This November i had the incredible (!) opportunity to photograph Shaun and April where they live in Cairo, Egypt.  They are planning their wedding (which will be here in the states) while living and working there, so it only made sense to do their engagement session in one of the most amazing places on earth.

We started off at the Pyramids at Giza and slowly made our way back into the heart of Cairo before ending at the incredible Khan el-khalili Market.

We were so fortunate to have amazing weather- but we did run into some obstacles.  dress code is strict in Arab nations, as is public display of affection.  we definitely had to tip toe around and find out of the way places before we could get comfortable with each other.  but, it made it sort of fun, and you know i love a challenge! I love anything that pushes me out of my comfort zone and into unfamiliar territory, which we definitely were in!

Shaun and April made us feel so at home, however, and so safe.  We drank Turkish coffee (more on that tomorrow!), smoked Sheesha, climbed down into a pyramid (by ourselves! oh my word!), kissed a camel, wore some great pashminas, and ate the most amazing food.  it was absolutely the opportunity of a lifetime, and i am looking just as forward to their wedding this coming summer!

and…. because you know i wouldn’t leave you with just one post on Egypt… more to come tomorrow about the culture and people with some of my favorite shots yet…  stay tuned!

just a little sneak peek!  I’m so excited to share some of the shots we got in Egypt during this incredible engagement session.  stay tuned….  tomorrow will be a full post!

This is so great! check out this awesome little production Canon put together from the premiere in NY as well as a bit of the regional premiere in LA! it’s getting me excited to have our own little regional premieres in Madison WI and Tampa Florida. i cant wait for all my friends, clients, and family to see this incredible film that Ron and Bryce have worked so hard on. i’ll be posting details about the premieres as soon as i know dates/times/venues!

I promise to share more pictures of Egypt soon…. very very soon.  but first, I wanted to share this hugely inspirational video.  i know a lot of photographers and creatives out there follow this blog.  maybe some of you are just starting out, maybe some of you followed the beginning photography articles i wrote for www.sliceoflemon.com.   maybe some of you are advanced creatives but are in a lull.

maybe some of you just need reminding of where you came from… where all of us came from or still are. it lasts just a tiny minute, so take a second and watch.

Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.

So if you’re frustrated with your work right now, if you know it’s not what you aspire it to be, Dont.Give.Up. what that really means is that you have the potential to be incredible. You are already on that path. You are already on the journey, dont hop off the train while it’s moving. pull your camera out, or whatever media you use to be creative and make whatever you can. i dont care if all you have is your iphone, shoot something, edit something, create something, even if it is just for yourself, and you never show anyone else.

shoot everyday. make something every.single.day. the camera should be an extension of your hands. if you dont know what that means, then you are probably still looking with your eyes for the right buttons to push. when you know your camera, you dont need to look. when your camera is part of you you can walk into a room and already know what ISO to use, what aperture to use, and what shutter speed give or take a couple hundredths of a second. you already know what your image will look like without looking at the LCD screen. you’ll begin to ‘see’ photographs in the world even when you dont have your camera- the term “oh that would be a great shot” start to happen 10, 20, 30 times a day. you’ll know what ‘good light’ is and be able to seek it out, knowing where it will be before you even turn the corner.

YOU and YOUR WORK are just around the corner…

story told by incredible Ira Glass, edited by David Shiyang Liu

“In the bottom of an old pond lived some grubs who could not understand why none of their group ever came back after crawling up the lily stems to the top of the water. They promised each other that the next one who was called to make the upward climb would return and tell what had happened to him. Soon one of them felt an urgent impulse to seek the surface; he rested himself on the top of a lily pad and went through a glorious transformation which made him a dragonfly with beautiful wings. In vain he tried to keep his promise. Flying back and forth over the pond, he peered down at his friends below. Then he realized that even if they could see him they would not recognize such a radiant creature as one of their number.
The fact that we cannot see our loved ones or communicate with them after the transformation which we call death is no proof that they cease to exist.”

For my beautiful friend Sarah and her family.   a heartbreaking loss of a tiny little life, who is now a beautiful dragonfly.

we’re still traveling in the middle east, so just one for now!  more to come from this incredible engagement shoot in Cairo, Egypt coming soon!  are you ready?

