Adelaide DIY wedding: Joe and Vivian

I know wedding posts are TOTALLY overdue :) 2009 was a complete craze for us, and then we jet setted across the world. It left so little time to breathe, let alone blog! But I'm back to show some love to this space, and share with you all the beautiful couples that we have had the honor to cross paths with :) Starting with this amazing pair :)

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The charcoal grey storm clouds swirled above in a warning fashion, painting the day in muted tones. However, not too far from where I stood on that oddly-windy summer day, I could hear giggles floating...and as I stepped into the door, the flurry of feet buzzed around in excited commotion. And there she was. The bride, gently but confidently powdering her face in preparation for the moments to come. Vivian knew it would be time soon. Yet even in those final moments when most brides would be madly waving their arms as the stress set in, Vivian remained calm...filled with adrenalin, but calm...and with a smile. Always with a smile. And I think that is what defines these two - Both completely down to earth, and personal. But individually, Vivian is the soothing, gentle spirit that is full of warmth and generosity. While Joe, her other half is the vivacious, excitable soul, laced with zealousy and playfullness. And I love that - when two people compliment, that is. She is his roots, while he is her air. A perfect yin and yang :)

I have to say it here, it makes me SO happy when I walk into the door of a wedding day, and I can see elements of the couple's personality sprinkled across all the elements of the day. Especially when the ingredients to the day are made with personal love, with their own hands, time, and creativity. It was so evident at Joe and Vivian's wedding, from the moment I received their invite in my mailbox (did I tell you how much I LOVE getting invites from my couples??? It makes me all warm and gooey on the inside to know that they would extend their hand of friendship in that gesture :D), I knew I was in for some gorgeous fun with these two! You'll see what I mean below :) All their gorgeous wedding details were personally sourced, made, and styled in true DIY form - and I just loved that! :D

Here are my favourites :)

Joe on his way out :)


Quiet moments before the ceremony.






The ceremony was filled to the brim with emotion....quiet and exuberant.




Joe was in tears at this point, just overwhelmed with the joy that they would actually be calling each other husband and wife from this point.


While these two were in a world of their own. I was trying to figure out what they were plotting! hehe :D




Some portraits before the storm clouds rolled in that day!








We stumbled upon this amazing little cottage by complete accident! I just love the texture and colours of the building - totally reminded me of my time in Paris, France and Europe in general! :D




And the fabulous wedding details :) The theme was carried through so beautifully!






Joe and Vivian, in their true personal style, organized candies for all their guests to take home - apparently these were the candies they loved eating as children! :D




Hilarious moments during the reception.


And then these two surprised everyone with a song. These two SERIOUSLY know how to sing!! I thought I was listening to two professionals! I have a video, but have no idea how to upload it as its 220mb HD so if you know, please tell me so I can share with you their amazing talent!




My favourite moment of every wedding reception - the first dance :)


Party!!




Thank you to Joe and Vivian for flying me all the way into Adelaide and sharing your lives with me. I truly felt like a friend at the wedding, and that meant the WORLD. I love you both!!!

xox

Win a free Shootsac Competition: Jenny Sun Photography

I am nothing without all of you.

Cheesy? Yes. True, even more so.

Really and truly, you who read my blog, leave me comments, send me the loveliest emails, rock it out in front of my camera, MAKE Jenny Sun Photography what it is today. Seriously, you guys are the best fans in the world. When I launched the Jenny Sun Photography facebook fanpage, I literally had a panic attack and my fingers and heart froze in fear...because what if I only had like 2 or 3 fans? And they were my husband, and my parents?!?! That would be SOOOO sad! :P But fast forward a few weeks, and it has grown to almost 3000 fans. I nearly fainted when I saw that! I mean me? really? You guys have more faith in me than I have in myself....and for that, I am forever grateful. I don't take a single thing for granted because I have grown up seeing and experiencing the fact that things can disappear in the blink of an eye... so I appreciate ALL of you. To those that ask, I really do read every single email, every single message on the blog, every single 'like/comment' on the facebook page...and I appreciate each one so much more than you know and could ever express here on this blog. So please don't ever stop sending, writing....it brightens my day and puts a smile on my face - and trust me, there are days when I need that :D

As a HUGE HUGE thank you to you fans, this post is for you....

If you have been staying in touch with me via my Facebook Fanpage, you will know that I left Vegas with some goodies to giveaway as my way of saying THANK YOU for making JSP what it is today. The big surprise giveaway will be launched later this year when I unveil something really crazy special, but as a thank you for being my followers on TWITTER, or on FACEBOOK, and being the coolest JSP cheerleaders EVER, I'm giving away a free shootsac to one lucky JSP fan :)

To those that don't know what a shootsac bag is, its literally the coolest lens changing bag!! I use it at every one of my shoots and it has six compartments to slip in your lenses (even lenses as big as the 70-200mm f2.8 lens!!), and it slings comfortably over your shoulders so that you can pick and change your lenses in the blink of an eye! The best part is, it DOESN'T LOOK LIKE A CAMERA BAG! It looks like a trendy slingover bag, that not only looks cool, but is inconspicuous so that it doesn't draw the attention of crowds, people and security - PERFECT right? :) You can find out more about the bag HERE.

