Slow down, Smile, and Enjoy more~!

Yellowhale painting by nanacnese

It is such a special day today.. not only because I am a mom myself, but also I have a mom who is one of the strongest women I know. She had her mom but lost her when she was eight years old during Korean War. My mother grew up raising her little brother and herself in a little town in Pusan, Korea. Once she told me the one wish she had as a child was to call someone "mom". I can not even imagine how one could grow without a mom. As I raise my boys, many moments reminded me of my childhood and how amazing my mom was to me. I wonder how she learned to be that outstanding mother she was who she never had in her life. She promised me that she would be there for me when I am down or disappointed and she kept her promise. Until this day, she is my best friend, my counselor, and my biggest fan!

My mom would convince me to wear the dirty shirt one more day to save a load of laundry by saying I looked really cute in the yellow (pic on the left), and I was confused as you can see in my sad face. ^^ The other two pictures are about my mom's leather jacket. I (pic on the right) am wearing the very jacket that she wore (center pic)  when I graduated from Kindergarten (ha! - we had that graduation back then!). Can you tell that there is 40 years gap in between those pictures? These pictures and this beautiful now vintage leather jacket are so special to me and I will cherish them forever. The little girl on the left had a big dream and my mother taught, brought up, nurtured, and gave everything she could to support that little girl to become the woman on the right who still has a big dream. There were endless ups and downs, we shared laughs and tears, we celebrated every little things and prayed so many nights together. I had the best mother that I could ever hope... 

I know every one of you must have something even more special that remind you of your beautiful and wonderful mom. Tell her how much you appreciate her and what she had done for you and the family. And also love and enjoy your littles even more as they will remember every bit of your love dearly. Let's celebrate it today!

me (2) in dirty yellow shirt

with mom (kindergarten)

me wearing her jacket

On this special day, I hope that you will slow down, smile, and enjoy more

- xoxo, Kyung

Provided to YouTube by Sony Music Entertainment Yellowhale · Kwak Yoon Chan / 곽윤찬 Yellowhale ℗ 2014 Blueshrimp Released on: 2014-07-31 Producer: Blueshrimp Auto-generated by YouTube.

p.s. I would love to share one more story with you today. Right is what "Yellowhale" sounds like. Try it, it is really amazing. Yellowhale is written and played by the fabulous blue note Jazz pianist Kwak Yoon Chan who found and fell in love with my Yellowhale Story and gave this beautiful song to Yellowhale. There is an amazing story behind how he and I met, but will tell you more next time.

What it is like to Experience Yellowhale Portrait

Every family has its own story. As a family portrait photographer - I get to enjoy the most beautiful and real family stories from how the couple fell in love, thirty-hour long labor, to first birthday, and so many other episodes. I love being part of the family stories. More over, I want to CREATE unforgettable memories for them to cherish. 

Today, my client, Jennifer and Sung visited the studio for the Big Reveal presentation of their family portraits photographed three weeks ago. We had planned this special celebration since January, selecting the style, color, location, what to wear. Jennifer and I share so much in common (like all other moms out there! ^^) how much we love our children and what the family means to us. So the designing her photo session was quite similar to what I would have done for my own family. Their children are pre teens and it is the stage where they start to feel uncomfortable smiling at the camera or hugging or kissing their mom and feel a little shy about being in front of the camera.  As I understood, her main focus of the photo session was to capture the children's natural smile (not posed or forced) and show the love of the family.  I had planned to play a little game with them to relax and have fun during the session. The session took place at the studio to create a modern, yet formal look that will go really well with her living room decor. I loved how everything we planned came together at the session and the result turned out exactly how she wanted!

Below is a short video clip that I was able to capture during the REVEAL presentation and I so wanted to share it with you all. I took this video with my iphone with their permission. ^^

After she left the studio, I received a little note from her saying...

“Thank you Kyung!

