Stacey is amazing. I first met her through a friend that was organizing a head shots evening for…read morelots of professional friends, so I bought 15 min in a studio with Stacey and got the best headshot that has come in so very handy many times. I moderated a panel last week and a panelist I was being introduced to said, "yes, the woman with the most amazing head shot." Yesterday morning we did our 5th(!) family mini session shoot with Stacey in a garden next to the Capitol. It's wonderful to get these beautiful shots of our children growing up -- and have some shots with me that I love that aren't selfies! Years ago Stacey took an iconic (among our family and friends) photo of my son sulking off to the left of the Washington monument when my husband and I were were standing to the right smiling while pregnant with our daughter. That same day Stacey was able to joke around with our son and get the best shots of him smiling and enjoying himself. Our daughter enjoys the shoots just as much. Thank you, Stacey!

Our photo session with Stacey was amazing! Working with 3 kids isn't always easy, but she laughed…read morewith them, engaged them and listened to what they wanted in addition to getting the photos she had in mind. The kids felt they were included in the process and were therefore happy to comply with her requests. She has a gentle and very effective way of working with people and I greatly appreciate that! We cannot wait to see our photos! :) and we look forward to working with Stacey again in the future!!

I had a very positive experience hiring Kelly. I needed professional photos for one of my…read moreinvestment properties. He was able to provide a same day appointment and the fee was very reasonable. Professional and courteous service overall.

Kelly was very nice and professional. He made me feel at ease and it showed in the results!read more

I worked with Youra on updated headshots for professional purposes - she was amazing! Super…read morecommunicative and flexible ahead of our session, and then so creative and personable in scouting out locations and making sure we were capturing a diversity of shots and angles. Given how much I usually dislike photos of myself, I was absolutely blown away when I received the final images - I liked them all! I especially appreciated her editing touch, all of the final images looked super polished, professional, but still natural. Will definitely be reaching out to Youra anytime we need a photographer in the future!

Youra is a GEM. She was amazing as event photographer for our baby shower for 45 people. She…read morereally listened to what we wanted and gave constructive suggestions ahead of time. The space was crowded with big windows and varied light. She did a great job getting candids and posed shots. She was professional, friendly and unobtrusive. Her rates are competitive and we are beyond pleased with the results!

A little over a decade ago, I was searching for a photographer in the Washington DC area who would…read morebe able to take proposal photos as a surprise to my now wife. Jae was one of the photographers who reached out and ultimately the one I ended up going with. Looking back, it was absolutely the right choice! He was incredibly helpful in planning out the proposal and choosing the best location for our photos. He answered all of my questions and was easy to get in touch with both before and on the night of the proposal, keeping me updated and making sure everything was ready before the big moment. The photos turned out perfect! Even today, they stand out as some of our favorite pictures. Fast forward 10 years later - I had an idea to get a kind of "follow up" set with our daughter for our 10th anniversary. I reached out to see if Jae was still in the area and if he'd have some availability to do these for us. He got back to me fast and we ended up planning everything out, starting right back where the proposal happened. This time was just as great! Jae was fantastic with our daughter and really helped bring out her smile. He was great posing us and knew exactly how to work each location we walked to. The photos (again) turned out fantastic! Being able to look back at both sets side by side, a decade later, is like opening a time capsule - it's just so cool!

Jae is an amazing photographer and I highly recommend him! If you're looking for someone who will…read morego above and beyond expectations, Jae is the man. He is very responsive and detail oriented. I hired him to take photos of my proposal. From the start, he removed all the stress out of planning so I only had to focus on actually proposing. He was essentially a photographer and a planner! Once I chose the general location and time of the proposal, Jae went out of his way to scout the place beforehand. He provided me with the exact spots with the best background, detailed diagrams of how to get to the spot, and how to propose for the best shots. Because it was an outdoor location, Jae helped me come up with contingency plans and what to do for each case. My fiancée and I are more awkward when it comes to photos but Jae brings in over 10 years of experience. He was able to help us get into the best poses and he edited the photos to make us really shine. Jae even stayed up late to finish editing our photos earlier than anticipated when he found out we were heading out of town soon after. I am truly thankful for Jae's help.

I loved working with Tina! Very professional, and she…read moreresponded fast, love the quality of the pictures they're wonderful! She made me feel very comfortable and relaxed. was a great experience. I highly recommend her.

