Harvard Photography

How can I get in contact with this business? I need to order my wedding album. My photography package was fully paid for and I still need to order my photos, album, slideshow, and frames.

Does anyone know how to contact Gina Jun? I need her to give me my pictures! HELP!!!

Does anyone know how to get in touch with the owner? I can’t find any forwarding information and I was hoping to order a wedding album :(

I recently contacted the business and they said that they are taking a break after 20+ years! Best wishes to them.

We went with Harvard Photography for our Engagement & Wedding Photography.
We are very happy with the engagement photos and album. The photographer at the shoot helped stage us to get some really nice images. The album was fantastic, made exactly to our specifications and available on time before the wedding. We had the shoot on a local public beach, but from the photo’s you would think we were on a secluded beach on an island in the middle of nowhere.
We loved the wedding pictures as well. The photographers arrived on-​time, were professional and captured many amazing images. They staged us for some photos, captured some great artistic images, and also captured a ton of un-​staged moments. Great balance overall to capture the mood of the event as well as capture the specific images we pre-​planned.
We took quite a while to choose the images we wanted to use in the Wedding album (it’s tough, so many great images to choose from), but Jina was understanding, very responsive, courteous, and helpful every step of the way.
The package we chose also came with a Photo-​DVD, it was very nicely put together and a very professionally finished product. My wife gets teary-​eyed (happy) every time we watch it :-)
Overall, I would recommend Jina and the Harvard Photography team to anyone looking for a professional photography team to capture their memorable event.

We used them for our wedding back in 2010 and they did a awsome job, beautiful pictures and realy professional photographers worth every penny, I recently went back to have our wedding pictures transfer on to a flash drive and Jina was so helpful and was surprised that after four years they still keep copys of our photos. (Thanks Jina)

I would give them a billion stars if I could. Here are some highlights.
We got married at the Japanese Gardens at CSULB and Harvard is a preferred vendor of the venue. We set up a meeting with Jina and we just clicked. She was so nice, the books they have to look at are just beautiful. She was very professional and we just in love.
She laid everything out, tips of the trade, do’s and don’ts, options, realistically what could get done in the time we chose it was perfect. Thing’s that we didn’t even think of like make a list of the different family photos you want, etc. They responded to my emails in a timely manner and were always willing to help no matter what.
The day of, our Photographer was on time and dressed nicely. He positioned us, told us what to do, but also gave us some room to have fun with it. He listened to what I wanted and everything. One of my favorite parts was that my family would interrupt him to take photos with their cellphones, irritating!!! So I would ask them to stop and he said «I will be the bad guy if you want me to and yell at them» I jumped on that, YES! please do. It was wonderful because then I didn’t look like a bridezilla.
We also submitted a word document of pinterest photos ideas that we liked and Jina warned us to bring our own props so we did. He had a list of the photos on his phone and made sure we got all of them! If he didn’t have that list I would have completely forgot about some shots.
During the wedding, I do not remember even seeing him. He was never in the way or overbearing. He followed us as we went to different tables and was always willing to take photos for guests. He also took photos with peoples cell phones. Service was over and above what he was required to do. The cherry on top was that my wedding guests came over to me and said how nice the photographer was. You cannot ask for more than that!
Lastly, we received the pictures today. They are beautiful, I am so happy that we get to relive the moments. We are ordering a photobook and cannot wait to receive it. I cannot say how truly happy I am that we went with Harvard Photography. I would recommend them in a heart beat to any occasion.
Thank you Harvard Photography, we love you!!!

Everything was perfect. I’m so thankful we trusted Harvard for our wedding. Everything was perfect. I picked up my book the other day and it is amazing!