You have far exceeded my expectations!! And I had high expectations too.. haha! You have captured the love in my family... the great love and joy we have for each other and from each other. You have captured them all in your images. You are so gifted! And a special thank you for capturing my son Nathan. Your images display what I see when I look at him. When I asked Nathan “Do you recognize yourself?”, he said “no” and I told him “This handsome young man is you my Nathan! This is exactly what you look like in real life!”. Your pictures are treasures that we will cherish forever. From beginning to end the whole experience was a wonderful one and the results speak for themselves. Thank you so much!

”

— Jennifer

I am so so so happy to be able to give the family the most beautiful images to cherish and see what their love and happiness is like. Below is some of my favorite images from their portrait experience.

Jen and Sung, thank you so much for letting me be part of your life journey. Being there to document what is already beautiful was my privilege and I am grateful for that. When this image is magnificently installed over your mantle, not only your children but also everyone who visits your lovely home will be reminded of love and joy shines through the portrait. - Kyung

I can not believe it is already MAY (one third of the year 2017 has passed already!).

If you are interested in reserving your family portraits this spring, I still have our $99 Portrait Special sessions available for June. It is an amazing value and would be a perfect gift for the MOM you love for Mother's Day (May 14th!). You know mothers like Jennifer and myself, we would die to receive our children's portraits as a gift than anything...  CALL 202.870.6773 to schedule your session and click HERE  for more information.

YELLOWHALE - the story behind the name...

Almost all of my clients ask me why my business name is Yellowhale. The story behind it has been posted on the website since 2004 when I began the journey, but I wanted to share it with you again today because I just received the most beautiful watercolor drawing of the yellow mother whale and her calf from my friend artist Canan Esen. Isn't it perfect?

With Ethan, Feb 2003

It all began when my first son, Ethan was born fourteen years ago. My husband and I were filled with the joyous anticipation of raising a little boy. However, when he was born with an unexpected medical condition, we needed to obtain treatment for him in another country, and this required our family to be separated for ten months. It was when he was just over three weeks old when we left home and when I started photographing his daily life (from waking up in the morning to go to bed at night) to keep my husband intimately involved in his growth. I had SONY cybershot digital camera with 32mb memory stick that could not even record a video then. There was not much function except AUTO or portrait, even if there was, I would not care much. The purpose of my photo shoot was to document my son's daily life to show my husband when we were far away from each other. However, I felt helpless (defeated) when the baby in the pictures was not as beautiful as he is in real life. In fact, it did not even look like him... When I emailed them to my husband, I would explain by words about how much more handsome he was in person. 

“Being a mother is learning about strengths you didn’t know you had, and dealing with fears you didn’t know existed.”

— Linda Wooten

By the time Ethan became a couple months old, I started to look for a better way to capture his fun personality and look with the camera. Finding information on line, reading photography books, using my sister's SLR camera to experiment different ways to take better pictures of him. I had a mission to show the REAL life and look of my son to his father! Ten long months later, he finally got better and we were able to come back home to reunite as a family. To this day, my husband knows every details of our life during those months because of these images. Even when we were not physically together, we were able to share our life together. Those moments meant so much to me that we decided to exhibit our journey to our friends and family when Ethan turned one. We made a slide show made out of hundreds of images and displayed framed pictures on a gallery wall where we had his first birthday party hosted. Many of our friends came and celebrated his birthday and his full recovery with us and some asked me to photograph their babies because they loved and were inspired by my story! That's how I started my photography. 

With Ethan, Oct 2016
photographed by Millie Holloman

This journey inspired my love of photography not only as an art, but as an intimate way to tell a family’s story. As more and more people contacted me for baby photography, I had to make a website with a domain name to show samples and other information in one place. One evening, I watched a documentary on Humpback Whales and immediately connected with the intensely loving and sacrificial bond between the mother and calf. The mother whale migrate thousands of miles to a shallow and warm water to give birth and raise the young calf until it learns how to swim and breathe and grow strong enough to swim back to arctic ocean where there is food for them. She would starve while taking care of the baby because there is no food for the mom to eat in shallow warm water for fourteen months after the baby is born. She barely have just enough energy to go back home by the time they can swim home together.. 

