Photography with Lan Bui

Evelyn and Juan Wedding

2007-10-15T20:19:00.000-07:00

Wow!!! Yesterday Aaron and I shot Evelyn and Juan's Wedding at The Reef restaurant in long Beach and we had such a blast and took some very nice photographs!!! Evelyn was so great with the camera, she loved the cameras!

After going through the photogaphs I picked out a few of my favorites, and here they are:

Click here to see the photos as a slide show

Here is Aaron kissing one of the bridesmaids, well... it just so happens the bridesmaid is his girlfriend.

Rachel and Beracah Wedding Picture Video

2007-08-19T21:38:00.000-07:00

Click To Play

Here is a Picture Video of Rachel and Beracah's wedding. The wedding ceremony was held in La Jolla and the reception at the Japanese Friendship Garden in Balboa Park in San Diego.

It was a very fun wedding, everything went smooth and i think everyone had a lot of fun!

I wonder what other professional photographers think about these videos, good? Bad? Would they be willing to show all photographs they took to a client? Well, if you are a professional photographer let me know what you think.

Kristen and Kevin Wedding Picture Video

2007-08-18T18:31:00.001-07:00

Click To Play

iPhone/iPod version is here

This is something new I am trying with my wedding photography. I have made Picture Videos before with events and weekends and even years, but I wondered how a couple would like to see their wedding as a picture video.

While learning about wedding photography I found that most of the other professionals edit down their photographs from each wedding to around 500-1000 shots to show the couple as proofs. This is great for saving the couple time and the hassle of going through so many photographs to chose the ones they like. It also makes the photographer look better by only showing the best; but there are so many other shots that just get wasted.

Well, here is my wedding photography: raw and unedited, power pumped into your eyes and ears. I'm not sure how others will like this, but this is my way of not wasting those otherwise lost photographs.

Music is by Finnston.

Animated View of ComicCon 2007 Picture Video

2007-08-02T10:28:00.000-07:00

Recently I have been making Picture Videos of events I have been attending. There has been a great response to them, and I like making them a lot.

I think I should describe it... When I attend events I take tons of photographs, most of which never get seen by anyone but myself. Many people have mentioned that they see me taking lots of photographs but only see a few on flickr.com (a photography sharing website) if any at all. Well, now I made it so you can see them all, unedited, pressure pumped through your eyes and ears into your brain.

Yesterday I received an email from Stan at Toonamation.com saying that he liked my Comic Con 2007 Picture Video and had ran it through ToonIt. This added a really nice look to the video!!!

I really like the look that it creates, very cool!!! You should definitely check it out here:

toonamation.com/2007/08/02/animated-view-of-comiccon/

Rachel and Beracah Engagement

2007-07-24T10:05:00.000-07:00

In about 3 weeks I will be shooting Rachel and Beracah's wedding with Aaron Dieppa in La Jolla. It is going to be great. Aaron and I met with Beracah the other day at the church that the ceremony will be located, it is a great place. Very nice backlighting on the altar. We then went to the Japanese Friendship Garden to see where the reception will be held. I think both of those locations are perfect!

These are from the engagement photographs I took of them the other day. We had a great time in Laguna Beach shooting these.

PodTech Pays Lan Bui for CC Licensed Photograph

2007-07-17T14:34:00.000-07:00

CC on Orange by yamabobobo

First I would like I thank the entire community for all of their support. It is great to see that many people realized this was a very important issue and blogged about it and left comments about it. It also was very good that I got to talk to some of the people that disagreed with me. Also, I have no hard feelings towards any individuals at PodTech.

For anyone that does not know what I am talking about you can read my blog post here and others' here and here and here and here and here and here and here to get up to speed on what this is about.

Since that blog was posted PodTech offered me $1000 and left it as their final offer. I was not willing to let them set the terms of the agreement, the fact of the matter is that they would have had a much better position from which to negotiate if they had been willing to talk to me in the beginning.

