Duende Photo Wedding Photography

Ken was our photographer for our SF City Hall wedding and he was great! My fiance and I are from out of town and I was anxious about how our session would go but Ken was very responsive and even made time to speak with me on the phone. After our call, I decided to book with Ken. I could tell he was very knowledgeable about the procedures at SF City Hall and that we would be in good hands.

Just as I expected, the day of our wedding everything went so smoothly. Ken captured memorable moments during our ceremony and he was very familiar with the layout of City Hall and was able to direct us to different locations. My fiance and I aren't the most comfortable in front of the camera but he gave us pointers and helped us relax and enjoy the experience. We loved our photos and highly recommend booking with Ken!

A belated but very big "THANK YOU!" to Brady and Ken of Duende Photo for their extraordinary expertise and professionalism in capturing our Napa Valley wedding July 2017. If I could reach through the yelp screen and grab you by the collar I would say "you're in the best hands with Duende. Period." We searched far and wide for innovative, evocative risk takers who would snap the expressions, energy and emotions of the day more than the usual details.

We wanted rebelliousness and artistry not cookie cutter standards. Duende far exceeded our expectations, were incredible collaborators and I only wish the day could have lasted longer so we could have worked with them even more. We can't recommend them highly enough. Fans for life.

DuendePhoto was one of the best experiences of our wedding day. With so much going on, I don't think I'll ever forget the care and love that Brady, Ken, and Anne provided for us on our big day. Something really important to note is that they spend a lot of time in aspects outside of snapping the shot with their camera. So much planning and care goes into every little placement of our hands, angles of our feet, tilt of our face, how much of a smile, how our are shoulders postured, etc.

This care and level of attention to detail should be pointed out because it sets this team apart from other photographers. Before each shot, Ken, Brady, and Anne were very specific and knowledgeable of how to set us up. I don't recall any shot being taken without one of them personally coming up to us and adjusting our clothes, hair, veil, feet, hand, face, etc.

I appreciated this because I'm not a model and being guided made me feel more at ease that these shots will be solid. Editing, lighting, and posing was so specific that when we got our photos back, I truly believe this resulted in a higher percentage of flawless shots. Photography is such an important part of capturing the finest moments on such a special day that we knew we wanted to have absolutely no regrets in this area.

While we can't compare against other photographers, I can only compare my reaction to my friends and family. My husband and I constantly receive comments and compliments on our photos from people who did not even attend our wedding but saw the photos through social media. Our wedding coordinator approached us afterward and commended us on how hard working and professional our photographers were.

The vendor for our photobooth told us beforehand that he had been at an event with our photographers before and advised that we had done a great job on photographer selection. So much validation was given to us not just from our own point of view. Their portfolio and award winning reputation speaks for itself in how artistic and breath taking the photos will be, but combine that with their genuine and sincere personalities and you are in the best hands.

Ken is amazing! He was our San Francisco City Hall Wedding Photographer. He took beautiful photos and edited and sent them back to us within 4 weeks of our wedding (so fast!). He was very responsive over email & on the phone, and helped us figure out which photos we should focus on. Ken took care of everything! We didn't think about photos at all until the last minute, but Ken just took care of everything.

What a life saver. He also helped us figure out the schedule of events (he knew how long each group photo would take, etc). We only had the city hall booked for 2 hrs (9am-11am on a Saturday), and we did our rehearsal for the first time from 9am-10am, before the real ceremony at 10am-11am. :) In addition to taking great photos during the whole rehearsal & ceremony, Ken also gave tons of advice to the bridesmaids and groomsmen on how to pose, stand, walk, hold our hands, etc.

He made the ceremony and rehearsal go way more smoothly too! We didn't have a wedding planner, and Ken took on some of that role on the day-of, unasked. He was very polite about his suggestions too, he didn't impose. We were very happy to have his advice, since he was so experienced with weddings. We had planned to spend most of our post-ceremony time doing group photos, but somehow Ken took all the group photos very quickly (and the photos turned out great!) and also suggested that we do a quick couples (just bride & groom) shoots all over the city hall.

We didn't even think we'd have time for that, and we're so happy Ken suggested we do it. I would definitely recommend Ken for any wedding, especially in the city hall. He knows the place so well - he knows where all the best spots are for photographs, and he really understands the lighting. Very very happy with the photos he took :).

