In front of their new home.  It’s over a  hundred years old!

I love their neighborhood!  No problem finding beautiful backgrounds.

This is my favorite.

One of the highlights of our U.S. trip was taking along our good friend, Mrs. Fukuda, and her son, Akira, to experience American Christmas.  Mrs. Fukuda was there at the birth of all three of our girls.  Her family and our family have spent countless meals together.  She is without a doubt a very special part of our lives.  And we continued to build great memories: caroling, Christmas Eve service, turkey and ham dinners, Christmas sweets, holiday shopping, opening Christmas presents in pajamas, etc.  The images below display Mrs. Fukuda and Akira’s bright and fun personalities.  You can also see the strong mother-son bond they have.  Mrs. Fukuda and Akira, thank you for your friendship.  I was honored and happy to capture the images below.

Their smiles are contagious!!

Anne’s younger brother, Dave, snuck in on some of the shots in his pajamas and had some fun with the Fukudas.

I got in some individual shots of Akira.

We also went to Virginia Beach  and Akira was able to see the Atlantic Ocean for the first time.

I was amazed at this feat of engineering.  The Great Wall just seems to go on forever, its walls disappearing into the horizon.  The Wall was built by the vision of its engineers along with the right tools.  And I think this sums up what it’s like to attend one of Scott’s workshops.  He gives you a vision and the tools needed to prosper in the photography business.  Just as the Wall seems to go on and on, Scott mentors and challenges us to see the potential and limitless possibilities before us as we build a career in photography.  I am looking forward to some more mentoring in 2010!

And I must be out of my mind for not saying this earlier.  Big, big, big props go to Jeremy Chan and his wife Zabrina Deng for organizing everything.  They worked so hard to give us a wonderful experience.  Thanks, Jeremy and Zabrina!  We are so thankful for you!  Check out their work on flickr.  I also want to thank the models (Yu-Cheng and Mei-Qian).  They braved the cold weather and worked hard to give us fantastic images.

Here’s Anwar helping me with my set up.  I learned a lot from him.

Enjoying a nice, relaxing dinner.

Tauran took this shot of me.  Thanks for the profile pic, T!  I appreciated Tauran sharing his insights.

And Chantal was very generous.  She gave me plenty of advice/coaching on setting up my images.

Chantal wondering if we will ever get to our destination.  It was a long trip from Badaling to central Beijing.

Paramilitary officers on duty inside the Forbidden City.

The walls just outside the Forbidden City.

Local Beijing resident.  I was happy to capture this image.  I realize that China is changing with the times but this image seems, to me, to symbolize China.

This image was my first lesson in off-camera lighting.  The vision for this image was created and inspired by Scott Robert Lim.

This image was also created and inspired by Scott Robert Lim.  It was a photoshoot on a double decker bus of all places!

The master at work.

This vintage Hong Kong diner was great!  So many shooting possibilities but the owner was a bit of a grump.  LOL!

The background for our last shooting session.  To my Japanese friends, notice the Yoshinoya; it’s taking over the world!  Ha ha ha!

This image was actually a test shot but I kinda like its moodiness and how it turned out.  What do you think?

And the best shot of the night goes to my roommate: The amazing and situational vegetarian….drumroll please…Anwar Torres!!!