I didn't want lower my offer because I didn't want to set a precedent that others can steal work and then negotiate after the fact as though nothing was done wrong in the first place. What incentive is there for companies to pay creators up front for their work if they can just steal it then only pay up if they get caught, with no penalty, the same amount they would have paid up front? Negotiations are for normal business transactions, which happen before work is used... this was a different story. Although that was my position, I also didn't want to drag the entire thing on for a long time, so I decided to lower my invoice to $2500. They didn't accept my offer.

From the beginning of this I've told everyone that I was not looking for some quick easy free cash. This was, for the most part, about setting a precedent so companies (and individals) think about what they are doing and the repercussions that can ensue when they use others' work outside of the copyright or Creative Commons license that is provided.

I believe in using Creative Commons, it allows my work to be used without someone going through the hassle of contacting me and waiting for me to grant them permission. I am ok with this as long as they follow the rules of the license, but just like if I had an all rights reserved copyright on a photograph, contact me before you use it outside of what Creative Commons grants. This goes for anyone using Creative Commons, you should expect others and companies to respect your copyright. You still own the copyright on your work if you release it under Creative Commons; you are just granting certain use of your work through a Creative Commons license. See here for more information on Creative Commons.

I have received a check for $1000 from PodTech. This came as quite a surprise since I had not agreed to take $1000. So what do I do now? It seems to me they want me to cash the check and leave it at that, happy that I got anything at all. And shouldn't I be?

I believe the community will benefit from Creative Commons becomming widely used, known and respected. Since I am at the point that I have no desire to pursue this issue any further with PodTech, and in accordance with my original goals when I decided to stand up for my Creative Commons license, I have decided to donate the entire $1000 to the Creative Commons organization.

Kristen and Kevin Wedding

2007-07-10T04:20:00.000-07:00

July 7, 2007 or 07-07-07 or 7-7-7 or 777 was "The Most Popular Wedding Day Ever" (according to this Time.com article). I had the privilege of shooting Kristen and Kevin on this day, their wedding day.

The day went perfect, it was a very stress free wedding. Here are a couple photographs I took while they were getting dressed:

While I was photographing Kristen on a balcony I noticed Kevin looking at her with so much joy, I'm glad I was able to capture him like this:

And beautiful Kristen was all smiles all day:

I really love this next photograph a lot because of both of their looks right as they are walking back down the isle.

Casey and Rudy of Galacticast

2007-06-24T23:40:00.000-07:00

A few days after Pixelodeon I did a photo shoot of Casey McKinnon of Galacticast and Rudy Jahchan of Galacticast. Casey needed new photographs for her website and some headshots, and Rudy needed some photographs for similar reasons. While going through the photographs I found so many great ones I wanted to share them all, but only picked these 3 because I think Casey and Rudy will like to debut the best ones them selfs.

Casey and Rudy, Rudy and Casey... In love. Before I shot this I told Casey I wanted to do "In Love" pictures of them. I'm not sure Rudy knew that I was going to take these, but he played along just fine for them.

Rudy is a man of 1000 faces, it was very fun to shoot him.

I loved this one of Casey, she is so cute.

Shane and Rox

2007-06-20T16:42:00.000-07:00

Rox and Shane are wonderful people. I met Rox a while ago through their show Beach Walks with Rox which you should see at Beachwalks.tv. Beach Walks is a very nice and relaxing show delivered daily. They live in Hawaii and shoot the show daily. When Bonny and I went to Hawaii we finally got to meet Shane; Shane was formerly known a "Secret Camera Man" on the show. I liked the mystery of having a secret camera man, but I like Shane better.

They came to California last week and I had the privilege of shooting some casual portraits of them. We went to Greystone Park in Beverly Hills to do the photo shoot. It is a beautiful place. I really like the portraits that we got that day.

It is amazing the great friends you can meet without ever leaving your house. Although seeing someone in persons and giving them a hug beats just about any email. Rox and Shane are huggers; I like that and they are good friends now.

Lastly, I learned some really cool new things from Becker at one of his Party of 5 workshops that I used on these photographs. If you are a photographer looking for help on how a successful wedding photographer runs things, sign up for one of these as soon as possible. You will not regret it at all. I will be posting a follow up post later about that day.

