Day everyone!

So today started out to be a morning full of wonderful surprises! First off, I got an email saying that I was selected to go to a very special and intimate concert that Christina Aguilera will be taping for VH1 – Storytellers. I am so excited for this because I am a huge Christina Aguilera fan since her days on the Mickey Mouse Club! I’m also a pop music fanatic so going to this is going to be simply AMAZING for me! I can’t wait!

Then, to make things even better…a package finally came in!! My first even sample album! This has been a long time coming. A LONG A$$ TIME! I have plans to make more sample albums in the coming months as well, but this is a good start for me. It really took me a long time to not only create the album, but to also decide on which album company I would prefer to work with. But after attending WPPI last month and finally getting to see and touch the albums, it was clear that FINAO fits my needs and wants.

So check out the awesome album sample below! I can’t wait to show it to my past and future clients! The acrylic cover is so unique and amazing! The pages are so thick and sturdy! And the entire thing is just beautiful and classy! I love it and I hope you all will too! Enjoy and spread the love everyone!

Normally, I am not a “nature” type of person. I tend to get scared of anything NOT human even though some humans also scare me. I also am not a camping, beach, hiking type of person. However, over the last few years I have slowly tried to change my ways. I have begun to like dogs and I am less afraid to pet them and even play with them. I love taking walks and just appreciating everything around me. I guess being a photographer really helped me with this. Because I love photography so much, I love observing my surroundings a lot more now which pushed me to appreciate nature more.

Today, I took out the trash like every other week. But this time I heard a buzzing noise. I looked around and I saw a hummingbird’s nest. Looks like my neighbor even put some aluminum cover to protect it. How kind of him! So initially, I was afraid and thinking this hummingbird’s going to attack me while I am taking out the trash. I always think anything not human is going to attack simply because I have no idea what they are thinking. But then I quickly thought, this is a great opportunity to take the hummingbird’s picture! haha

So I got my camera (after washing my hands of course!) and began attempting to take its picture while it quickly flew all around me. I was still scared it was going to attack me somehow, but took a risk anyways. =P He ended up not attacking but I could tell it didn’t want me around its nest. So I just got my shot and left so it wouldn’t be frightened of me.

Overall, I just wanted to say thank you to Mother Nature. Sometimes you freak me out. Sometimes you ruin my plans with rain or too much sun. But sometimes you just show me how to appreciate animals and nature. You remind me “Hey this is cute. Take its picture before its too late!” haha Love it when random picture opportunities arrive because nature took its course and presented themselves to me.

Here are two of the pics I got. It was majorly hard. I have a new found appreciate for people who photograph wild animals. It’s not an easy job!

It’s seriously hard to find good people nowadays when your so bombarded with acts of betrayal, rudeness, sarcasm, and just plain selfishness. But once in a blue moon, you meet folks who just do good things for no rhyme or reason and you remind yourself that there are still a lot of good people out there.

This evening, I was trying to move my blog from own domain to another. For those of you who actually read my baby blog on a regular basis, the domain name http://blog.sarinalove.com is now going to redirect you to the domain http://sarinaloveblog.com. I decided to change it to make the website domain easier to remember and type. It looks cleaner as well. I consider myself pretty good at coding websites and so I figure this move from one domain to another wasn’t going to be such a difficult task to do. I was completely WRONG! I totally crashed my blog and corrupted all my files in a matter of minutes. I frantically twittered to see if there was ANYONE who would be so kind as to help me fix the mess I created. It was a long shot but I was getting pretty desperate since nothing I did was fixing the problem. It was actually making it ten times worse!

Andrew from http://www.perfectedperspectives.com/ offered to lend his IT skills and help me out. It took him nearly 3 hours to fix my mess but he did it! I was thrilled and so thankful. Andrew is a IT consultant by day and Photography by night so he says. He rocks! Thank you again for being so kind and helpful!

Random acts of kindness does exist and I’m so glad that my faith in good people is still strong. I love love love it when people are good to one another for no reason whatsoever. It just shows to me that the good will always prevail. You just gotta have some faith!!

xoxo
Sarina Love