Now to be in the running to win this bag, you will need to do step (1) AND step (2). Bonus points if you do ALL 3 below!!:

(1) Be a fan of JSP on facebook (already a fan? perfect! If not, join here).

(2) Leave a comment in this blog post saying why you love the shootsac, and why you are a fan of JSP. Bonus points for originality and sincerity! OR those that want to be super creative with their entry, and want to submit your entry as a video or photo, email me at info@jennysunphotography.com with the subject title "JSP SHOOTSAC GIVEAWAY".

(3) This step is OPTIONAL only :) To earn bonus points, Tweet about this giveaway on twitter and just tweet the following:

I am a @jennysunphoto fan! and I want to win a free #shootsac ! Details here: http://bit.ly/cBsMrf RT to join in!

Don't forget to leave a VALID link or someway where I can contact you if you are the winner! To those who have commented/entered already, PLEASE remember to leave a valid link or email or something where I can contact you if you are the winner! It would be so sad if you had a kick-ass awesome entry and I couldn't award you because I can't contact you! :D thanksssss! :D

Good luck!! Do join in! I'd be soooooo sad if only 2 people participated :P

Winner will be announced when I get back from this crazy travelling early next month on April 4th (give or take a few days depending on jetlag)! :D

Happy mid week everyone!! :D

The pictures posts with travel photos and shoots are resuming soon!! As well as that post about the live FAQ friday session we are having next week!

xox

Live JSP FAQ Session on the fanpage!

Hello my beautiful blog readers! :D

This post was supposed to go up over the weekend, but I had a sad case of food poisoning and so, this is going up today :)

If you have been staying tuned to my JSP Facebook fanpage, you'll know that I was planning to have a live FAQ session on the wallspace on a friday! :) This is happening, because I'm getting SO many of your really awesome and beautiful emails voicing out your curiosity on how I do things around here, and as much as I would personally love to answer each and everyone (I really do try my best!!), I can't keep up :( So, please do join this FAQ session. Ask anything you like! Doesn't necessarily have to be related to my photography (although I'm SUPER boring, so any personal questions would be pretty dull in terms of response!)

Anyhow, here are the details:

Time: 2pm Sydney time!

Duration: 30 minutes (it may be longer if there are tonnes of questions, but lets aim for 30 minutes first! :D)

Where: The JSP Facebook fanpage! I know alot of you suggested formspring, but I couldn't find a way to actually END the session so I thought the fanpage would be best first. Hopefully, when I catch up with technology, I may do it via video feed or something! :D

How: Just post your question on the wall there and I'll do my best to answer it! :D

Hopefully I'll see some of you there! Otherwise it will just me myself and maybe my cats talking to ourselves and being kinda silly! :P

xox

And just because I feel like it, here is a sneak peek to the travel photolog that will continue on this blogspace sooooon! :D This was the first shot that came from my film rolls (yes, good old film!!), on the first day we landed in New York :)

Global footprints :)

Hello everyone! This is just a note that we are doing some seriously INTENSE travelling and road tripping over the next couple of months for shoots, photo-related things, and just seeing the beautiful place our God has created, bewteen 15th Feb to 1st April 2010. We'll have limited email/internet access during this period but know that our fabulous team will be looking after things while I am away. I'm extremely excited, nervous, and all things in between, and will be blogging our adventures at every opportunity possible so stay tuned to this blogspace!

Otherwise, join my FACEBOOK FANPAGE for all the news, picture updates, and more! And for those looking for wedding and engagement work, check them out here: WEDDINGS and ENGAGEMENTS :)

See you on the other side!! :D

xox
Jenny

Shot by Jasmine Star in New York

I'm currently at the airport in Las Vegas, waiting to hop onto the plane for our next stop on this trip, and wanted to share an amazing experience I had in New York recently when the more than fabulous Jasmine Star gave the yay-ok to shoot my headshots in that beautiful city :D Now, I've mentioned it a million trillion times, if you have not heard of Jasmine yet, you must have been living under a rock and a cave, and then some more rock because this incredible woman is taking the photography world by storm and leaving a blazing trail behind her as well as a billion raving fans :) She is not just a talented photographer, but a really amazing person through and through...you immediately get that sense when you read her blog, and after meeting her at the Sydney Jasmine Star workshop, and then being on the other side of her lens, I will attest to that personally! :D :D

We have some big crazy plans for how JSP will look later this year, and part of the plan was to update to show everyone my current face and elements of what I love and I couldn't think of a better person to capture that than Jasmine - she has an innate ability to see people... like, really see them and what makes them them. It shows through her passion for life, and I love that :)

Thank you SO much Jasmine for saying yes to this crazy Aussie-Asian girl!!! You've exceeded my expectations with this, and the huge amount of messages/emails I got after you blogged the session are a testament to that!

