Last updated August 18

Rules:

1. Do not ask for more recent photos. My focus here is to complete the collection of photos already taken. These requests make me want to stop posting. Depending on my mood, I'll either delete the comment, ban the user, set commenting off, or just stop posting to Flickr.

2. Keep comments clean. Comments focusing on body parts aren't really appreciated.

Note on usage: My photos may be downloaded for personal use, for instance, to be used as a wallpaper. They may not be posted on the internet without permission.

Nearly all photos (except some wedding photos) here are either taken by myself, Mei, or our cat.

(kidding about the cat)

Here's a list of which photos were not taken by me:

1. SanSan studio portraits. They are in this album.

2. Wedding photos. No, I wasn't using my camera on my wedding day. :)

3. Photos of Mei dated earlier than 2002.

4. Mei's "Self Shots" (see album) and selfies were taken by Mei.

The rest, unless noted on the image, were taken by me (Chris)

Viewing

There are many different ways to view these photos. The typical way to view them is to view the photostream sorted by upload date. If you want my curated daily view that's the way to view our photos. However, if you only want to see the best photos, take a look at the most popular view below or the 500+ Faves album.

faves and comments (and notes)

I'm a sucker for faves and comments. Your faves and comments really do inspire and motivate me to continue updating, perfecting, and growing this gallery. Without them, I'll certainly get bored and go do something else.

It's all about the photography

We are not interested in forming any kind of relationships other than photography related friendship. This is about sharing our photography and enjoying the photography of others. This is the amateur photographer's site, sharing the beauty of his wife and model as many other photographers share the beauty of their models here. As with those professional model photographers, there is a separation between the model and the photos of the model being shared here. This also makes this site more acceptable to other photographers who can truthfully state they are just appreciating the work from another photographer.

Age of Photos

You can find the year taken in at least three locations on most photo pages, including the exif. There are albums by year ('04, '05, '06, '07, '08, '09...'17) so you can see the more recent photos of Mei in those albums if you wish. I do see complaints about posting older photos but I have 3 responses to that.

1. There are 47 portraits of Mei from 2018 and 66 from 2017. How many portraits from this year do you have on your stream?

2. If you took these photos, would you decide not to post them because of when they were taken? My most faved image is from 2017. My 2nd most faved image is from 2004.

3. Really, the age of a photo should be irrelevant to your appreciation of the photo.

Some statistics

-Most views in one day: 2.5+ Million (most likely a bug contributed to that)

-4500+ comments

-Chosen for group cover photo 20+ times. See the Group Cover album.

-Most common search term used to find our photos: Wife

Bio

Mei (Pronounce like the month of May) and I are busy professionals. Mei is a clinical pharmacist and I'm a mechanical engineer. We have one awesome, amazing son named Aiden and a cat named Sparkles.

Mei loves to be the subject in my photos and I love capturing her beauty. Soon after we met, we decided to continue with the photos that helped us get through our long distance relationship but we wanted to make them more polished and creative. Unfortunately, that mostly went downhill when our son was born and other priorities got in the way so we haven't found much time for our modeling sessions lately. Perhaps that will change.

Mei is originally from Northeastern China in Liaoning Province, she is a city girl and the lone child of two smart and still happily married parents with professional backgrounds similar to our own. She came to the US for higher education and that's when we met.

I'm an amateur photographer and I'm fully aware that my capabilities are no match for many of the master portrait photographers here and I am taking the time to view and admire and learn from their work as well. However, the intimate relationship I have with my model has allowed me to capture some very natural portraits. We put some effort into these photos and I hope that shows. I was often asking Mei, "haven't we already done that before? I want to do something a little different." So we had to think of something to make this group of photos a little different than the last.

We took many of these photos in 2004-2005. We shared them on PBase and we both enjoyed the positive reactions. Unfortunately, there were also many negative reactions and too much discussion about personal details, particularly among the Chinese-American online community, and they dampened our enthusiasm to both take and share them.

I think time has reduced our vulnerability and so I feel more confident about the prospect of these photos reaching some level of popularity. They may not be new but they are our work and I want to share them. So I've become a real Flickr participant and figured out what makes it tick which of course has increased the exposure of our photos. I also am sharing a wider range of photos and presenting them better than I did in the past.

Enjoy our photos and I look forward to all comments and questions. I will try to stay more active here than I have in the past. Unfortunately, I may not be able to answer all of the mails though.

Other Stuff

In general, I don't accept invites to groups that I don't have access to.

Also a note on comments, notes, and flickr mail. Please keep them in the safe zone. I realize that I am posting some photos that can be considered "sexy" and a bit revealing but for the most part these photos are taken in public places and are considered safe by Flickr and American standards. Comments/notes that cross the line from sexy to sexual or that I think are too crass or too vague will probably be removed. Don't be offended if your comment is removed, it's nothing personal. If, however, the tone of your comments as a whole are disrespectful, you may be blocked but I'll probably send a flickr mail and give you a 2nd chance to follow our rules because I understand different cultures have different norms. I will delete comments from groups that have broken image links. I will also delete comments about dates because I've covered that here and if that's not good enough for you then tough luck.