I give Tina my highest possible recommendation! I've never worked with a photographer so talented…read moreor attuned to the needs of her clients. We first engaged Tina to take headshots that our daughter needed for school applications. Despite a VERY short turnaround time, Tina was able to bring her into the studio and get the perfect shot. Tina talked to her about what she was looking for, got her comfortable with being photographed, and -- literally the same day -- produced several dozen proofs for us to review and select from. The end result was a series of absolutely dazzling photos that were exactly what my daughter needed (and came at an extremely reasonable price). Thank you again, Tina for so quickly producing such spectacular results!

They say there is always something that goes wrong on your wedding day, and choosing Life Gallery…read morewas ours. I am writing this review as we just celebrated our 1 year anniversary. Throughout this year, I kept telling myself that I needed to write this. It's tough to sit down and bring up negative feelings towards your wedding day, and then to channel those into words. But I also couldn't let it go. Throughout this past year, we never printed a single photo. We never publicly shared our wedding photos. Only a few people saw our photos, and even they were disappointed. Our photographer Mike and owner Scott completely failed us. We got married on Halloween 2020. Prior to the wedding, we are asked to create a list of the things that were our must-have photos (which we also reviewed with Mike day of). One of our biggest photo "wants" was lots of pictures of our senior golden retriever Bubba. We didn't know how much time we have left with him so we wanted pictures of him with everyone. We spent a lot of time and money decorating our wedding venue, so naturally our decorations were on there. I even asked Mike how his camera was at night time (since our reception was after dark) and he assured me it was great. I also spent a lot of time carving approximately 30 foams pumpkins for a haunted house I put together, which was also on my list. My husband even built me a large custom cooler shaped like a coffin! We bought glow sticks to light it up at night. We were disappointed in the lack of Bubba pictures. He was only photographed in a few different settings despite being there all night. There is not a SINGLE photo of our decorations at night, nor are there any of the pumpkins lit up, or any of the coffin cooler once it was put together for the reception. Looking at the photos, Mike went around the venue before the ceremony and took pictures of our decorations prior to being setup/lit up. Guess he figured he could check them off the list then? I have one photo of my custom coffin cooler, and it's still closed with a box of glow sticks sitting next to it. We had discussed Mike staying an hour past his time at the start of the day. He said we could see how everything was going. He came to find me promptly at the original leaving time to say he got everything and goodbye. Had I known how much he missed, I would've had him stay that extra hour. Mike never utilized any of the decorations in the photos. He had us taking some of our family photos in front of the bridal suite instead of using the graveyard right next to us. I had to tell him to move because it wasn't a good spot. Scott's excuse was that Mike did it for the lighting. It's a Halloween wedding! Who cares about how lit up the bridal suite is, I wanted dark and spooky. When I brought up these issues with Scott, he said he wasn't going to BS us, but that's all he did. He tried to tell me that you can't photograph jack-o-lanterns! I've been carving pumpkins for 20+ years and always take photos of them. He never did anything to try and make it better for us, so be warned if you have an issue with them. He said he "found" more photos, but they were actually the photos they considered rejects and discarded. Now we have to take the time to dress up, decorate, and shoot our pictures all over again with a different company. We would never recommend Life Gallery!!!