Much love xox
jen

here are some of my favourites. I love all of them actually but I won't spoil the surprise - you can visit her blog here to see the session in full :D

Oh and before I forget, the AHHH-MAZING Amanda from Ruffled helped to style this shoot - she picked up all these gorgeous props and pieces and I can't thank her enough!! Please do stop by her blog - its got some incredible eye candy as inspiration for all you brides out there who love vintage as much as I do :D

Las Vegas: WPPI Day 1 - Cliff Mautner

Being the impatient and loopy person that I am, I'm going to blog completely out of order and take a break from travel photos, to share some pictures from the first day of WPPI :) Again held at MGM this year, WPPI for me personally started early in the morning at 8am as I hurriedly shuffled to day one of classes :) I've been incredibly lucky to have the privilege to learn under one of the masters of available light (in my own humble opinion) - Cliff Mautner :)

We spent a whole day listening to this really down to earth and humble guy chatting about light, and how to see it, find it, and use it, even in the harshest conditions. I won't babble on too much, as I have to hurry to day 2 with him, so I'll just leave you with some images from yesterday's session :) We were encouraged to get images right straight out of camera, so I've not done any photo-shopping except some slight warming and the border.

Have a beautiful weekend!

xox

Jenny

Travel Destination: New York, USA - Day 2

It's been SUCH a crazy ride the past few weeks! I have a million pictures to share, and another 8 rolls sitting on film waiting to be developed. I'm currently perched here in my hotel room in Vegas prepping for a crazy intense week at WPPI, and at the same time nursing a cold that I seem to have adopted along my travels here in the states. Perhaps it is the chilling-to-the-bone kind of weather we've been experiencing first hand, or maybe it is the fact that we are doing and seeing so much and getting so excited by all the sight and sounds around us that we aren't sleeping as much as we should. Whatever it is, I'm wiping away my runny nose, making my own version of 'wonton balls' as I try to catch up on blog posts :)

I have a collection of journal entries where I penned my thoughts and reflections that I wrote during my trip, but I might save them for the next entry or so, once my brain is parked more in a functioning state :)

For now, I'm making up for my lack of updates with a larger than normal post of travel photos from NYC :D

Enjoy! I'm off to bed for an early start to Cliff Mautner's workshop tomorrow! :D So excited!! :D Take care my lovelies! And see you next post! :D

I think I've developed an unhealthy love for apartment blocks with retro fire escape stairs like these. They are everywhere in New York City. These were in the beautiful Greenwich Village :)






After wandering the cold streets of Greenwich Village, we finally made it to Bleeker Street to stop by the infamous Magnolia Bakery. The decor inside was so incredibly cute and homely! :D




Not to mention insanely packed and busy!! It was a challenge to even take this picture without rubbing shoulders with the next person!




I managed to eventually try the classic favourite flavour - Red Velvet which is basically a plain red cupcake with the most incredible vanilla cream top. It was lovely, but if I had to choose, my palette was a little biased to the below chocolate delights! :D


We were told Sarah Jessica Parker lived around this area - they apparently also filmed Sex and The City around here too. I can see why - the streets were just so pretty! Here is one such example! :D




Okay, so you already know I rarely EVER post personal pictures of the husband and I - we are a little shy :P But I couldn't help myself with these two shots - I think the red wall made us look nicer hehe ;)


I personally think I look like a burglar! haha!


I love love love anything vintage - this vintage clothing storefront was just delightful! :D


And then as we kept exploring, we came across an entire wall of tiles that were painted by school children, to honor the victims who had died in the 9/11 tragedy. I saw tile after tile that almost made me tear like the following. Although none was as sad as the one Ju captured (which you can't see here) that read in a faded red heartshape "Brandon Reed Brandhorst. Age 3. Flew into God's arms. UA flight 175, 9/11".






You can't stay in New York and not try the best hotdogs around - Gray's Papaya 's hotdogs made my tummy and tastebuds so happy! :D




Ground Zero. Its apparently stayed like this with no progress for 10 years due to politics :(


More winterscapes.


An intense observer on the Staten Island ferry.


A lady I caught using an old film camera. Its always a delight to see anyone who embraces the old way :)


The sky finally cleared up for a tiny period and we could see the Manhattan Skyline. Isn't she pretty? :)




And finally, a pretty sunset to end the day.


Just kidding, we ended our trip by buying some cheesy I 'heart' NY shirts - these stalls are all over the city!


Have a happy Friday everyone! :D