Terrific pictures and amazing experience working with Ken. Our wedding in November 2016 was held at the San Francisco City Hall and Ken knows the venue well. He was extremely helpful in guiding us through the process and in addition has a great sense of artistry in posing both ourselves and the wedding party. His spontaneity and creativity made for some brilliant shots and provided a sense of fun as well. Very reasonably priced too!

My husband and I hired Ken to do our wedding at City Hall in San Fransisco. He did the most amazing job. He was like a tour guide through the whirlwind that is a ceremony at City Hall. He not only directed us where to go, but our guests as well. He was patient with all of our group photos. He listened to everything I was looking for in our pictures.

He new how to pose us so that we looked our best. He new all the great locations to take pictures inside city hall. He was flexible when our appointment had to be moved from 3:30 to 3:00 and still gave us that extra half our of photo time. He even gave us a ride to our reception. While taking the photos he would stop and show us the pictures so that we knew if they looked good or he'd show us how to angel ourselves to better.

I haven't seen the finished photos yet but I have every confidence that they will be perfection. I would recommended Ken to anyone who wants to look and feel like a movie star. He really out did himself!

It was a challenge for me as the mother of bride to find out how to post a review on Yelp. Here I am! I did just because I would like to share the great experience I had with this talented couple before and during my daughter's wedding. If you are looking for a great destination wedding photographers, in or even outside of the California, they are the one.

I cannot tell enough how professional, organized and patience they were pre and during the wedding, yet very fun, friendly and joyful to work with. The respectful relation between Ken and Brady was a plus. What made their work so invaluable and unique was not only the amount of time they spent working on their project, but also the ability of catching the moments.

They invited bride and groom prior to the wedding to get to know them better; they visited the wedding location to find out the beautiful and secretive corners and managing the time frame for different sets of pictures. I have not seen the final pictures yet (will come back for further feedback), but am sure, my daughter and son in law, Ritz Carlton, , and myself will be very grateful of this couples' hard work. Thank you M.Tayarani

My husband and I got married on 10/2/15 on the Peninsula. We have not yet received our photos back from Ken, but I will say that he was amazing on the day of our wedding. As the bride, I did not even notice he was present at the ceremony. He moved seamlessly throughout the event. He was a champ at organizing our family for group photos and he was absolutely FUN to work with when we did our bride and groom photos.

I would recommend hiring him again in an instant to anyone. Professional, easy-going, fun and just an absolute pleasure to be around. Absolutely tremendous! I am sure I will be back to rave about our photos once we get them. We just know that they are going to turn out amazing. Thanks Ken! -Jonelle & Alistair

My husband and I were married in Yosemite on July 8, 2015. at 11:30 (am). I have to say, I'm not a bubbly person.nor am I a wedding person (I never fix my hair and hate makeup). So, with that being said, I was very nervous about working with two women taking pictures all day (I don't like having my picture taken either). My husband is the same way. HOWEVER.Brady and Ann were extremely professional and within minutes I was completely at ease with both of them.

By the time the wedding and group pictures were over and we were about to caravan around the park, my husband told them to hop in the truck and just ride with us. So, needless to say, we were super excited that our personalities meshed so well! By the end of the day, we really didn't want to leave them! We had so much fun the entire day! They took us all over the park and to places we hadn't been to yet.

And even though it rained on us, she had an extra umbrella (good thing because I forgot mine) and she continued taking pictures. If you're getting married in Yosemite, you should definitely use Ken and Brady! I requested one specific picture that I saw on their website (the black and white photo with the couple walking in a meadow in front of Half Dome), and Brady got it.perfectly!

I can't express how pleased I am with their professionalism AND the quality of the photos. Brady knows and loves Yosemite, and she did a great job working with the natural lighting and clouds. Oh! And, since I'm in Alabama, we communicated primarily through email.which was also a pleasant experience. I could tell through her emails that she was very professional because she didn't use an excessive amount of exclamation marks or "emojis". I know I haven't hit every question you might have, so feel free to contact me and I'll try my best to answer your question(s)!

Brady and Ken were a delight to work with and their photos were beautiful and captured many special moments! My husband and I were married at Fort Mason in September, so the photographers had to juggle the outdoor lighting changes with the moving cloud cover and the various rooms indoors. They were very professional and knew how to handle a large crowd of 130 people including several hyperactive ring bearers, lol. Brady and Ken are very devoted to their photography as a profession and art!

