Mike Pham Photography

My partner and I decided to travel to Hawaii with our newborn for the first time and wanted to do something special to remember our first family trip. A week before we left, I contacted Mike to see if he'd be available to do a family photoshoot. He was super responsive, and everything was set up within a couple days. He recommended a time in the afternoon to meet for "golden hour", but we were a bit apprehensive about the time due to our baby's sleep schedule. Mike was very understanding and said we could play it be ear as the day gets closer. The day before, we decided to meet in the morning instead, which Mike graciously accommodated.The photoshoot itself was a very pleasant and seamless experience. Mike was very friendly and made us feel at ease. Newborns are not always the most cooperative, which Mike was very understanding about. We even went over the hour-long time limit of the photoshoot, which he said not to worry about. I also mentioned how I liked some shots he did with another family that I saw on his website, which he was happy to try to recreate with us!

We did an engagement session with Mike during our vacation and it was amazing. The entire process went so smoothly and we are so happy with the results. We booked travel last minute so I was scrambling to find a photographer two weeks before our trip. I looked at over 60 photographers and the only portfolio that I really loved and was wowed by was Mike's. He has this one engagement session in the North Shore that I just fell in love with. His editing style is exactly what I was looking for and I like how selective he is about the photos he chose to include. I reached out to him to get a quote and to confirm that he was available during our trip. He responded quickly and concisely. For the length of the session (and that you can have 1 outfit change and 2 locations) along with the amount of photos you get and the quality, his fees are really reasonable. Our trip was in November so I was a little worried about the weather. He suggested that we schedule the session at the beginning of our trip so that if it rained, we had enough time to reschedule. I really appreciated his flexibility on that, especially given the short notice. As it was our first time visiting Oahu, I also asked him for beach location recommendations. He gave a couple suggestions along with detail on what types of backdrops to expect at each (eg. tidepools, mountains, greenery, etc.) and I ended up choosing Waimanalo Beach and China Walls. He was clear with details on when and where to meet and was helpful in directing us on where we could find parking at each location. Another review mentioned that he is super personable and he really is - he is genuinely super friendly and engaging. We're not used to being in front of the camera but he directed us and made us feel comfortable throughout the entire session. There were certain backdrops I wanted to focus more on and others I wanted to avoid and he was very accommodating about that. I also really liked how we got to check two places off our list to visit - Waimanalo Beach is sooo beautiful with the mountain range in the back and we got to watch the sunset at China Walls.As promised, we got the photos in three weeks and we are over the moon with the final product. We got a really diverse (eg. several backdrops, candid and posed, daytime and sunset, landscape and portrait) and beautiful set of photos. The editing is *chef's kiss*. I can't wait to get them printed and framed. All my friends and family were gushing about how the photos turned out. Can't recommend him enough!

The owner of this business, although friendly enough on the day of the event, has proven to be dishonest, spiteful, and has violated both the terms and the spirit of our contract. We hired him to photograph our November 2022 wedding in Honolulu, Hawaii. Bottom line up front: ALL photos were filtered, despite specifically requesting that they not be; the majority of photographer's efforts went to the groom and groomsmen, with zero equivalent photos of the bride (with zero photos of the bride with each bridesmaid, yet multiple photos of the groom with each groomsman, for example); instead of adding coverage, the second shooter acted more like an assistant, and the two men and their equipment are in quite a few of each other's photos (both examples uploaded with this review show how). There is a grand total of ONE photo of the bridal party lined up (bride and groom with bridesmaids and groomsmen) from the entire day, and the Bride specifically had to ask Mike Pham to take this one photo during the reception (but the groom's eyes are closed). The second shooter also posted three videos of our wedding on Instagram the next day, tagging only Mike Pham, the venue and the wedding coordinator. When we asked for a copy of those videos, Mike Pham refused, stating that they "don't do previews." Even when we finally got our final photos back, we never received any from the videos that were posted, let alone the videos themselves. Although he first offered us the option to purchase our "raw" photos for $800, after we shared why we feel dissatisfied with the pictures and asked for a discount (we believed $400 would be fair, in light of the many issues), he has decided not to sell us the photos *at all* -- regardless of the price. We have offered to pay the full $800 multiple times, but his refusal is "firm." We are extremely lucky that our guests took such amazing photos with their iphones to fill in the gaps, and I've spent dozens of hours on photoshop attempting to fix things like the groom's eyes being closed in our only wedding party photo. Despite the effort it takes to write reviews, however, I cannot in good conscience let this go without at least attempting to warn others.In refusing to sell us the "raw" photos at all, Mike Pham insists that every issue is our fault (blaming the bride for arriving "not dressed," for example, when he was specifically hired to take a "getting ready" photo of the bride when she first arrived at the venue; note that when the bride's limo arrived, he was nowhere to be found and remained absent for so long that we had to put the dress on without him), and blaming the rain, which actually photographed beautifully and didn't seem to affect his ability to extensively photograph the groom's party before the ceremony. When presented with evidence of the heavy filters, he has denied using any. See, however, the two examples offered below (which he was also shown). Note the extreme difference in colors of the flowers, and also of my mother's dress (also note the tripod in the foreground of the processional picture Mike Pham took, and the second shooter is in the foreground of the other ceremony picture uploaded below). We have offered not to leave bad reviews for his business if Mike would only just acknowledge the issues and promise not to make the same mistakes again. We genuinely liked the guy and do not want to hurt his business. But he has informed us that this is extortion. We disagree and are within our rights to warn others. Long story short: DO *NOT* HIRE THIS GUY TO PHOTOGRAPH YOUR WEDDING.

