California Photo Dreams

Thank you Val for your beautiful work! We loved all of our pictures. Thank you for guiding us and for being so sweet during our wedding. We couldn't have asked for a better photographer!!! Rob & I are very happy with all of our pictures!!!
Mar 22nd, 2015

Val was an amazing photographer! He really captured the whole day. He was also a real professional without being intrusive and captured all the natural moments. I didn't want to feel like I was posing for pictures... I wanted everything to be natural and real, and Val understood that.
Feb 15th, 2014

Beautiful pictures, great photographer - very professional. He shot our wedding in Chicago and we were very pleased with the outcome. He is very creative and has great ideas. We look forward to work with him again. We would recommend him to anyone for portraits, weddings and parties. Milan and Iza
Jan 1st, 2014

Finding the perfect photographer for our wedding was one of the challenging tasks. Both my husband and I were meeting with bunch of different photographers but none of them clicked. A friend of mine recommended Val after seeing his photo exhibit from a cultural event at Balboa Park in San Diego. After meeting three other photographers, the same day that I met Val, he was an absolute delight. Where other photographers talked about themselves and showing tons of their previous work (each with very similar shots), discussing picture sizes, quantities, fees and other additional extras I should get at an additional charge and the timetable how they prefer to take pictures throughout the event, Val was focusing on getting to know us as a couple, asking how we have envisioned our special day and we spent a good hour discussing the theme alone. Our wedding had a fairy tale theme where all guests were dressed in their favorite fairy tale character and Val was genuinely excited and supportive of it. He came up with some amazing photo shoot ideas to capture the moments. I am an extremely difficult person to photograph - a "photographer's nightmare" - uptight, self-conscious with closing my eyes the moment one presses the button and asking "how's my hair?" for every single picture, Val managed to take and retake necessary pictures and after our "newly wed photo-shoot" I didn't even notice Val taking pictures anymore. He blended with the environment and was almost invisible throughout the event. He was able to capture some amazing details without disrupting the flow or asking people to move, and when I asked him to capture a certain scene he did it right away. We were also looking for a videographer that would capture at least some parts of the wedding - we were planning to play bunch of games, surprise entrance of the evil queen during the ceremony, etc. but I didn't like the filming styles from the ones that I met and they were overly overpriced! During the wedding I asked Val to video record a part where we played games and he took it to the whole different level and created an amazing 10 minutes video with highlights of the whole day and all that for no additional charge! In addition, he designed a beautiful canvas painting/print that I can't even begin to describe (check out his webpage!) we hang it in our living-room and it is incredible! Val has an amazing eye for even the smallest details and keeps calm through pretty much anything - from excited and screaming bridesmaids, demanding family members and crying little children to dropping parts of his equipment into the lake (there were some unexpected winds at the lake during our photo shoot). We highly recommend Val and plan on using his services for every possible occasion!
Dec 27th, 2013