My husband will tell you that if there is any fault to be found in something that I will find it. So rarely do I find a place/vendor that I am truly satisfied with, but Apetura is one of the few. Below is what I experienced with Apertura/Ray Soemarsono...

1. We expect the same professionalism from the people we deal with that we have in our jobs. Ray fell nothing short of our expectations, he was courteous, prompt in responding, kept to his time commits, was trustworthy, and has proper attention to detail. Some of the things that I liked in Ray:
a. He scoped the places out ahead of time (we live in the Bay Area and he’s from LA)
b. He didn’t stop the 6 hour shoot to grab a bite of food or go to the bathroom (though I would be understanding of this one!) – I secretly think he intentionally doesn’t drink before a shoot for this very reason.
c. Though he is a smoker, he didn’t once have a cigarette break and when we found out that he was a smoker we said to go ahead, but he still didn’t. By the way, the ONLY way we could tell was that it came up in conversation otherwise it was unnoticeable.

2. Because the day was just the two of us, we stressed quite a bit on how imposing Ray would be - Julian had only spoken to him on the phone and via email prior to the day of. I am not exaggerating in saying that within the first hour I truly felt like Ray was family. He really is that genuine of a person. How he managed to balance giving Julian and I privacy when appropriate and yet somehow be participatory in the day still boggles my mind. It may not seem like a big deal at first glance, but it could have easily have turned out to be that he was a third wheel or too intrusive.

3. We had a few sentimental places that we wanted photos at, one was a 20 minute hike to the ocean and Ray laden with 3 cameras, crazy big lenses, and smokers' lungs, traipsed the whole way without complaint and managed to somehow stay fully focused such that amazing images were captured the whole way.

4. Julian and I hate having our picture taken. I think we have maybe 20 pictures total of each other – we are both ridiculously camera shy. Yet Ray somehow managed to help navigate us through our fears, cast it aside even. We both look back on that day and are amazed how comfortable Ray made us feel. The reason why we know it was due to Ray is that we are both back to being mortified of being photographed.

5. In all the people that we researched, his work, hands down, stands far above any that I’ve seen. We can’t begin to express our feelings about how the photos turned out, we just won’t do it justice. What we can say is that they are EXACTLY as we want the day to be remembered. Here is a sampling of what he did for us http://www.aperturaphoto.com/blog/2010/03/katherine-julian-san-francisco/

6. I was impressed by his consistency. He was just as dedicated and patient with the ordering of the album as he was in initial contract discussions. So many people nowadays let their service slide once orders have been placed. Not once did he fail in this respect and I’m sure I tried his patience! We had 20+ emails going back and forth for a special album that I wanted to surprise my husband with and he didn’t once complain, he took the time to discuss each and every idea that I had.

7. Though we had a few places we wanted pictures at, we tried not to put any other bounds on him. He has an amazing eye, I would suggest that you let Ray have artistic freedom with the photos and the album. You won’t be disappointed.
Ray really did help to make that day more special for us.

We can’t recommend him highly enough.