We had the pleasure of working with Mike to take our long overdue engagement photos and we couldn't be happier with the entire experience. Mike is genuinely a wholesome individual and takes the extra time to get to know us which helped us express our true selves in the photos! Not only is he timely in his response, we received the photos in less than a month! His editing skills provided us with memorable pictures we had imagined and more. Highly recommend Mike and we are very grateful to have had such a wonderful photographer!

Mike is a true professional, and has a nice stylistic eye with really affordable prices. Our story with Mike started with a phone interview, after we were introduced by our wedding planner. He fit the budget and also Iiked his work on his instagram. Even though he was not my first choice (see story below) I thought he was really talented. There was originally a photographer in the city I live (Omaha) who we had a prior relationship with and had worked with us on many other occasions (engagement, Christmas cards) who I wanted to book and fly with us to Hawaii, but she had a conflict in her schedule. 4-5 months after I had booked Mike, she became available, and I made the decision to use her for our wedding instead. Mike was truly understanding and really nice about it, which - not everyone would be. He was even really flexible about using our wedding deposit as a payment for a shorter shoot after the wedding. We ended up using our deposit as a second shoot with him after the wedding to get some different Hawaii scenery into our collection of photos. I am truly grateful that he was understanding and cool, and once meeting him (and his assistant Brandon) it's obvious they are just two nice local guys who are easy to work with and spend some time with. His editing style is really different from the photographer I used for the wedding day, and it's nice to see some variation for photos for our family. Thanks Mike and Brandon!

We are truly blessed to work with Mike and Hiko for our wedding. They guided us in each pose and even gave us awesome tip on how to have natural pose. Thank you guys. If we have any friends who are getting married, they are going straight to you guys. No questions ask. Chee hee!

We loved our wedding photos and the entire experience with Mike and his team on our big day!I found him tagged on my friend's wedding photos and ended up browsing through his gallery. I loved his style and editing! Plus, prices were reasonable for what we needed!We communicated via email and only met the day of. His responses were quick and thoroughly answered all of our questions during the months leading up to our wedding.Mike has a lot of energy and great vision which kept us chugging along for the perfect shot. He was really fun to work with!We got our photos exactly one month later and it was above all expectations and so many too! I made an album for my elderly dad and he was thrilled. He and his team did such a great job capturing our wedding that I felt we might not have even needed a videographer! I digress since I haven't seen their finished work yet lol.I highly recommend checking out Mike Pham Photography for your wedding. He was so great to work with and went above and beyond to capture all the moments.

Mike's photo session was one of the most fun things my partner and I have done together. He was exciting, supportive, and very patient with our shyness in front of the camera. He helped us decide on a location and although he already had a map planned for our shoot, he still took suggestions of places we wanted to include too. At the end, he even recommended a very good dinner spot for us to get after. We got our picture about a couple weeks after and were blown away by the quality. My partner and I highly recommend Mike!

This was our 2nd time shooting with Mike and the results were phenomenal! He is super friendly and adds a nice artistic touch to all of his pictures. Mike encouraged us to be ourselves while he took pictures and that was important as we didn't want to seem to be too staged or stiff. He gave us great directions and input so our pictures turned out looking natural, elegant, and professional while engaging with our two kids as well. Response time from Mike was very quick from booking the date to receiving the pictures from him. We are very happy to have had Mike take professional pictures of our family and look forward to having him do it again real soon!

Mike did a great job for me. He pays attention to details and cared about customers' needs. I will certainly go back to him when I need to have more things done.