Creative Commons? Podtech.net Doesn't Respect My Copyright

2007-05-14T15:43:00.000-07:00

Who is Podtech.net? Well, according to their website:

"Technology, business & media podcasts served fresh daily"

What this means is that they have a number of online shows that they fund and distribute. They pay video bloggers to create content for them and either license the work or have the video blogger create exclusive content for them. Some notable people are Ryanne Hodson, Irina Slutsky, Bill Streeter, and Robert Scoble. These are all very respectable people that have helped make video blogging what it is today.

As you can tell from the title of this post, I am here to tell you a surprisingly true story about my interaction with Podtech.net for the last couple of months.

It all started at SXSW, Irina Slutsky invited Bonny Pierzina and myself to be interviewed for The Vloggies Show. This was a great honor; we were very excited to be interviewed but since Bonny is so much better than I am at that, she interviewed by her self. While the interview went on I took some snap shots of the interview and checked out their kiosk. I found this banner advertisement:

I immediately noticed something about it... this was the photograph used in it:

This photograph of Casey McKinnon at The Vloggies was taken by myself and was posted to flickr under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 license. I looked for attribution on the banner and saw none, I also saw it was a commercial banner (to state the obvious) and I was never contacted for permission to use this photograph outside of this license. This was upsetting.

I didn't say anything to anyone at that time because it was neither the place nor time to discuss the matter. Also, I didn't want any passers-by to hear us discussing how Podtech.net, a business trying to make it in the web 2.0 world, was stealing creative work for their commercial benefit. That could have possibly been damaging to their business at an event like SXSW. If their viewers/users/content creators found out that Podtech.net had stolen from someone just like their own content creators, these people would lose faith in a company like that. How could anyone watch content from, support, or work for a company that does that?

After I returned home from SXSW I contacted Robert Scoble, hoping he could put me on touch with the right person to talk about this. He did; he forwarded my email to this person. After a couple emails back and forth with her I sent her an invoice for licensed use of the photograph. That was on March 20th. There was no reply for one week; I called and emailed again. No reply again, so again I both called and sent an email... and it has now been over a month and a half without a single reply since the invoice was sent.

I was hoping for a quick and professional resolution to this issue but at minimum expected to be able to discuss options or potential solutions, I received neither.

To top all that off, Violet Blue's photograph of the kisok made it into the San Francisco Chronicle, you can read the article here.

At this point I'm not sure what I'm going to do next.

Leslie Prom

2007-05-14T01:25:00.000-07:00

Leslie, a friends daughter, went to prom yesterday. I did her prom photographs at her house before she left. Tony, her dad, didn't get to see her before she left; so before I edit all of the photographs I wanted Tony to see how beautiful she was (and is).

Bad Sunset 7655

2007-04-22T18:37:00.001-07:00

Bad Sunset 7655

This is the sunset I got when it was overcast the other day. I'm not happy with it, but it was the best of the "sunset" pictures I took.

Laguna Beach at night 7671

2007-04-17T06:32:00.001-07:00

Laguna Beach at night 7671

This is one of my favorite photographs I took last night at Laguna Beach. I had been wanting to do night time photography for a while. This is a very nice payoff.

Laguna Beach at night 7665

2007-04-16T00:46:00.001-07:00

Laguna Beach at night 7665

Vu and I went to do some sunset photography at Laguna Beach today. I was very excited because there were clouds; we don't get many good looking clouds here in Southern California. Unfortunately, when we got there it was overcast (not cloudy) and it covered the sunset almost completely. That didn't discourage us; we instead did some exciting night time photography.

Busy with projects

2007-03-28T00:38:00.001-07:00

Camacho 6988

Lately I have been very busy. Editing videos for Noodle Scar Daily (our 15 second vlog / show), editing a video for a new show some friends are putting up, dealing with a broken computer, going to barcamp, shooting an episode of Noodle Scar On Location (our on-location/interview vlog / show), editing the barcamp episode, and working for my day job.

