Daniel Chin Photography: Blog

If you’ve been following my blog long enough, you will recognize some members of this beautiful family from my shoot back in 2007. Since then, they’ve added a new little one to the family: meet Gia! Gia is quite the troublesome little sister to Reza, and is already a rather fearless explorer. Her head is always on a swivel, looking for what she wants, and when she spots it, she is going for it. There were times I wanted to put down my camera to marvel at this little person’s awareness and tenacity.

It was so much fun to be with the Mohammeds again, to see them grow in number and to experience their family. Every family is different, and I just love how it feels to be in the middle of all the various families I’ve had the privilege to photograph over the years.

There is something really special to me about photographing the same people over a span of time. There is an incredible familiarity. The trust that is established through those experiences is almost tangible.

I hope you get to experience a bit of this beautiful family through my pictures.

See more on Facebook: Mohammed Family [Lifestyle Portraits]
Reza’s Baby Pics: 2007
Location: Pasadena, CA

This is just from aa impromptu session I put together for my friend’s niece Kylie.

First, never underestimate any hallway with white walls and white ceilings if you have a strobe in hand.

Second, what is it about kids that captures part of my imagination? Kylie and I don’t even speak the same language, and yet, I am so easily drawn into her world. Going through the pictures, I am euphoric with the innocence of her self-expression, and at the same time weighted by the responsibility of wanting to see her grow up strong and beautiful.

Lifestyle sessions are designed to capture individuals and families doing stuff that they would naturally do anyway. For Anya’s lifestyle session, we went out to Eaton Canyon in Pasadena/Altadena and just hiked around with the entire family. She probably had more energy than the three of us adults combined. It was a joy to hang out with the entire family, and I was really inspired by Anya’s energy and sense of the world. In these pictures, I tried to capture that something wonderous and amazing I felt when I was with her.

Wow. Has it really been a full month since I blogged? Wow. However, fear not, because I have some new pictures, at last! Actually, these pictures were taking about a month ago, which definitely says something about my blogging consistency. Yikes.

First, some pictures. These were taken at a small block party on our street at the end of September. It was a really neat family atmosphere, with everybody bringing their kids out. Jeannie and I were very impressed with the extent to which this party was conducted: reptile petting zoo, craft tables, professional kid entertainers (/starving actors), and they even had a band formed by neighborhood kids hook up and play. It felt like something out of the 60′s… in Missouri… minus the Asian folks. Anyway, so this is our piece of Mayberry:

On a totally different topic, yesterday was the second year of my marriage to my amazing wife, Jeannie. (Happy Anniversary, babe.) What did we do? She let me drag her out to Salton Sea just so I could go take pictures. If that’s not love to a photographer, I don’t know what is. Pictures coming (soon).