TOVIAH PHOTOGRAPHY

Beauty in the Unknown

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Veasna & Maria are two of the coolest couple I know. I actually took these engagement session about a year ago, and is by far one of my favorite session! I remember the day being kinda of chilly but not to cold. The water was between 60-70 degrees. I just wanted to jump in so bad! For all you who don’t know, I have recent acquired the love for water. I love beaches, lakes, rivers, pools.. Anywhere I could swim, I’ll jump right in. Mind you.. I have always been afraid of deep waters because of Jaws 1.. 2 and 3. I don’t know why my parents allowed me to watch it with them. -.-

I fell in love with water when I started swimming every other day because of my sinus problems. Then I went to Yosemite and jumped into the coldest water ever! It was ice cold. I could feel the sharp pains in my bone. I stayed in the water for almost 20 minutes. Floating around, taking dope time-lapse. Man that was fun! Well more on that next time!

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I've been wanting to post this for a while, but I've been so busy shooting that I keep forgetting!

I had a blast photographing Ahren & Tara's wedding this past month! The ceremony and reception was held at Portofino Hotel and Marina, and it was absolutely beautiful. Something that blew my mind was Tara's vow. Not saying Ahren's vow wasn't great, but Tara wrote such an intricate poem that portrayed her love for Ahren. Her words flowed like the river stream. It was super cool! I'm probably going to steal it for my wedding!

And as you can tell, we had a lot of fun! The bridal party were stellar, and they were down for anything. One of the groomsmen nearly knocked out the groom! Well not really. We did, however, do some acting instead. From this wedding, I've adopted a phrase, "Hollywood Laugh!" Just imagine the photo of Marilyn Monroe laughing. Yup, that's the one! We did the "Hollywood Laugh" after every serious picture we took. I'm not ever sure how we came up with that..

I am glad to have had been a part of their wedding. It was a beautiful and memorable day. I wish the best for both of them! 

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Shot Tim & Brittany's wedding last year. I didn't have a blog then but I do now! So I thought I'd post it. Enjoy!

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Mike Real . Vrose . Da Truth

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Thi'sl

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KB

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Flame.

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Threw in a quick selfie. :D

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Super stoked that I was able to go on the set of Wings, as short film that my friend Lena wrote and directed. I can't wait to see the final results!

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Last month I had a chance to second shoot James and Tomoko's wedding with Yoshi Ohara. We shot back to back weddings, and oh boy was I beat. 

Albert H.

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Woohoo!!! I finally got a chance to do my first headshots with Rico aka Will Smith 2.0, and yes he is officially the first male model/actor I've ever shot.. besides my roommate.. who is not an actor.. nor a model. But just for kicks, I'll post those shots up when I find them. :) 

So we shot in Pasadena, one of my favorite places to shoot, and probably had about an hour and half to shoot. I underestimated the difficulty of doing headshots. I walked into the shoot thinking.. Alright.. grab his best side, focus on the eyes, add a little bit of hair light, and tell him to smile with his eyes. But even with all that in mind, actually capturing that one solid image took us more time than I expected; an hour to be exact. I didn't consider the fact that oil was going to reflect off the skin when the light hits it in a certain angle, or the little specs on the face was going be an issue; and even getting the eyes to be super focus was a bit of a challenge. I guess I'm so used to focusing on the composition of the overall image that I forget to focus on the little details; that's definitely something I have to start working on. Then after figuring out a few things, we finally got the shot! 

After that, we walk around and did a casual shoot around town. I'm honestly not the best at posing guys, so I'm looking for new ways and poses that I can do when I shoot my grooms. And I'm glad to have shot with Rico, because he was totally cool with trying out different poses and things that seems super uncomfortable for guys to do that apparently did not make it through the selection process! Haha!

You guys will definitely see more of him in my portfolio, and I hope ya'll enjoy these shots as much as I did! 

Photographer: Albert Halim

Model: Onrico Nightingale

Assistant: Josh Bowman

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I did a test shoot with Nicole a couple weeks back, and I'm stoked about the result! We found a really neat park around where I live. Unfortunately, it got too dark and we didn't get a chance to explore the area much. There was actually a little lake and a pier just a couple minutes down the trail. It's one of those places that you would have never realize existed in this part of town.. but it does! I can't wait to go back there this week to do another shoot!  

Photographer: Albert Halim

Model: Nicole Williams

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What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas! Fortunately, I was able to come back in one piece. And no I didn't gamble my paycheck away! 

Lately I've been having issues with my right knee. When I play basketball or squat my joints would afterwards either be super sore or in pain for a day or so. So since I'm still under my dad's insurance (free insurance.. yay!) I had to go to Vegas to see an orthopedics. I was diagnose with Bipartate Patella. Its a condition where a piece of your patella (knee cap) did not fuse properly at a young age. It's held together by muscle tissues which is the reason why pain occurs when I exercise. Apparently only one percent of the world has this problem.

So knowing that I'll be in Vegas for the weekend, I started looking for a wedding and/or model that I can shoot. I was worried that nothing would come up. Long and behold, by God's providence, Holly Carlyle, an awesome photographer based in Joshua Tree, needed a second shooter for a wedding and Holly Dayton told me she was down to model. Mind you, I did both shoot in one day. (Funny thought: Do all Holly's have red hair? Haha)

So basically during my trip to Vegas, I killed four birds with one stone! Got to hangout with my dad, go to the doctors, shoot a wedding, and shoot a model. I'd say it was an extremely productive weekend!

Model:  Holly Dayton