Mixed reviews here:
I had high hopes for this company. I chose them since they were a preferred vendor for our wedding venue and I met Jina at a Bridal Show so she was promoting some deals. Bad decision on my part. I should have went with my gut since I was never really impressed with their work.
We made an appointment to meet about two weeks before the wedding to discuss our timeline and answer any questions we had for each other. Jina didn’t even remember our names, even after the many emails sent back and forth. I gave them my required shot list and even sent them a Pinterest page with some «shot» ideas. Two days before the wedding they tell me they can’t do some of the shots on the Pinterest page because of lighting issues. You’re a photographer — make it work! Even if you have to do a little Photoshop.
The day of the wedding, John arrives and is very pushy the whole way through. No one was a fan of it. I mean, I get it, it’s a wedding and we have a timeline but you don’t have to have an attitude about it. He leaves us to go to the venue 10 minutes before us and arrives 20 minutes after us. Are you kidding me?! And we’re paying him! There wasn’t even any traffic that day! The other photographer was standing there at the venue when we had to take our «First Look» shots. He was waiting for John to arrive and I told him we can’t wait for him so he’ll have to direct us. He had NO CLUE how to compose the shot and gave us no direction… well, misdirection. Again, the reason I hired these people is because they should be familiar with the venue!!! (Should I blame it on the venue for suggesting them?) During the shoot after the ceremony with the bridal party and families, it was highly disorganized. I had to send my own people out to coordinate the photos! They should be organized or have an assistant or something! Their time management was inefficient. All of this led to pushing back the entire night by 30 – 45 minutes! I felt rushed, the guests felt rushed… By the end of the night I was just so frustrated with them and felt like if anyone ruined my special day it was them — for their pressing me for time and their lack of professionalism.
Now I get the photos and see that many of the shots requested on my shot list were ignored. I brought this up to them as well as John being late to the venue for the First Look Photos. He said he stayed later because he was late. Still not a valid excuse because he held up the entire ceremony and reception activities! I had to adjust the timeline because of them and we didn’t have enough time for dancing! WTF? A wedding without dancing?! As for the shot list, I requested a «ring shot» to which they said they took — rings in their boxes! Hell no! When we talked the 2 weeks prior I said I wanted our hands with our new rings on our fingers! I could have taken a photo of our rings in boxes (and I did!) Oh, it’s so frustrating! The other shots I wanted they said they couldn’t do. Are you kidding me? AFTER the ceremony they let me know that? They could have told me BEFORE the day of. Those were shots I really wanted and I could have hired someone else if they can’t do it! Anyway, I asked if they could do anything about these things (like compensation) and all they said was sorry we didn’t let you know before hand. If you’re a good business person, you would have given me a partial refund for lack of services/​goods rendered. I definitely did not get what I paid for. The photos themselves that we did receive look alright. They’re decent quality, but anyone of my friends that own a DSLR Canon Camera could have taken these.
We picked our photos for the album, and they wanted to charge us an extra $ 25 to add text to the cover. I told them I could do it myself in two seconds with Photoshop so once I spoke up that’s when they just dropped the charge. because they probably figured I knew how ridiculously easy that request was. I was nervous about the end product, but it was pretty good. The album is of good quality, so that’s where I added extra stars. Plus, I’ve had some time to simmer down since our wedding last year.
Overall, they’re okay.

As a wedding coordinator, it’s very important to find vendors that are professional, punctual and works well with other vendors as well. Jina was my main contact and she was such a doll and I had a wonderful experience working with her. She always responded quickly to my emails! Yay!
On the day of, Jason was my clients’ photographer and he was AMAZING! All the other vendors had a great time working with him and I cannot thank him enough for being so easy to work with! He definitely ensured all the photos were taken and he came early to meet me on the day of!
I can’t wait to see the pictures that Jason took and I will definitely be recommending Harvard Photography to my clients. If you’re reading this review stop searching around because you’ve found a great vendor right here!

