Las Vegas Wedding Photographer Emily Ku

Welcome to my blog and please take a look at my galleries above! I love capturing memories with my camera and I drag my camera almost everywhere with me. I love getting to know people and showcasing their personalities in amazing photos!

I am a portrait and wedding photographer who resides in Las Vegas. Every once in a while, I'll documenting my travels and my life on the blog.

Please leave a comment to let me know you stopped by! Also, keep up to date with Emily Ku Photography by adding me to your RSS feeder, Twitter, and Facebook fan page using the buttons on the right! To see more pictures, head over to my Facebook fan page!

(photo by Binita Patel Photography)

Posts Tagged ‘Portraits’

Retro portrait session – SMUG group shootout

November 9, 2011

Las Vegas has a very vibrant photographer community, and I am very grateful to be a part of it. Smugmug sponsors a monthly photographer group co-lead by Yasmin Tajik of Shalimar Studios and Scott Bourne, a legendary photographer. As a bonus, Scott is always giving away free stuff at meetings, and this time I won a Honl snoot/reflector for my speedlight. It is a bit flimsy to use as a reflector, and I prefer to use my Demb reflector instead, but Honl is handy if I ever need a snoot.

This month Yasmin and Scott organized a phenomenal shoot-out at one of the dry lake beds outside of Las Vegas. About 40 of photographers got together and took turns shooting Olivia and Kady, our beautiful models. They were amazing even though it was fairly hot outside and very sunny! Here are a few images from the shoot:

Tags: dry lake bed, Las Vegas photographer, pin up, Portraits
Posted in Lifestyle/Portraits, Personal | No Comments »

Bridal portraits

August 28, 2011

My friend Erin of Erin Hatch Photography is so awesome! She put together another fabulous shoot for some local photographers (the last one she put together was the model shoot at the dry lake bed). This time, she gathered up some girls she knew to model for us in their wedding gowns. And they are all gorgeous!! One of the girls told me that it’s been 7 years since she last wore the dress, and it fit perfectly, even after having kids!! I hope that I am that lucky whenever I have kids. And one of the girls is actually getting married soon, so it was a real bridal session with her!

I had so much fun with these girls! Thanks Amanda, Jeravae, and Ashley!

These are my favorite kinds of roses, the two-toned ones. They are so colorful and really match her personality!

Happy, laughing bride. I don’t feel like I’m doing my job right if I don’t get some genuine smiles and laughter.

So gorgeous, right? I was happy that the sun came out towards the end of the session so we could get some golden light in the images.

We found an amazing patch of wildflowers that resembled sunflowers. When I saw them I was so giddy and jumping up and down because I never see these in Vegas! At least my excitement made the bride laugh.

Does the dress looks like it’s never ending? Yes, she’s about 6 feet tall, the tallest bride I’ve ever photographed! Poor girl, she said she couldn’t find a dress long enough for her! But I don’t think the dress is too short, and plus, she looks stunning!!

I love the bride with the mountains in the background. It feels so serene.

Okay, who’s up for a real trash the dress session?! Contact me!

Tags: bridal sesison, bridals, Las Vegas portrait photographer, Las Vegas wedding photographer, Portraits
Posted in Lifestyle/Portraits, Weddings | 2 Comments »

Dry lake bed portrait shoot

July 5, 2011

I finally had some free time over the long weekend to process these pictures, and I am so happy to finally be able to show you! My friend Erin of Erin Hatch Photography organized this awesome shoot and brought along some amazing girls – Mariah, Denise, and Kamille. They aren’t professional models but they did such an phenomenal job that they could totally pass for models. And very stylish too! It was unusually cold that day, so a few girls had goosebumps and I felt so bad for them. But they really hung in there, and we had such a fun time. Each model had a very different, beautiful look and a different approach. It was fun to have so much variety shooting in one afternoon! Seriously, I can’t wait to go back to the dry lake bed!

Getting there was quite an adventure because it is off the beaten path. There are a few dry lake beds in town, but none of us had been to this particular one before, and there are no road signs directing you where to go. And we were so far out of town we didn’t have reception, so I couldn’t look it up on Google maps. At one point, we took a wrong turn and ended up off-roading it on a really bumpy dirt path. Luckily, I was riding in my friend Tirzah’s ginormous truck, which handled the terrain quite well.

This is a close up of the dry lake bed. It’s a very interesting texture!

You can see quite a few people go off roading here, and it was impossible to find a perfect patch without any tire marks. So I made it part of the photo!

The light at the dry lake bed is stunning combined with the silhouette of the mountains. There were a few guys riding dirt bikes all around us, and you can see the dust that they created in the background. It makes for a neat effect.