This is a review for our experience with hiring Life Gallery Studio for our wedding which took…read moreplace on May 31st, 2013. We chose Life Gallery based on their excellent reviews on weddings specialist sites such as Wedding Wire, which we have since learned are policed by the vendors themselves, so only extremely positive reviews are posted and the negative reviews are "disputed" which means they are suspended from the site, often indefinitely. We had a nice initial consolation with the owner Scott, who emphasized their speciality in taking candid shots during weddings, which was something we were really interested in. They offer nice albums and a decent range of packages ranging from 4 hours on up. "Seems reasonable," we said. Contract signed. Day of the wedding, our photographer, Ronda, showed up on time. She was a bit idiosyncratic and rough around the edges, but we figured, "hey, she's an artist, let her do her thing." It was extremely hot that day and she marched us around the vineyard where our wedding took place, often shouting at us, "Don't move! I'll tell you when to move!" when she found the lighting to be favorable. She struggled mightily to remember my wife's name throughout the ceremony despite repeated reminders. Seemed like a fairly basic ask for such an important day, but we were more concerned about the photographic results. At the reception, Ronda seemed bored and listless. We added a few hours to her workload at $150/hour, included dinner and let her know to feel free to help herself to a drink. Which she did. She then seemed to forget she was working and spent the back end of the reception, mostly seated and not taking photos. Guests asked her, "Ronda, why aren't you taking photos?" "It would be awkward while you're eating," she said in reply. Um, maybe awkward for Ronda, but the guests would have welcomed it...that's. why. we. hired. a. photographer. Life Gallery knew beforehand that the entire reception was a dinner and that was the task, so Ronda should not have been disappointed by the lack of a Bollywood style reception with tigers jumping through rings of fire. They never voiced any concerns before the event took place. "Let's see what photos she got," I said, "before we complain, maybe we'll be surprised." Well, the results were less than spectacular. The role of photos ranged from a few very nice shots, to many mediocre, and even more amateurish. Each table had flowers on it, which she captured wonderfully, but often at the expense of our guests' faces. Another highlight includes the back of the groom's head as he hugs his father, whose face is obscured by the back of the groom's head. That's the type of "candids" she got. We expressed our disappointment to Scott afterwards, who made no attempt at apologies or even understanding, and didn't even acknowledge the root of our dissatisfaction. "Most people only care about 20 shots to make an album," he said. Somehow we feel shortchanged by that after paying over a grand. It's entirely possible our experience was an outlier. As Scott said, they are very well reviewed online. Perhaps, that's because they spend so much time disputing any less than stellar ones on review sites. Here's hoping my review survives on Yelp, so other couples might be spared a less than positive experience on their wedding day, and cloudy, obscured, memories afterwards, marked by frustration. Luckily, we have the photos our friends and relatives took, which on the whole, represent a superior collection of work than what we got from Life Gallery Studio. Send me a message for samples of their work.

We decided to go to Steven Wu after checking out his yelp reviews and made a few inquiries through…read moreemails and phone calls, and we are very happy with the experience. Over the phone, steven took time to get to know you and your story, try to get a sense of what kinda pictures/portrait you are looking for and record your story through the lens. We did both city hall wedding and a private 2 hours outdoor shooting on Long island. As always, he arrived early ( earlier than us). City Hall Wedding For most couples, it's prob. their first time, so having a wedding photographer who is patient and experienced with the process definitely ease a lot of the stress. I remember Steven kinda walk me through the process over the phone before the court wedding date, giving your tips that actually helped a lot. The actually "ceremony" is quick, but sometimes the wait can be a little long, he really takes time to capture each moment for you along each step of the process. Outdoor Shooting I told Steven that I love nature, and I like artsy/cool pictures. Steven suggested morning/evening time where the light has a lot of variety. For me, he is sort of an impressionist, trying to capture beauty throughout the changing light. He is creative, and also open for suggestions. We loved our pictures. Notes: Pictures in this review were downsized, and I changed a little contrasts and light (so you can't see our faces). Ask Steven for some portfolio work, which you can get a better sense of his styles (and maybe some pose ideas).

Steven Wu is an incredibly talented photographer! My S.O. and I made a trip with our family (we…read morelive in California) to New York over the summer in May. It was my S.O.'s first trip and my millionth time to NYC. Our family had already decided that we were getting engaged and having our engagement party this upcoming November. I wanted to make this trip memorable, as it was his first trip, so we decided to do our engagement photos in NYC! I researched photographers almost everyday for a month when I stumbled upon Steven and his amazing reviews! We don't regret hiring Steven! He was absolutely amazing! We had been together for 6 years and we never did any type of photo shoot together. Our shoot was on a Friday morning in Grand Central Station and then in Central Park. Imagine a typical Friday morning at Grand Central. It is very, very, very busy and packed. We met up with Steven there and he asked us to go stand in the middle, of what seemed like thousands of people, and go pose. Needless to say, we felt SO awkward doing that. The second Steven started talking to us, we got so comfortable. The whole time we were with Steven, we only noticed him and each other. He made us totally forget how nervous we were and made us forget about the hundreds of people walking by and staring at us. I recall him saying he was in technology or something before he started doing photography but I swear, he must have some training in psychology because he like hypnotized us into feeling so calm and comfortable. Once he started clicking, we were so calm and at peace. We just focused on each other and the hilarious conversations we were having with Steven. Gosh, he kept us so entertained & happy! He truly is such an amazing man!!! I researched photographers for a whole month and am so glad I found Steven! I couldn't imagine a better photographer. And as far as the pictures go, they turned out AMAZING!!! For our first ever photo shoot, they were the most beautiful pictures I have ever seen! NY has such a special place in my heart and I'm so pleased that Steven was the one who captured my S.O. and I's first trip there! I would very highly recommend Steven to anyone who is looking to engagement pictures, family photos, party or wedding photography, anything and everything! You will not regret hiring him!

