Caroline Tran Photographer – Los Angeles Wedding Photography bio picture

about the artist

I love having fun, learning new things, making people smile, and telling stories. I love seeing life through fun angles. I enjoy inspiring others as well as being inspired by others. I have the most supportive husband, best friend, and partner. We enjoy hiking, traveling, our furry kids, snowboarding, weddings, and of course, photography.

I love weddings.  Weddings are filled with thoughtful details and emotions, and I love capturing those precious memories. I love telling vivid wedding stories. I put my heart into every photo, so you will see personality, new perspectives, a great story, and life in my photos.

I work unobtrusively, using my mix of photojournalism, candid, and fine-art portraiture style.  I document those important moments with the most interesting, truthful and beautiful perspective.  I understand how much time and thought is put into each wedding - that’s why it is so important to me that you to experience your big day all over again every time you see your pictures.

The opportunity to capture your memories and tell the story of such a special day is truly an honor to me. I enjoy developing relationships with each couple, which allows me to make each set truly unique & memorable.

This blog is where I will update my most recent photos along with random bits from my life. It is a casual place to get to know each other. If there are specific photos you want to see more of, you can click on the categories at the top to see photos of that category. I hope you find what you’re looking for here. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments!  I’d love to hear from you!

Travel welcomed!

Booking exclusively for 2010.

FYI, there is only one Saturday left for each April, May, and September.

You can also visit me at:

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My portfolio

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Project Wedding vendor reviews

santa monica maternity photography | tweeny + josh

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I’m in Vegas this week for WPPI, but had to make sure I scheduled a new post for you all!  Nikon is sponsoring my trip, so huge shout out to Nikon!  Check back next week for photos from the week of fun, inspiration, & learning.  In the meantime, I wanted to leave you with this adorable maternity shoot!  Tweeny is the genius behind The Flower Lab.  She did the flowers for a beautiful wedding I shot back in September -  I’m so behind on blogging that I haven’t even blogged that wedding yet!   We wanted to do something fun for Tweeny’s maternity shoot, so I thought of a retro/pin-up inspired shoot.  She found this adorable polka-dot bikini!

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Theresa at TH Makeup & Design did her flawless makeup & super cute hair.

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That blanket she’s sitting on was made for Josh by his grandmother.

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These two have been together since high school – they have been together for half their lives!  Isn’t that so incredible?  You can really see how in tuned they are to each other, like completing each other’s sentences and talking so much alike – it’s really like talking to one person.  It’s amazing to witness their strong connection.

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They have lived all over the country together, but have settled in LA by the beach for the past 3 years.  It was only appropriate to document this milestone on the beach.

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Tweeny & Josh, congrats on the start of this new chapter in your lives!  I look forward to documenting the arrival & growth of baby Josh!  xoxo

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san francisco engagement photography | jamie + simon

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I have my blogs lined up for the next month, so stay tuned for some goodness!  This session was special to me for several reasons.  The first is that Jamie and Simon hired me without ever meeting me.  I don’t even have the words to express the honor I feel to be trusted in documenting their love.  We had been corresponding through email and planned this whole shoot via email.  There was terrible rain in the forecast.  It had been raining for the past 10 days straight and was supposed to rain for another 2 days before taking a short break.  We decided to make the most of it by getting umbrellas and boots.  It then occurred to me that I may not have enough hands to hold an umbrella and change lenses.  I put out a request for some assistance and through the many requests I received, I saw a familiar name – a former student of mine!  She’s attending college in San Francisco now and came out to help.  She brought along another former student of mine.  It was such an amazing feeling to see them all grown up.  So mature… like my colleagues now!  I can’t believe how much they have grown – it then occurred to me that I have also grown.  I suck with words, but it was really cool having my former students come along on this shoot.

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Jamie and Simon are super adorable.  From the moment they picked me up from my hotel, the conversation was non-stop.  I felt as if we’ve known each other all along!  We went to the shoot at the Ferry Building.  We figured if it rained, we would at least have an indoor backup.  Luckily, the clouds decided to part for the day!

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I love how much fun they have together and I love Jamie’s laugh and smile.

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I’m so happy that the sun came out.  I know cloudy days give you perfect (aka safe) exposures, but you can do really interesting things with the sun.

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Jamie had went all over town looking for umbrellas, so even though it didn’t rain, we had some fun with it… wait until you see the last image on here.

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I just love San Francisco.  Such amazing light and beautiful scenes.  I found inspiration in every direction I looked.

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And one of my favorite shadow photos.  I giggled when I took this shot.  They look like jelly fish to me…

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Can’t wait for their San Francisco wedding in a few months!!

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stanford wedding photography | julie + andrew

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Before you do anything else, go to Green Wedding Shoes and vote for the inspiration that you’d like to see us turn into reality!  Today’s the last day!

