About Emily

This was how it all started.

One lazy afternoon, I found myself wandering into an antique shop (a habit I haven't managed to break), I stopped in front of a window, and there was a black-and-white photograph of an elderly woman standing perfectly still in the middle of Grand Central Station, while everyone around her rushed past in a blur. She was the only focus in the frame. I stood there for a while trying to figure out why it got to me so much.

That was when I understood what a camera could actually do: catch the second where everything slows down and becomes clear. That's what I'm looking for in every shoot.

I'm not going to ask you to pose or think about your angles. Most of my clients haven't been photographed much, and honestly that's perfect in my book. I'd rather you forget I'm there. When you do, that's when the real moment happens: the laugh you couldn't hold back, the look across the room, the s'more that got a little too toasty.

I work in documentary style with an editorial eye, which is a fancy way of saying I pay close attention and try to make it look beautiful while I'm doing it. I've photographed weddings at City Hall, in the redwoods, in Napa wine country, and all over the beautiful Bay Area. The moment that stays with me from every single one of them is never the grand one. It's always the quiet one right before or right after.

If you want photos that actually look like you, on a day you'll remember for a long time, I think we'd get along.

Coffee works. Bubble tea also works. I was born in Taiwan, so I have a bias towards both.