When it came time to have my daughters senior pictures done, I had many options for a photographer…read morebut I knew Laura would be the one I would use. My daughter is not comfortable in front of a camera, she has some anxieties but Laura was wonderful with her. She was not only patient but kind and empathetic. My pictures came out AMAZING, so thankful for Laura and will absolutely use her again.

Laura did a beautiful job on our daughter's senior pictures. She's a great photographer and good to…read morework with. Highly recommend!

Aibek was so wonderful for our photo session last weekend - I took a chance on what seemed like…read moretoo-good-to-be-true pricing, but he delivered! Professional, quality equipment, and fantastic service. My daughter turned one today and we got our photos back in 5 days flat, just in time for me to incorporate some of his beautiful work into our baby's slideshow for her party tomorrow. Highly recommended to anyone for family photography. He was happy to let us call "the shots" (so to speak) as to particular locations we wanted to shoot at, or ideas that we had to begin with (poses, backgrounds, etc.). However, he also suggested some ideas without being at all pushy. A true professional.

After an exhaustive search on the internet for a wedding photographer, and tiring quickly of the…read morecookie-cutter posed and staged images I found, somehow I landed at the website for Aibek Akmat Photography. I LIKE TO THINK MY GOOD FORTUNE WAS NO ACCIDENT! I was easily drawn into the artistry of the portfolio I found there. With a background in art and design, I admit I am harder to impress than some. But I instantly recognized something special about his images...rich jewel tones, dynamic images that seemed three dimensional as though you could step into the photograph in real time; with interesting textures and beautiful quality of light. I also recognized a casual spontaneity in his portrait images; subjects captured in a natural and relaxed spirit by an unobtrusive observer. While there were no actual images of weddings on the website, the work I discovered by Aibek was appealing in its depth and sensitivity and it prompted me to contact him. It was a wise decision. With less than a month to schedule a photographer before our wedding, Aibek agreed to do the job, and with a leap of faith I felt confident that the decision was the right one. We engaged Aibek for 4 hours on the day of our wedding and for photographs at two locations; the church where the ceremony took place and then following at the restaurant across the city in Georgetown. Despite pouring rain, and the consequent lighting challenges that the weather presented, he was not only patient, but accommodating and generous. Aibek DELIVERED! Our photographs came to us in zip files and on CD less than one week after the wedding ceremony.The images he captured are "brilliant, magnificent" (to quote the minister of the spectacular National City Christian Church who has seen the interior architecture images); the photographs are rich in detail, artful in composition, delightful in capturing precious moments and shared memories of the happiest day of my life. Thank you for caring so much about our wedding photographs, Aibek...for your professionalism, your artistry, and your unerring eye for capturing a moment in time. As a footnote which will make a difference for many, I would like to add that I disclosed upfront to Aibek that my partner of 30 years and I (both male) were being married in our home church; a Christian marriage with full recognition, legally and spiritually. I gave him the opportunity to decline and he not only accepted us unconditionally, but embraced us in a caring and gentle manner. But,THAT is a consequence of choosing not just a great photographer, but a kind, caring and enlightened human being. I should also add that his photography service was the best value of all the expenses we incurred for our wedding!

Chieu came through for us, even though we forgot our baby's cute outfit changes! She really…read moreimprovised on the whim and we loved the final photos. It was easy to schedule a session. She was very communicative in her emails. I absolutely loved the final photos and will definitely reach out to her in the future. it was a great experience overall!

Chieu did an amazing job for our newborn's photography. Chieu was very flexible and had made the…read moreprocess really simple and prepared the photoshoot prior to us coming at her studio. Our newborn was born during the winter holidays and we had discussed a tentative time based on our original due date. But our newborn decided to come earlier than expected and she was flexible to rework her schedule to help us by putting us in the day after new years. Thank you Chieu for the amazing photos my wife and I loved the photos.