My husband and I recently tied the knot on January 30 at San Francisco city hall. It was a small intimate wedding and I knew that photos were very important to us. After some researching I emailed Ken and he got back to me that very same day. Very impressive! Ken and I spoke before my wedding date and he made it all about us. He asked about my husband, kids, guests which made me feel that he really wanted to make sure that the day would be special for the two of us.

The day of the wedding he made us feel very comfortable which I truly loved. He was very professional and knew exactly were to take us for the best pictures. My husband and I love all the pictures and we are now having such a problem deciding which ones we want to put up in our house. Thank you Ken for being there on such a special day.

Where to even begin? Ken is hands down such a wonderful person in general and a phenomenal photographer! Hands down made our city hall experience wonderful! If I could do it all over again I would choose Ken again. He was just so down to earth and extremely patient with all my family that joined us on our special city hall day! Truly, cannot go wrong with Ken!

It is really hard to add anything to the accolades already written by others on this thread, which are all true. Perhaps I'll add that I was really nervous about having a complete stranger at our most intimate moment, mortified looking at current photography trends, and websites of photographers that friends recommended (sorry, friends). Then my friend Katie said she found Duende Photo online - one call later, I just knew Ken and Brady were IT.

I really appreciated that Ken and Brady did not rush to sell themselves to us, but rather offered an honest dialogue about what wedding photography entails, and wanted to be sure that they were the right match. And boy, were they. Flexible, professional, charming people. Not only were we not nervous, but Ken even involved our nephews in playing photographers, which made it so lovely.

The best part: stunning, stunning photographs. Pretty much the best photographs of me that anyone has ever taken. Super pro, timely delivery, too - and just to demonstrate what kind of people we are dealing with: a year later I ran into Ken and Brady and mentioned that I was struggling with posting some photos online - they offered to help! The tagline for this couple & company: "Photography and Beyond"

My wedding was held at Stanford University on June 21 of this year and Duende photo was the easiest decision of all my vendors to make. Besides great photography skills, I wanted my photographers to be awesome people since I was going to be spending my entire wedding day with them. It was so easy to genuinely laugh, smile, and kiss in front of the camera when I felt comfortable with them as people and the same went for my husband who is generally more shy than me (you wouldn't know it from the pictures).

I could see from the very first meeting how passionate Ken and Brady are about photography. Their work starts months before the wedding to ensure that the photos aren't just generic wedding day photos but reflect the personality of the couple and the wedding party. When I told them that my husband and I met through the game of basketball and that many of the wedding party were players or coaches, they turned giddy and immediately started to plan unique photo shots incorporating basketball.

I just received the photos a couple days ago and could not be happier with them. It will be a tall task to narrow them down to fit into my album. I 100% recommend Ken and Brady at Duende photo for any type of photo service and if I am ever in the Bay Area again and in need of some photography I won't hesitate to hire them again.

My partner and I got engaged at the end of February. I had a simple proposal plan of taking her out to San Francisco's iconic Pier 7, where I would drop down on one knee and try to fool her into thinking that a lifetime with me really wouldn't be that bad. Fortunately, the delightful Duende duo of Ken and Brady were on hand to beautifully capture every single moment (not to mention from every single angle) for eternity.

This alone would've been worth five stars. But what really puts Ken and Brady over the top is their professionalism and desire to go above and beyond! I had first contacted Brady back in December to discuss this surprise proposal idea. We soon met in person, signed off on a contract, and then planned out every single detail of how they would hide, where I would drop to one knee, which direction I should face, what exact time the sun would be setting, what to do in the event of an emergency (like an idiot tourist suddenly blocking line of sight), etc.

Leading up to the big proposal, I was understandably a trainwreck of nerves, but absolutely none of this was due to worrying about the photographers possibly dropping the ball. But then mother nature decided to make things interesting. Even during the driest winter that we've had over the last godzillion years, it decides to dump rain on my parade. Thankfully, Ken and Brady had me prepared ahead of time with an oversized translucent umbrella, and were both willing to brave the wrath of our one-day typhoon season in order to get the perfect shot.

By sheer serendipity, the rain decided to stop just before we made our way onto the pier. By even sheerer serendipity, a schmuck like me got the most amazing person to say yes. As we were walking back towards Embarcadero as an engaged couple, Ken had a brilliant idea of posing us in front of some active F-Market trolleys. The results truly speak for themselves. Finally, one little insider secret for you Yelping lovebirds.

