They called her "A War Baby"...

They called her "A War Baby"...

When I asked her parents why, they said it's because Mackenzie was conceived the night when her father came back from Iraq as a retired US marine Corp MWSS 373 (Aug 04-Feb 05)....

Mackenzie's father works now as the same logistic expert, for which he was trained in the military, this time for the Army Corp. as a civilian.

I would like to take this occasion to thank and salute all those including Mackenzie's dad who have served to defend and promote the freedom we cherish so much here in the States,.

It was like yesterday when they brought a little bundle of joy... and now the war baby is walking as one year old...

Here below are some of the photos which I had the privilege of capturing for their life time enjoyment.

Grayson, a much much MORE special baby.

Every baby is special to her or his parents.

But then, Grayson is much much MORE special to her parents, because she was gotten after 6 miscarriages and then followed by an adoption of two babies. Grayson's parents could not separate the two siblings, and ended up adopting them both.

So, Grayson is blessed with having two siblings and her parents who feel much blessed having her after having gone through much even the experience of raising two babies.

Here's 3 months old Grayson's first professionally done portraits.
Doesn't Grayson look blessed and beautiful?

Mr. Eduardo Carras, the Original Zootshuiter.

Mr. Eduardo Carras has been styling women's hair since 60's at the Eduardo's Hair Design, which is located on Castro Valley Blvd., Castro Valley, CA. Yes, he owns it.

During his career, he has trained many into hair stylists.

Eduardo loves dancing, classic cars (he owns one) and dressing up. He is the original LA Zootsuiter from the early Zootshuit Riot in 1943. He claims to be a legend by the way.

Here's a few images that Eduardo commissioned me to create.
It's a slide show. Enjoy...
(Oh, if you'd like to hear a nice song to go along with the slideshow, please click the play botton below.

Can anyone guess how old he is?...

Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day..?

" And the king said unto his servants, Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel?" 2 Samuel 3:38

Such was the Word of God they used in memory of the passing of one of the dear pastor/elders at the old church I attended for some 27 years or so...

And doesn't the scripture say rightly that:

"[It is] better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that [is] the end of all men; and the living will lay [it] to his heart." Ecclesiates 7:2

Yes, the Word of God is true and I felt it to be true again yesterday, when I attended the memorial service of the bond servant of God whose humble example of Christ has touched my heart many times.

They used some of the photos that I have taken in the slide show, which was done very nicely encompassing his entire life.

I am posting some of the photos used in the slide show here along with some which they did not use for I believe they represent some vital roles he played in his later life. Frankly, I feel quite encouraged to see that they chose one of my photos to be the cover photo of the program.

Otis Jean Gibson

October 19, 1921 - May 1, 2006

Since I left the old church to participate in a new reformed church starting in San Ramon a few years ago, Elder Otis Jean Gibson, my former pastor/elder visited me at my studio many times to give me some jobs for his project of showing the world how the scriptures were fulfilled and well documented even by secular records... And I know he used that as occasions to visit me to see how I was doing....

As far as I know, he was the last to seat to eat at my old church's regular dinner parties and also he used to serve breaking of bread & wine unto his wife first before taking his... Such were some of the good examples which I chose to follow after him...

Doctrinally, however, sadly enough, I could not follow his strong anti Calvinism stands and mostly stood on the opposite side of him in many ways, but whenver I asked him if I should leave his church for I could not change what I came to believe.. he used to be very gracious unto me, even knowing well that I used to make some waves at the church Bible studies expressing my stong view on sovreinity of God. He used to tell me that Bill MacDonald, his life time friend and co-laborer believes many ways as I do and he received him as fellow believer....

My wife and her prayer partner visited him a week before his passing, and my wife returned home more encouraged by him than they for him. She was glad to hear Jean remembering me as the best photographer he ever known, and I am deeply touched again by his gracious words spoken to my wife for me. In fact it was he and Bill McDonald who encouraged me to leave Family Radio to pursue photography...

Again the memorial service reminded me afresh that all things shall pass away, but only what's being done for Christ shall remain shining for eternity.... To read more about this man of God, click HERE.

Miss America's First Communion Portraits.

This coming Sunday (April 29th, 2006) is the first communion sunday for Miss America... Yes, her name is "America", her first name that is....

Her mom saw one of our communion portrait displays, and wanted exactly the same pose with the same stain glass background for her daughter's communion portraits.