I can’t say enough good things about Harvard Photography!
1. Jina is very professional and great to work with! She was so informative and helpful when we were consulting with her about the types of packages we were looking for and in figuring out timelines and schedules.
2. We LOVED working with Lawrence (our main photographer). It is SO true that it is so important to have a photographer that you are comfortable with. Lawrence was very personable and fun. My friends can attest that I am super awkward when I take photos, but all my photos came out so natural! This speaks of Lawrence’s ability to make his clients feel comfortable and give clear direction. In addition, I love Lawrence’s style! He is very versatile and creative. We had some fun/​silly shots, sexy/​mod shots, and candid/​action shots. Some of the photos look like they were straight from a magazine!
3. Exceeded our expectations! I heard from other married people that it is common that people are often disappointed by their photos when they get it back and to only expect a handful of photos that you like. This was not our experience at all! Our biggest problem is narrowing down ones we love to create an album. In addition, we got our photos exactly on the day it was promised or earlier! In fact, we got our wedding photos 2 weeks after! That’s unheard of! Finally, Lawrence and the 2^nd photographer did a great job capturing our special night. The wedding day is so hectic and becomes a blur, but through the photos, we were able to relive parts and discover what else was occurring during the wedding that we didn’t get to take part in.

If you are looking for a high quality, reliable and reasonable pricing photographer for your wedding, you’ve found it. HP helped with our wedding on 4.26 and I truly believe we’re blessed to have Jina and her team on our side. So if you want to skip the rest of this review, contact Harvard Photography. You will be pleased.
At our first meeting, Jina helped us picking the right photographer after listening to our concerns (more natural shots, no cheesy poses, etc.), picking the right package, and KINDLY helped us so much with our budget. After that, Jina is extremely responsive with all emails. Everything went as discussed, timing of payments, pictures timeline, no hiccup whatsoever.
She is also very honest. Thanks to her recommendation of having a 2^nd photographer, we got way more cool pictures that one photographer might have been able to capture. We gave Jina our must have photos. They were communicated to Nick, our super cool photographer, and the 2^nd photographer (I don’t remember his name). They both showed up on time and were busy taking pictures all day long. We got our pictures back exactly one month later as promised. All we could do were looking at them over and over again, laughed and cried at the same time. The pictures were exactly how we expected. Both photographers worked so hard and went beyond what we asked them to.
In conclusion, come see Jina. Her team may be the right fit for your wedding. They were perfect for us!

**I was informed that my remarks about the ‘delayed’ album production could be misleading to others, so let me clarify. The contract DID stipulate that the expected timeframe from our choosing the pictures for our album to the album finalization would be 3.5 months, and our album WAS produced in that timeframe.
Perhaps I should have read the fine print more carefully before signing, and Jina was certainly very nice to be receptive to my complaints even though the contract informed me about the long time span between my album order and album delivery.
That said, I still feel that we had to wait too long for an 11×11 album with 20 pictures in it, but it was ‘caveat emptor,’ and I got what I had agreed to, I just didn’t realize in advance exactly what that was.

My husband and I used Harvard for our wedding and were thoroughly pleased. Jose was our lead and we also had a second photographer. Overall we’re happy with how our pictures came out, although we did not order an album through them. Definitely don’t hesitate to use Harvard and if you can, ask for Jose! He was great and so energetic the entire day. I don’t know how he does it.

We loved our photographers! Matt was our lead photographer at our wedding and also did our engagement shoot. Our pictures look amazing. We couldn’t be happier. He was on time, professional and did great work.
The company was so easy to work with and Jina is awesome. No matter what day or time I emailed, she got back to me immediately. They were on the pricier end of photographers we met with but their work exceeded our expectations. We would 100% recommend them to anyone who asks.

As an event coordinator, it’s always great to work with a photographer that is professional, timely, a team player and flexible. John was all of those things. We worked together on a wedding in August 2013. It was hot and the bridal party was huge (26 people) and it was great working with him.
Before the wedding, he was easy to get a hold of, responded to emails and this helped us get on the same page for the day of the wedding. As the wedding was an all day event, he was flexible with timing, sunlight and when the couple wanted and didn’t want to take pictures.
I could tell that customer service and satisfaction was what they were all about. As someone else in the business, I really appreciated this and would love to work with John again. The pictures are great too =)

Both my husband and I are very happy with our engagement/​wedding photos and service from Harvard photography. Quick response with questions from everyone. We are very happy with our photographer Nick. He is very patient when we did our engagement photo with our dog. Tried to get as much shots of her with us as possible. He is great with her.
The only reason I give Harvard 4 stars because of our 1^st peek photos on the of the wedding. Apparently, during the process of transferring the photos, there was a glitch and some of the pictures were lost. However, when I email the issue, Jina contacted me right away and offer us store credit. All and all, we are very happy with them. They’re very accommodating, excellent service and high quality work! I highly recommend them.

