San Jose Pages
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based on 24 reviewsAddress
42A S 1st St
San Jose, Ca 95113
(408) 608-8758
Welcome to the San Jose Pages Directory.
42A S 1st St
San Jose, Ca 95113
(408) 608-8758
23 Comments
This review is wayyyy overdue but I know I owe it to Charles and all soon-to-be brides & grooms to sing praise for Charles Le photography.
Charles is an awesome photographer. He's patient, talented and most importantly, he captures the most amazing details and moments in his photos. We had the typical Vietnamese-American wedding which included a Vietnamese morning ceremony, an outdoor ceremony and a large reception. Charles was there the ENTIRE DAY (12+ hours!) and was as enthusiastic about the first shot as he was the last.
What I love most about the photos is that he managed to capture special moments that I would have surely missed as the hectic bride. Small details, my family and friends' priceless expressions...he got it all. He had the teaser shots up within days after the wedding, and the photos he picked out are still some of my favorites to this day.
The true testament to what a nice and professional guy he is occured AFTER the wedding. It took us an incredibly LONG time to choose all of the photos we wanted out of the 1000+ he took (totally because of us, not him!), but Charles had no problem extending our photo gallery multiple times. He's also going the extra mile to ensure we love our wedding album. We selected the photos today and I am genuinely excited to see the end result!
Bottom line, you can't beat the quality and pricing that you get from Charles. His rates are incredibly reasonable, he is amazingly talented and he'll do whatever he can to make you a happy customer. Thanks Charles!
My wife and I choose Charles after meeting with a few photog's. Flat out good guy and professional. He shot us for an engagement session and our wedding. I don't have allot to say (because I do not know the lingo) other than if you want someone that comes thru with every promise and shows up to every meeting and delivers a fantastic result, this is your man. He not only provides great shots but gives you peace of mind. Thank you Charles
Charles Le is really as good as it gets. He is crazy amazingly talented, and I would recommend him to any bride, couple, family, heck, the whole neighborhood! Within days if our wedding, he had the teasers up, and there are some serious shots in there! I would've been happy filling my whole album with just those. It doesn't end there though! Within two weeks, he had ALL the photos up and needless to say, my new hubby and I were SO happy with them. I can't stop looking at the photos without finding myself with a big stupid grin on my face. Him and his photos are the reasons why my head's still in the clouds. I blame his photos for my post-wedding euphoria.
The photos are really top-notch. He has an uncanny ability to make everyone in the photo happy looking even though underneath, your feet have blisters and you want to cry, you're hungry cause you haven't eaten, or you're tired because you've been up since before the crack of dawn. And even though he didn't have to, and I'm sure he woke up earlier than me to get to San Francisco from Fresno, and had another place to be that night, he STAYED longer than he was supposed to. That says to me that he is a SERIOUS photographer and wants the BEST for his clients. There is nothing better than someone who loves their work, and it shows.
And of course, I can't say enough how great a PERSON he is. He's so friendly and amazing. Something is to be said when he laughs at my jokes and jokes back hahaha...
So please, if you want someone who is simply just amazing, friendly, super multi-talented who does both candids and portraits so beautifully, PICK CHARLES LE!
Charles photographed our wedding this weekend, and we couldn't be happier. Our wedding was on Saturday, and he quickly uploaded over 100 teaser pictures by Monday night. There were so many amazing pictures that I'd be happy enough with just those!
I am normally not a fan of taking pictures, but Charles was able to take so many shots without me ever really realizing that pictures were being taken. We had an intimate ceremony and reception with those closest to us, and Charles really captured the closeness of everyone there and the emotions throughout the day. We highly recommend Charles for any event... we look forward to working with him again for future baby pics :)
Let me start by saying I'm a pretty serious hobby photographer, meaning I spend way too much money on cameras and too much time taking pictures. When looking for a wedding photographer, I checked out most of the websites of the higher rated photographers on Yelp, and Charles was the only on that I looked through every picture of each wedding. Why? Because each of his pictures stands up as a good photo, but the whole set says something more - it tells a story, captures a mood, it tells me who these people are, what it might have been like to be around them, to be at their wedding, to be at their reception. It's one thing to get one or two good shots at an event, or even a couple dozen -- which Charles does -- but when you see the body of his work, you feel the experience.
And honestly, I wasn't that excited about even having a wedding photographer, because, well, I take pictures, but I don't have a single album.
Charles delivered in spades. When we interviewed him, he was pretty low keyed - too low keyed, a little stiff and formal. At the wedding, he was appropriately low keyed - out of the way except when he needed to be, then he could step up and get the shot without disturbing the flow. He handled our group portraits with style, giving us both classic shots and fun ones. He captured our personalities, not just the bride and groom, but the mothers, fathers, brothers, in-laws, nephews and nieces. And that was the group work. At the church, he handled the cavernous church with aplomb (unlike some of the other photogs I've seen working there), and showed both the scale of the place, and the intimacy of our wedding, without making it look like a small wedding in big church (which, admittedly, it was). The walk from the church to the reception was fun, even my self-conscious bride was kept busy enough not to be embarrassed walking through downtown Los Gatos in full regalia with a photographer, make-up artist and hair stylist in tow.
By the time we got to the reception, we had more than enough good shots to fill an album, but Charles really stepped up to the plate and hit a home run. No embarrassing pictures of anyone, he either declined to take the "mouth full of food" shot, or tastefully edited it out. We have great pictures of everyone there, each shot a little masterpiece, and all of them combined into a tapestry. A lot of photographers will tell you they work photojournalistically, out of the way and only observing what happens, not causing a shot, just taking it. While that's good much of the time, Charles would sometimes ask us to hold it for a moment, or encourage a shot. Frankly, I would have enjoyed having Charles at our wedding even if he wasn't the photographer - by the end of the day, he was a friend.
