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Just A Taste...

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 12:23:00 -0400

… of what’s been keeping me busy. These lovely ladies are graduating pretty soon. Keep an eye out for the rest of the pictures.

Congratulations loves! <3

Tyler Rand, the British Flag, a Field and an Oboe

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:17:56 -0400

Things have been non-stop for me this past week, and it actually doesn’t look like things will be slowing down until the end of the month. Here’s a taste of what I have been up to lately:

A friend from Texas was in town for the week. Marvin’s job took him here for a week-long training session. He graduated from Southwestern Adventist University when I was graduating high school; going by this timeline, it’s safe to say that it’s been maybe 8 years since I’ve really seen him. So his little visit here was a nice chance to catch up with him.
On Tuesday I had the pleasure of taking staff photos for the staff of WSMC, which is Southern’s radio station. I’m friends with quite a few of the workers there, so with the addition of new faces, this was like one big goofball hangout session. It was so much fun and I can’t wait to share those photos… once I finish editing them.
Last weekend I took photos of Tyler, his oboe and a British flag. Tyler’s Junior Lecture Recital is coming up in the next week or so, and we set out to take some photos for his poster. In May of last summer, Tyler and I drove around aimlessly and ended up in Cohutta. We decided to go back there, to the same spot and grab some photos there. He wanted something that could resemble the English countryside. This is what we ended up with… more adventures. Although it didn’t take us 151 miles of driving to arrive there this time around.

24

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 00:09:30 -0400

On April 3, 2013 I turned 24. I wish I could sufficiently and adequately express the love I have for my friends. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, and I’ll say it forever: I have the greatest, most amazing friends a girl could EVER ask for. I am so incredibly blessed by every single one of you and I la-la-la-love you all so much!

As is the usual, I was blindfolded and kidnapped. When I was allowed to see again, I was greeted with a table full of delicious food and I was surrounded by friends. We hung out, we ate, and we played the coolest version of Guess Who? ever created: the version with all of US on it.

This game was 2 years in the making. Chad, Shanni and I were walking through Southern’s flea market 2 summers ago, and they bought it for $1 with the intent of printing out pictures of everyone of our friends and using them as characters for the game. We talked about doing this for the rest of the summer. Now… 2 years later, we finally got to play the game as we intended it.

Birthday month is upon us. We continued the birthday celebrations the next day by surprising Raygene at Mellow Mushroom. (Side note: birthdays have become a day for anticipating surprise parties… we should start calling them secret parties. That is probably a more appropriate name.)

On Saturday, Shauna and I churched a little bit differently than we usually do. We ended up at WSMC (Southern’s radio station) because Evan was working that morning, broadcasting the church’s service. We decided to keep him company that morning while listening to the sermon.

Later that evening, Shauna, Stella and I headed down to The Camp House for College Band Night to see Matt Chancey and the Ladykillers perform. We stuck around only for them because we wanted to grab some sushi and vegetable tempura at Sushi Nabe before they closed. We ended the night with The Ice Cream Show and headed home.

Year 24, you are treating me well. :]

Shauna Chung | Senior Recital Posters

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 11:45:00 -0400

Shauna Chung, Piano Nails, and the Blossoms

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 01:54:00 -0400

I love this time of the year, when the trees begin to blossom. Sun on your skin, a light breeze blowing blossoms through the air… it’s a beautiful thing. (Side note: it seems as though the weather is taking its sweet time catching up… it’s still a bit chilly outside. But when the sun does make an appearance, it’s glorious!)

Shauna Chung, my dear sister-friend, is graduating in May, and her senior recital is in a few weeks. Here are some photos I took of her at her home in Dalton (a lovely place I call Chung Manor). Shauna had the idea of creating piano keys with her finger nails, so we did them just before shooting. Unfortunately, we didn’t have much light out, so I didn’t get as many shots as I would’ve liked to. But the ones I did get, I fell in love with. I hope you do too!

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the genius in my life: Shauna Chung. Words cannot express the love I have for this girl here, so I’ll let the pictures do the speaking.

It Began with a Search for Popsicles

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 01:22:47 -0400

The last two weeks have been a blur of events.