Last week, I shared with you Julie & Andrews cute engagement photos.  I figure I might as well follow up with their wedding.  I have so many weddings and engagement sessions in queue to blog that I don’t know where to begin.  I did want to share this winter wedding before winter was over though!  They got married at the beautiful Stanford Memorial Church, which I thought was so meaningful because  Andrew is a Stanford Alumni.  It was a beautiful rainy December day.  The air was so crisp and clean, and the sun made intermittent appearances between the clouds.  We even saw a rainbow!

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I loved that Julie went with pearls for the bridesmaids.  So classy & elegant.  This whole wedding was so perfect!  Everything said winter elegance.

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The deep red florals set the winter tone so elegantly, without being so holiday-ish.

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With the short cocktail hour and the travel that is required in between ceremony & reception, we planned for a first look.  Aren’t they just so cute??

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Then we were off to the Stanford campus.  The campus is so beautiful, and the church is amazing!  Check out the crazy cloudy/rainy/sunny day:

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The architecture there is filled with so many gorgeous details!

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And I love Andrew’s very formal tux.  It’s such the perfect compliment to the whole winter elegance.

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Their entire attire just looked so good together.  From the colors to the style.

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They also had a super fun wedding party!

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Then it was time to hide before guests arrive.  The ladies all shared a prayer together.

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I love all the details of the church.  It’s so beautiful!

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And they’re married!!  I think it’s symbolic that the sun came out after they were pronounced husband and wife, and a rainbow appeared:

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And you know me and sun!  I had to take advantage of the few sun flares I was able to get that day:

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And then we were off to the reception!

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I love the light coming through the “limo”.   Isn’t it just amazing!  Oh what I would give for light like this all the time.

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Julie and Andrew had a traditional Korean ceremony called a Paebeak.

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They dressed in their traditional attire called a hambok and bowed to their elders.  Their elders then threw walnuts & jujubees at them and how many they catch says how many daughters & sons they’ll have.  I do think it’s funny that the much larger (and easier to catch) walnuts symbolizes sons.  :)

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This next sequence cracked all of us up so hard…

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So the story (narrated by the woman who was conducting this ceremony) goes a little something like this.  The first night together as husband and wife can be awkward, so they should share a drink to ease the nerves.  Then he pretends to remove her hat to symbolize him undressing her for the first time:

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It was so cute & funny!  Then he gives her a piggyback ride to show that he can support her.  Super cute and fun!

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At the end of the night, guests were sent home with pretty ornaments.

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Congrats Julie & Andrew on a super cute & fun wedding!

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vote!

You may remember the love shoot I did for Jen of Green Wedding Shoes and the contest that we were running for a free stylized shoot from us. Well, after going over hundreds of awesome submissions, we finally picked our finalist! Go here to vote!  We’re really excited about the 4 finalist!  I want to know which of the 4 you would like us to turn into reality!  Click on the photo below to vote!

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los angeles downtown engagement photos | julie + andrew

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Julie and I used to work together.  She’s an amazing person and one of the people who I am so grateful to have in my life.  I remember when I first met her, she was single.  Then suddenly one day, she starts talking about this guy that she met and starts asking me about weddings.  All of us were so excited that she had met someone, but was also surprised to hear the wedding plans take off.  They weren’t engaged yet or anything, but they instantly knew that they had met the one.  I knew exactly where she was coming from through because Jonathan and I were the same way – it was love at first sight.  A year or so later, he surprised her at LACMA with rose petals scattered in the shape of a heart, right in the middle of the lampposts and had a barbershop quartet there singing.  He got down on one knee and popped the question.  The photo above pretty much sums up her answer.

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For their engagement session, we went to the historic Bradbury building in downtown LA.  Unfortunately, you do need a permit to shoot there and I think it’s $500/day.  We just ran in the lobby and snapped a few shots and left.  It’s so beautiful in there!  I wish we could explore the rest of the building!

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Aren’t they just so cute & happy?  This was taken before the holidays, so I love the subtle holiday feel to this entire shoot.  It doesn’t look like Christmas, but I can feel the holiday spirit every time I look at these.

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We then went to their friend’s house down the street to change.  We jumped up on their rooftop for a few shots.  I love the view of the city!

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Above is one of my favorite shot of them.  A candid moment as she held on to him for balance as they walked around the rooftop.  They were about to walk up some stairs and I got their attention.  I love the colors.

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I could just sit and enjoy the view all day.  I also love this next photo:

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I want a garden on the rooftop!

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We then headed to LACMA where Andrew popped the question.  It was so cute to see how giddy she was to be back at the spot!

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And of course the lampposts is really cool too.  I love the below right one with all the bokeh.

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And something I haven’t done for awhile, but so glad I did again:

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Julie & Andrew, I love you two.  Never stop having fun together and continue to support each other.  I look forward to seeing little munchkins from you two!

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