I love love love this couple!  we had a great time in downtown ybor city during their engagement shoot, and almost (!) got rained out.  luckily the sun burned right through the clouds and peaked out at the last minute to give us some incredible light.  i love it when that happens

i get to photograph this lovely little couple on my birthday of next year! so … much much more to come! so excited to get them in front of my lens again!

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walking in, right down the red carpet!

the entrance to the museum of natural history, where the whole event took place!

brooke Shaden and myself giving an interview for the huffington post

lots of interviews after the walk down the red carpet!

after the viewing of the film, Ron, Bryce, the writer of the film and the spokesperson for Canon got up on stage for a panel discussion about what it was like working on this project. they opened it up for the photographers to speak for a moment and (with a little shove from the hubs) i got up and spoke as well.

walking into the After Party in the Whale Room at the museum of natural history. this is a life size replica of a whale, and it was incredible! down below you see the centerpiece to the entire room- a lifesize tree inspired by Kelly's winning photograph, a central role to the film.

i think i was explaining to Ron how i was trying not to sob in the middle of the movie (how embarrassing would that have been!?) and he was saying how he and bryce saw tears anyway... it was an emotionally gripping film! what can i say?!

that woman could not possibly be any more wonderful or lovely. it would be impossible to be any more down-to-earth or kind. love her.

the inCREDIBLE centerpiece to the room- inspired by Kelly's photograph!

the hubs and me

First of all…. i need to say something about my nephew Chet.  i am so far out of pop culture (more on that in a sec) that i have no idea what is going on in the world of this and that.  So, of course, it was my super-hip 11 year old nephew who sent me an email about the Canon imagin8ion project, saying that he thought i should enter.  i have no idea why i did, other than it was my sweet nephew who suggested it, but i can’t believe how it has turned out.

96,362 photos.  after the red carpet we walked down a hallway with each one of them, thumbnail size, lining the walls of the hallway.  people have said that number, but walking down the aisle you saw how truly immense it is, what a sea of photographs it truly was, and then at the end of that hall was each one of the winning photographs.  looking at the thumbnail photographs of all the people who entered- it was astonishing to think someone had viewed each and every one of those, and had believed in mine and pushed it through to semi-finals, then the finals, and finally as a winning photograph.

it was totally surreal, a red carpet, media photographers everywhere, celebs…

but the movie was really the highlight to the entire night.  i can not believe how well they did… to be honest i didnt know really how it was going to turn out.  the thought of taking 8 photographs (especially with the crazy diversity of each one of them) fitting them into extremely specific categories (like relationship, character, and abstract ideas like ‘mood’),  and then using that to create a film….

talk about a difficult excercise.

but, while we were watching the movie you could actually ‘see’ our photographs in the scenes. you could see the look of recognition on the audience’s face when a scene came up that was inspired by one of the photographs.  but not only that, they actually DID use the photographs in the categories that they were submitted in. Meaning, the gate photograph really WAS the obstacle in the film.  the girl looking out the window trying to touch the spaceship really WAS the goal in the film.

my jaw hung open, i was amazed at the level of creativity and talent.

and from the moment the movie began, tears started welling up in my eyes, it was an incredibly emotionally gripping movie about two little girls who have lost their mother.  there were definitely points where i was desperately trying to hold in a sob, not wanting to be ‘that’ person.  especially not sitting in the front row!  the two little girls were amazing (i can not emphasize this enough)  AMAZING actresses, i can not believe the level of talent.  it was very relatable, and i dont believe there was a dry eye in that whole theatre. i cant believe how much emotion they could pack into such a short amount of time (run time i believe is 25 minutes).