Denise’s tropical dress almost made me feel I was shooting on the beaches of Miami! So pretty!

Yes, Kamille’s eyes are really that color, no Photoshop! They are piercing blue!

I love these pictures. Kamille did an amazing job putting together her wardrobe, hair, and makeup and bringing it all together.

More pictures are on my Facebook fan page!

Tags: desert, dry lake bed, Las Vegas portrait photographer, Portraits
Posted in Lifestyle/Portraits | 2 Comments »

Portraits at Lake Las Vegas

April 10, 2011

Kristin was looking to get some updated headshots for her modeling portfolio, and as she was describing to me what she wanted, I thought Lake Las Vegas would be a great place for some environmental headshots. She’s a Vegas local but has never been to Lake Las Vegas, so I’m glad she trusted me to choose the location. The session turned out great, and she ended up loving the location. We had gorgeous spring weather even in February! I’ll have to add a caveat though–it did snow in Las Vegas yesterday, which is extremely unusual! Other than some freak occurrences, I have been enjoying the weather here so far and the sunny days (but ask me again in 6 months after I’ve lived through a Vegas summer!). I absolutely love that it’s sunny here almost every day, which never happens on the East Coast!

Lake Las Vegas is beautiful and I ran into several photographers while shooting there. I really like the little Italian inspired village there! It is a great location for weddings as there are several high end hotels with beautiful views of the lake.

I love Kristin’s amazing green eyes!

Lake Las Vegas has really nice manicured grass. It’s rare to see grass in the desert!

In the background is the cute little Italian village.

Tags: headshots, Lake Las Vegas, Portraits
Posted in Lifestyle/Portraits | 1 Comment »

Portraits in the park :: headshot session

March 22, 2011

My friend and fellow Las Vegas wedding photographer Chelsy of Cardin Creative needed some headshots for her web presence, so she asked me to take a few pics of her. Chelsy’s one of the first photographers that I met in the area and not to mention that she’s really friendly and has been super helpful in getting me settled in Las Vegas. Of course I’d take her pics! I am so touched and honored that she asked me out of all her photographer friends.

We picked a gorgeous afternoon to take pictures at Exploration Peak Park. It’s a cool park that has a little bit of everything: a big playground for the kids, green grass for picnics and frisbee, and a hiking trail that goes up a hill and offers great views of the city. It was very crowded when we went since the weather was so nice, but the park is so big that we were able to find a few empty spots to ourselves.

Chelsy felt strange being in front of the camera for once since she usually is the one taking them, but the camera loves her!

I like shooting in the late afternoon because you get amazing light like this that’s not too harsh!

I love this pic of Chelsy! Her eyes just shine!

Chelsy blogged her pictures already, so head over to her blog to learn a bit more about her!

Tags: Exploration Peak Park, headshots, Las Vegas headshot photographer, Las Vegas portrait photographer, Portraits
Posted in Lifestyle/Portraits | No Comments »

Lighting workshop

April 19, 2010

A few weeks ago, I attended an awesome lighting workshop taught by James Frederico of the The Feds Studio. He demystified flash photography for us and laid out what kinds of lighting equipment we need to take our photography to the next level. The workshop lasted all day but the hours just flew by! I highly recommend it, and it’s a really good workshop if you’ve never taken your flash off your camera before. Now I really want to buy some lighting equipment and play with it but that will have to wait.

James explaining what equipment we need to “make it work.”

We had a model who was really, really nice in letting us blind her with our flashes repeatedly! My eyes hurt after the workshop, so I can just imagine how bad hers felt!

Here’s a shot of what it looks like when you gel your flash. The background is ultra blue but the model looks completely normal.

Side lighting.

A behind the scenes look of the workshop. We were only using one flash to light up the scene. Here’s Jaclyn Lombardo in action.

Tags: lighting, off camera flash, Portraits, workshop
Posted in Photography | 2 Comments »

Olivia

November 17, 2009

I wanted to post this session before I leave tomorrow for my upcoming trip DC and Chicago (contact me if you want a shoot while I’m in town!). I was super excited to do a shoot with Olivia, who is studying theater arts to become an actress. It was raining literally all weekend, but the rain stopped and the sun came out right when I was leaving my house for the session. To top it all off, it was warm too! So I knew this shoot was going to be awesome! We ended up walking around Brookline and found some cool places to shoot! I had so much fun editing these pics, that I had such a hard time picking out which ones to show you! If you want to see all the photos, head over here.

Isn’t Olivia gorgeous?! I am so jealous of her long eyelashes!