Perhaps I'm being excessive, I'm sure not everyone will have such a great experience as we did, because frankly, I can't imagine how it could go better, but I can imagine how it could go worse. Someday, someone won't love Charles and his work. They're out there, people like that. But, as far as I'm concerned, I'd hire him again in a minute. I've recommended him in person several times, and will continue to do so.
I have to start out by saying that Charles is simply the best. He takes amazing photographs. There is a subtle beauty in all of the pictures; he has a great eye for what makes a good photograph. And he's super friendly! My husband and I are so happy with all our engagement session and wedding photographs. Also, all of my friends and family are so impressed by his work.
Like every bride, I wanted to be captured in the most flattering way possible on my wedding day. I always felt that I never photographed well but Charles was able to take *so* many beautiful pictures. I'm so glad that he was our photographer. He captured so many happy, lively, touching, powerful, and lovely moments of everybody on our wedding day.
We found Charles last year when we were searching for a wedding photographer. We had met with several other photographers, but found that we liked Charles the best. His talent, professionalism, friendliness, responsiveness, flexibility (some photographers refuse to take a certain kind of photograph), cost, and thoughtfulness were all winners for us.
He first shot our Engagement Session photographs at the Japanese Tea Garden and was amazing. He was excellent at coaching us through the shots, picking the location, joking around with us to get us to look casual/relax for the pictures, and overall was really fun to work with. We thought we would be nervous for some reason, but my husband and I actually enjoyed taking the pictures!
On our wedding day, Charles continued to work his magic. Punctual, friendly, lively, I remember him cracking jokes to help me to relax (hey, the wedding day can be stressful), directing poses to get the shots he wanted, taking awesome candid shots, blending well with the family and friends, and just taking beautiful photographs. He works alone but like a ninja he has an amazing skill at being where the action is and is able to get the desired picture. His candid shots of live action are so gorgeous and touching. His posed shots are beautiful and perfect. His body of work is so impressive. We just couldn't be happier with our photographs.
Also, our wedding album is gorgeous. I love love love it. We got the magazine style and the quality of the album, the layouts, the pictures, and everything about it is awesome.
Anyways, what was most important for me in a photographer was the ability to trust their work and with Charles I trusted his talent and skills 100%. When it comes to Charles Le, I just cannot recommend him enough.
Everyone loved our engagement and wedding photos and we do too! Charles does an extraordinary job of capturing all the right moments so that we were able to experience the moments we may have missed while we were soaking in the fact that it was our big day :)
From beginning the end, the experience of working with Charles was easy and enjoyable. We were able to customize a package that fitted our needs and had a blast working with him. For the price you pay and the time he spends working with you it was well worth it!
Maybe Charles was having a bad day, but the day he did our wedding, he seemed a little bit disconnected from everything going on. He made a few rude comments and many people came up to tell me he was disrespectful & demanding. He refused to listen to his clients and was angry that others were taking pictures as well (and verbally expressing it). We all felt that he was offensive, even the kids said he was "mean." I felt he took decent pictures, but nothing extraordinary. I just wish we could have had same great experience that everyone else did...
Top notch photos
Charles did such a beautiful job with our wedding pictures. Many people comment "who was your photographer" upon seeing our pictures, which makes me glow because I can relive our beautiful day whenever I want.
He was completely unobtrusive, and a pleasure to work with it was an excellent experience.
In the search for a wedding photographer I e-mailed all the top rated photographers in my area from yelp about 8 of them (then another 4 more from other sites).
I e-mailed them on Saturday morning, not really expecting anything back from most of them because they were probably doing weddings and probably generally busy. Well Charles replied really quickly along with a few other photographers.
Like I said I wasn't really expecting such a quick reply but I did reply with how I was excited to hear he was free for our date, though his prices were a little over what we wanted to spend. Then the weekend came and went and I got most of my other replies on Monday or Tuesday from other people. Well I was swamped at work and school so I just gave really quick replies and was mentally noting that I would get back to them on the weekend.
Then Charles e-mailed in the middle of the week, just the check up on me and said that if I had time he would like to meet me in person. No one else did that, so that was pretty impressive. I e-mailed him back thanking him but still didn't have time to schedule a meeting.
Well we couldn't decide on a Photog but Charles was out of our price range so we couldn't go with him. My FI really wanted to have engagement pictures done by Charles even though we couldn't have him for our wedding, though we could afford Charles engagement pictures. I thought I would humor him. I contacted Charles about the situation because I wanted to be up front with him, that we would like engagement pictures but we probably couldn't hire him for our wedding. Just in case he didn't want to do our engagement pictures knowing he couldn't do our wedding. I just wanted to be straight forward.
He was kind of enough to do our engagement pictures. We meet him on a Sunday to do them and he was really friendly in person and very personable. We did our engagement pictures in two locations (he picked them and they were great locations!). I brought some props with me that he never seen before but made them work. That was great.
He had the pictures back to us on the following Wednesday. Talk about quick! They were great pictures to boot. It makes me a little sad we can't afford him for our wedding (which I think was my FI's orginal plan to sucker me into wanting him but still we can't afford him). People we have shown them too are always impressed by them.
I just got some prints of my pictures this weekend and I'm very happy with them.
If we had a bigger budget I would totally go with Charles. I highly recommend him.