after the film, Ron, Bryce, the writers, and a Canon representative sat on stage and talked about what it was like working on this project.  it was brought up that they only found out later that my photograph was (in actuality) a documentation of a birth instead of a death.  When they opened up the mic to the photographers, i stood up and spoke to aknowledge the fact that the fact that they interpreted it as something other than it truly was is part of the beauty of the whole project.  someone once commented to me : “I heard Ron and Bryce got your photograph wrong”  which made me cringe a thousand times over.  I intentionally left the title of the photograph vague so that if it was chosen the title wouldn’t have cornered them into using it a certain way.  imagine if the title would have been “And Then She Had A Baby”.  what wonder does that leave?  what is left for your imagination to conceive?  the entire beauty of the project is that we, as photographers, were somewhat anonymous.  Ron and Bryce got to pick photographs that they felt moved them, in whatever direction they wanted, and had the ability to let their imaginations run wild with creating a film.

the fact that they used my photograph in a different context than it originally was in real life is all the more amazing to me.  and that is what this project ‘imagination’ is really about.

and, it’s a good thing i didn’t know who was really in that crowd, and it’s a good thing that i didn’t know they were going to open the mic up to us before hand, or i would have been too nervous to say anything.  And also, shout out to Mrs. Clarson, my high school english teacher for encouraging me to do Extemporaneous Speaking in forensics.  yeah, that definitely helped (fist pump to english teachers!)

Lastly, THIS ISNT OVER YET!!!!!  i’m so happy to announce that we will be having regional premieres in both Madison Wisconsin as well as Tampa Florida!!  the Canon crew is working right this minute on securing venues and media for the premieres so everyone will be able to view this movie.

PLUS!!!!!  it’s going to premiere at sundance film festival, and is being submitted to the Academy Awards….  so we shall see where that takes us

ok, bless your little hearts for reading this entire novel (if you haven’t stopped already!)  and i promise to resume normal postings soon!  OH!!! and photos we took of NY while we were there.  i love that city.  want to move there.  trying to figure out how in the world we could possibly manage in downtown manhattan with two large active dogs and two wild boys.  dreaming of an exposed brick loft with big old iron windows and wooden floors.  dreaming…. dreaming….

I am literally on the edge of my seat- the premiere is Tuesday, and we’re leaving for NY on sunday! i cant wait to see the full film, it looks like it has turned into an incredible work by Bryce and Ron Howard.

this is all still kind of surreal… did this really happen? pinch me!

i LOVED this wedding, and i love this couple!  i got to photograph this lovely little event with Sophia from Rising Sky Productions- i can not wait to see the video they put out from this event … they are insanely talented and that talent paired with this couple and these funky locations….   i’m just dying to see what they put together!

Mel and David got ready at the Pier hotel- one of my favorite hotels in downtown st.pete.  she actually made all of her bridesmaid’s jewelry by hand- a gift for each one of them representing who they are.  and the bouquets were all handmade by the girls as well-  nicely done ladies!  the ceremony location proved to be magical-  a hidden (no, literally… hidden) little place called “Sacred Grounds”  on the water in st.pete.  tightly twisting mazes of  paths lead you through (or lead you to wander)  the jungle while scores of wild peacocks meander about.  the ceremony location took place near the water in a clearing with vintage sailboat sails strung up through the ancient trees to provide shade and shelter for seated guests.  amazing! i know!!!

the reception location was just as funky cool- the st. pete shuffle board.  the DIY details were incredible-  i cant even begin to name them all!  the first dance right on the shuffleboards was so incredible-  barebulb lights strung up dimly lighting the couple under the stars….  *sigh*.  i do love me a good bare bulb light string.  stellar.   and yes, she and all the bridesmaids changed into ridiculously fabulous dresses at the reception-  LOVE THAT.

more this week from an engagement session i did that i absolutely LOVED!  i can’t wait to share it with you all!

also…..  its our anniversary is tomorrow… i love that man.  and just three days later we are jet setting to NY for the premiere of our film!!  I can barely believe it – even when i see my photograph on the Canon Imagin8ion commercial on TV… the reality still hasn’t quite set in even after all these months.  i’ve got my dress- the perfect red carpet dress-  and D has not seen it yet.  i’m waiting to surprise him till i’m all fancy-  this must be how a bride feels!  so excited to meet Ron Howard, Bryce, and all the other winning photographers, and of course watch the film.  :-)   i’ll be bringing my cam (of course!)  and share the photos with you all as soon as we get home!