California friends came to visit for Asian Night.
Asian Night happened; Sharien and I were last-minute extras in the play (we can’t seem to stay away from being involved).
The most epic of blanket fort sleepovers; the obligatory 4am confession/venting sessions.
Shauna Chung’s graduation photo session.
Early morning Aretha Frankensteins breakfast run with the boys.
My parents coming up to visit for my birthday and SonRise.
Atlanta food-ventures and the greatest discovery of all time…

Sunday morning began with Chad and Sid waking up after 8am. Normally this would have been fine, except that Sid needed to be at the Atlanta airport by 10:30am for his flight back to California. We finally hit the road close to 9am with Jeremy at the wheel. We made the 2 hour trip in record time; we pulled up to the Southwest terminal at 10:27am… exactly the time that Jeremy predicted we would get there (personally, I think he sped there just so that he would win that bet). Goodbyes were said and off we were to begin our food-ventures.

Chad, Shanni, Jeremy, and I wandered around downtown Atlanta. With just about everyone at church for Easter Sunday, it felt like a post-apocalyptic zombie-town. After some aimless driving, we decided to head to the Food Truck Park to meet my parents there for lunch. We meandered, we grubbed, and we said good-bye to my parents, who continued their drive back down to Florida.

Next on our list was a King of Pops. We checked locations and headed towards the closest one at Paris on Ponce. We arrived there, wandered in to the store in search of popsicles and discovered a magical land of wonder. We lost ourselves in this bohemian antiques and furniture store for a good hour before finding the King of Pops stand in the back; which, by the way, were absolutely delicious and totally worth checking out. We ate popsicles and continued our journey through Paris on Ponce. All we wanted were popsicles, and we ended up in the Narnia of antique stores. I need to go back there. Very soon.

Senior recital posters for dear friends of mine: Jonathan and...

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 22:26:02 -0400

Senior recital posters for dear friends of mine: Jonathan and Paige.

That time of the year.

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 19:57:23 -0400

The world is showing signs of life again. Flowers are blooming. Leaves on trees are appearing. The weather is warming up. Friends are preparing to graduate. Which means graduation season is here and for all of my music major friends, it also means senior recitals.

It’s been a while since I’ve done any photographing (what a mistake on my part). My camera is currently going through some issues. Excuses, excuses, Niki. So I’ve borrowed a camera until I can get my mess together.

Jonathan and Paige will be performing their senior recitals (piano and flute, respectively) in the upcoming weeks. I’ve got their photos shot and edited for your visual enjoyment, and posters are in the works, so be on the look out for those.

Also, in other news, I have been working on the graphics for a short film called Railway of Hope. Read more about the film and its origins here, because it’s bringing attention to some very important issues concerning the suicide rates in Alaska. But as I said, I’ve been working on the graphics for this project. I’ve made the posters and all the accompanying Facebook images (which you can check out here). Shauna Chung has also been roped into working on this project. She is writing the score for the film and I have captured moments of that creative process.

2013 has been treating me incredibly well. Lots of fun...

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 10:40:23 -0500

2013 has been treating me incredibly well. Lots of fun adventures and stories to tell from this past month. Over the last few days I had the pleasure of taking some photos behind-the-scenes of a friends video shoot. Can’t wait to see how the video turned out.

With love from the Chung-Mau-Peñola siblings <3

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 01:34:50 -0500

With love from the Chung-Mau-Peñola siblings <3

‘Tis the season! I started out the weekend with a grand...

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 15:59:00 -0500

‘Tis the season! I started out the weekend with a grand photo shoot of the collective Chung+Mau+Penola family. I’m working on the rest of the photos as I type, and heaven knows there are a lot of photos to go through.

Here’s a little snippet of the Chung siblings. Let it be known that I absolutely adore these three.

Chasing Light

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 19:25:36 -0500

A good portion of my morning drive to work consists of Tennessee/Georgia back roads. Curving, winding, and picturesque. This is especially true in the morning, around 8:30 when the sun is just peaking over the hills, casting a beautiful glow over everything.

There’s a spot along this drive that I have been longing to photograph at for quite some time now. I finally got that chance yesterday. But it came at the cost of waking up before sunrise (on a Sunday - please feel free to be impressed). But wake up early we did, and thus Keri and I ventured out into the cold, yet again. Although, to be truthful, this was the photo shoot I had in mind the first time around. But this time, I got exactly what I wanted.

2 words: Keri Mau. That is all.

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 16:13:56 -0500

2 words: Keri Mau. That is all.

kmdiver: picsofaznstakingpicsoffood: Yellow Deli in...

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 12:47:39 -0500

kmdiver:

picsofaznstakingpicsoffood:

Yellow Deli in Chattanooga, TN.

LOL. Niki and Allan got on Picture of Asians Taking Pictures of Food. HAHAH. Yellow Deli FTW!