All of these things take up so much time; it sound like I am complaining but I'm not. I'm just saying. I like that we have plenty of viewers on our shows that it makes us keep going. I'm glad we have friends that trust us to edit videos for them. I'm happy Apple fixed my computer in two days. I'm surprised at how well received our barcamp episode of Noodle Scar was by the geeks.

Well, this photograph has little to do with all of this except that I have finished editing the photographs for this shoot. It took me longer than I expected but I am very happy with the results.

I particularly like this photograph because of the sky; in Southern California clouds are rare. I hope you enjoy this too.

Camacho Kiss 6679

2007-03-21T00:13:00.001-07:00

Camacho Kiss 6679

First I must say, I was planning on having all of this photo shoot edited and delivered by last Friday (5 days ago). Well, that didn't happen and here is why: my Apple Macbook pro broke!!!

The computer started making a loud fan noise a few weeks ago, after an attempting repair at Tech Room in Newport Beach (they said nothing was wrong) I brought it to the Apple store in the Brea Mall and left it with them. Should just be a few days and I'll have it back. More on Tech Room some other day.

For now I am running off of a clone backup I made of my computer before bringing it in. Technical stuff alert!!! I cloned it to a firewire drive and am booted into the external with another Mac Book Pro (Bonny's). It runs surprisingly well; the only noticeable difference is in file transfers.

Well, here is one more of the shoot.

Shooting at the beach 6845

2007-03-07T01:10:00.001-08:00

Shooting at the beach 6845

I was able to get through the shoot a little bit tonight. I like this one from what I saw so far.

Photography at the beach 6756

2007-03-06T00:02:00.001-08:00

Photography at the beach 6756

Shooting photographs at the beach is so much fun. Especially when you are shooting fun people.

This is from a couples shoot that I shot over the weekend, unfortunately I have not had time to look at more that 10 photographs from the shoot.

This one sums up the attitude of the shoot.

Bridesmaids 5092

2007-02-27T23:27:00.001-08:00

Bridesmaids 5092

They were talking about how cold it was; the sun suddenly came out and I told them to absorb the sun.

They had a lot of fun absorbing the sun.

Out Shooting 6565

2007-02-24T20:00:00.001-08:00

Out Shooting 6565

Yesterday Bryana told me she was doing a photo shoot in Laguna Beach on Saturday. I am also doing one in Laguna Beach (on Sunday), but I was planning on a different location in Laguna Beach.

I have always done them near the main beach area and up at Heisler Park (also near the main beach area). Well, apparently all the pros go to a private beach down the street.

So I gave it a try, I went down to her pro beach to see what all the fuss is about. I want to make sure my shoot tomorrow gets the best possible location.

Vu and I drove down there to scout it out. It is a great location. Looks like all my beach shoots now have a new and better location.

Beach in winter 6296

2007-02-18T00:47:00.001-08:00

Beach in winter 6296

Today Bonny and i went to the beach. It was pretty hot out, but the water was really cold.

Bonny was looking at sea animals in the tide pools, I was sinking myself into the sand by wiggling my feet. After about 20 minutes of doing this i got about 8 inches deep and a big wave came in. Suddenly, there was this crab next to my legs.

I think he came up to die, he was alive but not very responsive. His claw was broken too.

Goebel Wedding Book Cover

2007-01-30T20:44:00.001-08:00

Goebel Wedding Book Cover

This was such a nice wedding, I am going to make a demo Wedding Book from it to show to clients.

I'm not really used to blogging, so few words are coming out.

Bridal Party 5108 5110 merged

2007-01-28T22:27:00.001-08:00

Bridal Party 5108 5110 merged

Editing for the Goebel widding was finished a couple weeks ago, but I am going back through the photographs because there were so many great ones I want to share.

Photography with Lan Bui... a Blog

2007-01-28T21:46:00.000-08:00

I have started a blog, yet this blog will contain photos and video... it is still called a blog. I guess I could call it a pvblog or vpblog or something else, but I'll just be sticking to blog.