The story of the Humpback Whale caught my heart. I instantly connected to the relationship between the mother and her calf. The story paralleled my life as my son received care and became healthier, stronger, and more independent. There is so much LOVE and GIVE in the story of Humpback Whales. I knew every mother would have done the same for her child.

I have chosen the name “Yellow Whale” for my photography because the color YELLOW (of passion fruit!) represents my passion for photography and WHALE represents mother's love. Yellowhale combined the important vision of the Humpback Whale bravely teaching her young the lessons of life so it too one day could forge a life filled with brilliance and strength. and I hoped to portray the love and connection among family through beautiful images. 

The year 2017 is Yellowhwale's 13th year photographing babies, children, and families around the world. and I am so grateful for the opportunities I had to connect and celebrate the love and togetherness with all our friends. THANK YOU and I appreciate you and want to give back.

To show our appreciation, we've got a PORTRAIT SPECIAL for you.

For just $99, you will get our either Studio or Signature experience including Design Consultation, Portrait Session, Selection Consultation. With your portrait order, you' will also receive our special edition metal desk portrait (8x10, valued $299). Plus, 5% of the sales will be donated to Lonely Whale Foundation.

Call today to book. 202-870-6773.

We are giving away UNLIMITED sessions at the $99 promo price from now till Mother's day (May 14th). Portrait sessions must take place by June 30th, 2017. Restriction may apply, please inquire.

Hope to see you and your friends soon!

And again, I really thank you Canan Esen for the amazing water color painting. 

Happy New Year!

Just returning to the studio from a wonderful and refreshing winter break. As a family portrait photographer, there is no time like January when I get to sit down and think quietly for as long as I need. After the craziness of fall / holiday season, it is a definitely necessary down time to recharge and plan the rest of the year. There are things to update on the website, travels to plan, appointments to schedule for the clients, goals to set personally and professionally, and many other projects to start.

Out of million things to do in the month, my favorite and first project of the year is to review the images of my recent years and selecting few to update the gallery. There are so many familiar little faces have grown so much since the first session. I was there when the baby was just born still in the beautiful round womb shape. I remember that the room was so warm and cosy that it did not feel like working at all for me. I remember how her tiny the little - almost transparent skin- toes were. And now that little baby talks to me about what's happening at her school! She offered me her snack to share during the session and I caught the moment in the video clip, because it was so precious. "Kyung, would you like some crackers?" Every time I see my clients' little ones, most of them I get to see every year, it makes me astonished by how fast and beautifully they grow. Every one of them feel like my own...

I am sure all of you feel the same way about your precious child(ren). With a blink of an eye, my baby is as tall as I am calling mom in his deep man voice. My little one is graduating elementary school this year! 

My photographer friend just shared this perfect video on facebook this morning and it made me cry. A parent has 936 weeks between a child’s birth and graduation.... And I thought I would post it as my first blog post in 2016. I hope this touches your heart as it did to me. 

While my mind is already chasing to catch all those ambitious missions, I want my 2016 resolution to be "Stay closer to your heart."  I hope I can help you not to miss the moments of your journey, too. 

Joyeuses fêtes

At this time of the year, I would like to take a moment to embrace the beautiful and grateful year we had and to look forward to a wonderful new year.

At Yellowhale Photography, I loved the opportunities to document growing families and to share a pieces of life every year with our clients and families around. That a year it has been! 2015 was filled with happiness, love, and share from you all. Some of you brought new additions to the families. Some of your little ones came back with new braces. Some of you visited the studio for the first time... Thank you for being part of Yellowhale! 

I am beyond excited about what the new year will bring to you and can not wait to witness the adventures with you.  Cheers to 2016!

Whatever is beautiful,
Whatever is meaningful,
Whatever brings you happiness...
May it be yours this Holiday Season
and throughout the coming year! 

Lots of Love,
Kyung, Luke, Ethan, Eric,
& Yellowhale Photography

Our family images were photographed by the fabulous Ethan Yang photography in April 2015.