*Grins*

good morning sunshine :) (at New Smyrna Beach)

Sun, 11 Nov 2012 06:53:02 -0500

good morning sunshine :) (at New Smyrna Beach)

The Lost Diver

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 00:13:27 -0500

This set of photos is way overdue. As a side note, yes I am completely aware that Miss Keri Mau has been the subject of most of my photos lately. I can attribute that to a few things:

She is perpetually my adventure buddy. So if we happen to be somewhere, anywhere, and I have a camera, she gets photographed.
Her recital and graduation are coming up pretty soon. Which means photos to promote each event. Which leads to more adventures. See reason #1.
Birthday adventures!

Reason #3 is why we shot The Lost Diver (not that we needed an excuse to do it). The Lost Diver was an idea that Shauna, Jeremy and I came up with. It’s a representation of Keri and her insane love of the ocean and everything in it. It also represents how land locked she feels here in Tennessee. It was a fun idea, and we may explore it further down the road, but until then, here are the first few shots of The Lost Diver.

And then there was us… waiting, hanging out, and laughing while Keri walked around with her diving gear. We confused many people. It was great fun. Another side note: if there were any doubt that Keri and Jeremy were siblings, these photos remove any and all doubt. They look so much alike, it’s incredible.

Snapshots of Life - The Diptych Edition

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 23:09:48 -0500

Self-portraits. Just because I liked my make-up. Let me have this brief moment of vanity, please. Aaaand… that’s done now.
The girls were gone for the weekend on Southern’s orchestra tour, which left me alone to take care of these boys for the afternoon. We headed up to Lookout Mountain with the intention of checking out Lula Falls, but we were too late and it was closed. So we went down to Sunset Rock instead. In an inspired moment, the boys reenacted a scene from The Lion King. I call this shot: Long Live the King.
The baby girl of the group - Danielle turned 21 today. We gave her balloons in her favorite colors, kidnapped her, the proceeded to mentally torture the poor girl. We brought her to a park, let her wander on her own for a bit - all while slowly popping all but 4 of her balloons. We ended the night at Red Robin with everyone waiting for her there. I hope we didn’t torture you too much sweetheart. Love you!

Teaser Alert: Keri has her Senior Recital coming up in a few...

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 20:39:00 -0400

Teaser Alert: Keri has her Senior Recital coming up in a few weeks. Bless her heart for braving the early mornings and frigid cold wind for this photoshoot. It was not a pleasant morning for this particular adventure, but it all worked out in the end. And we all thawed out in the end. I’ll be posting up some photos from that session pretty soon, but until then, here’s a teaser poster for her recital.

The Color Run: Nashville

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 19:07:00 -0400

I declare our Nashville weekend a great success. (Imagine that last part said in a Borat voice… no? Okay, moving on.) Nashville by night is crazy, and our hostel location was amazing. Eating delicious food - so much food. We walked a lot. We shopped for boots. Oh, and did I mention that Chad and I took a picture with Justin Bieber? Truth.

Saturday night, I fell asleep to the sound of Nashville’s nightlife, and awoke to a very empty 2nd street. We checked out of the hostel, packed up the car, and walked across the bridge to the location of the Color Run. It was the perfect day for the event. Thousands of people, runners and supporters of runners, were there. Many were dressed in ridiculous things: tutus, colorful socks, crazy headgear. The only thing they had in common? Everyone was in white. Oh, and we saw a woman in a wedding dress. Wicked awesome!

Let’s meet our runners: Shanni Corros, Chad Tañag, and Shauna Chung. The supporters (Keri, Rexley and I) hung out and took pictures before they began the 5k. We decided on a meeting place (which got changed before they ended the 5k), and I set off to snag some photos by the blue station. Needless to say, we turned into Smurfs.

The grand finale was a rush of color, a blast of music, and yes, Oppa Gangnam Style definitely went down. And yes, I have the proof in video form. As we set out to leave, we realized Chad’s fanny pack had somehow unzipped, and the valuables in there had fallen out. Our faith in the goodness of humanity was restored when we found everything at the lost and found station. With a sigh of relief, we walked back across the bridge, cleaned off as much as we could, hopped in the car, and went in search of food before our 2.5 hour drive home.

Nashville, you were amazing. We will be back. We promise.

I have been missing from here lately. Yes, I know. But I am...

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 18:35:34 -0400

I have been missing from here lately. Yes, I know. But I am making my return… with this. This photo was taken today in Nashville, Tennessee, where Keri, Rexley and I supported Shauna, Chad, and Shanni as they ran in The Color Run. We cheated and joined them for the insane color fest that happened at the finish line.

So be on the look out for more of these photos coming up. In addition to that, I’ve got a small set of photos from a week or so ago called The Lost Diver.