I had originally contacted a few different wedding photographers in hopes of shooting my proposal. Ken and Brady weren't just the photographers whose portfolio I most admired, but they were also the cheapest! So go and book them for your event before they come to their senses and jack up their prices. Keep in mind however that I am calling first dibs on DuendePhoto once we finalize our wedding date.

My fiance and I were married last week in SF city hall and used Ken as our photographer. He was amazing. Not only was he professional but very helpful with the entire process. We couldn't have chosen a better photographer. It was truly a great experience and if you are looking for truly great artistic photos then I highly recommend Ken and Duende photo. We are so happy with the finished product. Awesome work!

Having a wedding in Yosemite National Park is a truly wonderful and memorable experience. But it also presents a plethora of challenges, one of which is finding a photographer who not only has a wealth of experience, creative eye, palatable personality and superior technical skills, but of equal importance knows Yosemite intimately. We feel very fortunate that we were able to find someone who met all of those criteria.the husband and wife team of Ken Mendoza and Brady Thomas of DuendePhoto (aka Yosemite Wedding Photographers). Ken and Brady have been an absolute pleasure to work with, from our first meeting with them through the post-wedding photo review/ordering stage which is where we're currently at.

They produced a gorgeous collection of color and black and white images of our wedding which we absolutely love and which our family and friends cannot stop raving about. And the great thing about having two photographers is that every precious moment was captured and often from different angles, a feat the solo photographer simply can't accomplish.

On the service side of things, Ken and Brady are very responsive to emails and phone messages and they always go the extra mile to make you happy (I'll always have the mental image stuck in my head of Brady lying on her side in her nice clothes on that dusty, squirrel poop covered Ahwahnee Hotel patio on that brutally hot and humid June day taking a unique photo of our decorations).

We were also very grateful to Brady for providing us with her excellent "Prep List For Brides", a document she created from her own lessons learned when she was married in Yosemite and which included such useful tips as "for summer brides, apply insect repellant liberally before you get dressed". Ken and Brady's pricing is on the higher end compared to the other photographers on the Yosemite wedding vendor list, but one thing we learned after viewing the online portfolios of several wedding photographers is that you definitely get what you pay for.

If you insist on allocating a meager portion of your wedding budget on a photographer you're going to get crappy photos and you'll regret your decision for the rest of your life. We'd give 'em six stars if we could.

My fiance and I were on the fence about hiring a photographer for our city hall civil ceremony since we were eloping in Bali but we decided to several weeks before the date. We ended up chosing Ken because he is reasonable priced and we loved his portfolio. Ken made us feel really comfortable during the photo shoot and he captured great moments. He really enjoys what he does and it reflects in his work!

He has done a few shoots at city hall so he knew where the most picturesque backdrops were. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE LOVE LOVE the way my wedding photographs came out and I am so delighted that I can look back at it years from now! Our expectations were far exceeded and made our special day even more memorable!

Ken and Brady shot our wedding in June 2012. This review is far overdue as their work was first-rate. As anyone knows, when you are organizing a wedding, you are dealing with an unbelievable amount of details and you work with numerous vendors. Ken and Brady were far and away our best vendors. Their attention to detail, professionalism, and product value were all top notch.

We could not have hoped for anything better on our wedding day as far as the quality of shots we received.and we received thousands. Yes, thousands. The photos were very high in quality, artistic and unique. They actually listened to us and handled any request we had. Beyond that they used their experience to capture several unique photos that ultimately ended up being the highlight of our wedding album.

From the moment we made contact with Ken and Brady (we found them through yelp), they were straight forward and professional. They aren't focused on pricing, like others seem to be, rather, they are more focused on what our needs were. They tailored a package we both felt was fair and they absolutely delivered. Phone calls and emails were always promptly returned which, unfortunately, is a step up from so many other companies these days. And, even after we signed on the dotted line, they never took our business for granted by treating us any different. Ken and Brady were true professionals from day one and still are to this day.

When we were deciding on which photographers to choose for our wedding day, we realized we had a lot of needs. One issue we had was we didn't believe we had enough time to take the photos were really wanted without making our wedding guests wait around several hours for us. Utilizing their "day after" shoot was genius. It allowed us to relax (as much as we could during our wedding) on our wedding day and just enjoy ourselves.

The following Monday when we did our day after shoot, we had a blast. We probably ended up going on several hours longer than they had anticipated but you would never had known it from them. They were game to go wherever we were. I'd argue we have gotten more compliments from those pictures than the ones from our wedding! Truly amazing. Ken and Brady are the best and I would recommend them to anyone.