Her mom planned to present thank you cards with her photo on them to those guests who will come to celebrate Miss America's first communion.

I liked Miss America's sensitive pure look, and her willingness to pose, so I was somewhat carried away clicking too many times than required by her mom....

Here are some of the images in slide show...
Enjoy...



When I asked Miss America what she wants to become when she grew up, she said she wanted to be a portrait artist like me...

Well, well, well, what a quick witted girl she is...

Deeply Touched By A Gift of A Bouquet

Recently I had to bring my wife to Kaiser emergency room because according to her doctor, who reviewed her blood test result, my wife's sodium level was so dangerously low that I better had her treated right away. Unless I acted immediately, the doctor warned me that my wife could have another convulsion just as she had about a year and half ago, which resulted in a week long hospitalization.

But while at emergency ward, I remembered my client Stephanie needed to pick up her baby portraits to bring them with her as she planned to travel out of State to her baby's grandma that evening.

So I phoned Stephanie to tell her about my situation and arranged the time when I could hand out her portraits at our studio.

When that time arrived, Stephanie brought with her a beautiful bouquet for my wife. I was in such an emotional state that afternoon that I was deeply touched by Stephanie's kindness.

I decided to preserve the bouquet for good by taking a picture of it. And here it is preserved for good.

And here is a composite of Stephanie and her baby, Amaras.

Thanks again Stephanie for such a thoughtful gift... My wife appreciated it.. This time she stayed only two days in the hospital...

Yes, we DO Passport / Immigration Photos

Once in a while, we are asked if we do take PASSPORT / IMMIGRATION photos.

Answer has been always, "YES, we do!". Not because there's big money to make by taking passport photos, but because it is a service by which our clients could easily learn of our other services by looking around our studio.

Actually, some people decided to have their family portraits done at YouShine after seeing some of our samples displayed at our studio.

By the way, we guarantee our passport photos to meet every government's requirements. We take a few pictures so that our clients can choose the right expression. And we do make sure lighting etc. are exactly as specified by the governments. In order insure exact size and format, we also place the template issued by passport authority over the image we take before cropping it to insure that the size we crop is exactly as the size the requirements that are specified as shown below.

Unlike those folks who take passport photos with Polaroid cameras and thus could not produce exact centimeter sizes, we can produce any government's requirement such as Canada, Iranian, Japanese, etc., whose requirements are different than USA's using Centimeters for size. And the photos we provide right after the sitting is real color photos, and not Polaroid shots.

For this service, however, we require appointment for we do all our sessions by appointment basis, and we hate to turn away any who come without any appointment. For this elaborate service for two 2"x2" photos, we charge simply $15.63 plus tax.

Instant Thumb size photos can be enlarged...

While doing her chore as an executor of her parents' will, Kimberly came across the following strip of photos that her parents must have taken at one of those mall photo-booth.

Those photos reminded her again how sweet her parents were to each other, and wanted to preserve them, for they were somewhat faded and worn out over the times. When she showed them to her siblings, they wanted to have copies of them as well.

So Kimberly came to us to ask if we can make them to 5x7 after restoring them like as new photos. Of course we told her that we could do that with our high powered scanner and with my Photoshop skills.

Here are what we did on those thumb size images...

Though her parents are gone, I can tell for sure that their memories will live on in their kids' hearts...

Mr. Strong, The magazine Cover Man

Mr. Strong of Fremont, Ca was chosen to be the cover man for one of those home improvement magazines in recognition of the excellent works he has done over the years.

When asked to submit a few images worthy of magazine cover, Mrs. Strong did some google search and found me. Her foremost question was how soon I can produce images worthy of magazine cover. I told her we can produce them within 24 hours. She then immediately asked me to show up at her house as soon as I can.

We planned to photograph him at one of his actual job sites, but it was raining that day, and thus we ended up photographing him at his house. And he did remodeled his house the way his wife wanted.

Here are a few images they purchased being well adviced by his daughter, who majors in interior decoration and design..

Sydney, Class of 2006

Sydney was not happy with the photos taken by her school photographer.

Her mom took a few portrait once with her at our studio some years ago, and Sydney remembered that she could have many satisfying images of herself at YouShine. So she talked her dad into bringing her to YouShine Photography.

Here are a few poses that we did and she happily ordered.