I am sadly disappointed with Harvard Photography. The photos taken were that of an amateur. There are more pictures of the food than of the families and friends who gathered for this once in a life time event.
The expectations of my husband and I were at least to capture the 2 – 3 images of both sides of the family using basic photographic staging.
A moment in time lost!

I’m so glad Jose Z. was our photographer from beginning to end. While we’re still waiting (impatiently) for our pictures, we had a great time working with him. His energy is infectious and he did a great job wrangling everyone together. Toughest part was just getting 20+ members of our families together for posed formal pictures. Everything else was a piece of cake! He came earlier than three and already took some photos of the groomsmen alone before I showed up. He took very little time for posed shots after the ceremony and then had free reign over the candid moments. We encouraged him to have some dessert, coffee, ice cream, etc. He looked like he really enjoyed what he’s doing. Even my mom thought he did a great job handling the whole event. A really hard worker. He even showed us a few shots just in his camera alone. We even had a chance to get a group shot of everyone on the dance floor towards the end of the night. All he had to do was stand on a chair. I don’t know how he got everyone but he did! I ran over to him just to see it for myself! My mom even told me, if she recommends anyone to Harvard Photography, she’ll tell them to make sure they request Jose!
Will definitely add more to the rating once I get my photos!

I usually don’t pad my ratings because I’d like to give a very accurate evaluation but due to the fact that you can’t give half stars on Unilocal I had to give these guys a full star.
Ok, lets begin to relive the horror of dealing with these guys. This place is appointments only (very understandable) so my fiancé and I both had to work hard to adjust our schedules to make an appointment. For some reason they had limited options. We got there a few minutes early and their receptionist greeted us and told us that a consultant will help us in a few minutes. After 10 minutes PAST our appointment time, another couple walked in and they were told the same thing. Five minutes later one of the consultant finished with a couple and asked the couple that came in after us to come in his office. We told him we were waiting longer and that our appointment was 15 minutes ago. They apologized and said that their appointments got screwed up and things are all mixed up. I guess this is understandable if a 6 year old is handling their appointment book. You’re an establishment that meets people by APPOINTMENT ONLY… how do you fck that up?
Then the consultant that was suppose to help us was stuck in a meeting because the couple she was talking to was 35 minutes late. I’m sorry but if you have a meeting for an hour and you show up late then that means you only have 25 minutes or schedule another time! Why should people who were there on time have to suffer? What kind of business are you running? Why even bother making appointments?
To add insult to injury, they had the RECEPTIONIST help us since the consultants were both busy. They try to pass her up as one of the consultants but she clearly didn’t know the specifics. She kept saying «ummmmmm…I’ll check on that for you». She basically just went over the price sheet which we already read when we came in while waiting for 25 minutes!
They knocked off a few hundred dollars off the price to make it up so we were still slightly considering them. We sent them an email summarizing what we talked about just to be clear (since they seemed so unorganized) and they came back with the wrong prices. What a surprise!!! We emailed them back the same day to let them know and TWO WEEKS later, which was yesterday, we got a response. LOL Their customer service is SO BAD it’s hilarious. Of course in the two weeks we’ve been waiting to hear back from Harvard we met with 5 other photographers, got final price on what we wanted, decided on a photographer, and signed a contract. Harvard is just now getting back to us! It’s been so long that I forgot about those guys. I was just reminded of that horror when they emailed us yesterday. So thanks for reminding me to Unilocal you guys!
Overall, Harvard, you guys have POOR customer service. Your price might be cheap and your photographers might be good, but the people running the office is just horrendous. You’re cheap for a reason!!!