Astra Takes Photos

We’ve worked with Astra on 2 occasions. She’s shot our home for a home exchange site, and also shot our family for our son’s second birthday. On both occasions she has been easy to communicate with and had a great, positive attitude.
While shooting our 2 year old, she was incredibly patient and waited for some adorable expressions from our toddler. Her style of photography is both intimate and evocative, and much better (to our way of thinking) than the «look over here now smile» type of photos we wanted to avoid.
The shots she took of our home almost immediately drew attention and offers from a better group of home exchangers!
When it came time to receive the photos; she was responsive and also accurate with her estimates. Just a great photographer all around.

I met Astra a few years ago when she was volunteering her time for an SFEtsy event. I liked her immediately and her photos of my daughter and I came out great! I kept hoping we’d have a chance to work together. So when the opportunity recently presented itself, I couldn’t wait!
Astra is so pleasant and fun to work with — she really has an incredible eye for what works — and her easygoing manner is a pleasure. I’d highly recommend her to anyone.

The name of her business should be Astra Takes Great Photos. Astra has a terrific eye for capturing the candid moment that’s ripe with emotion, meaning and full of character. I’ve worked with her on what was possibly the driest event in the history of events (I mean, it was lovely, but I couldn’t see how it would translate well in photos) and she managed to bring it to life, capturing – if not augmenting – the celebratory feelings of everyone there. The photos came out great. We couldn’t have been more pleased.

Astra is great to work with. We sent her out to art events with all kinds of situations: fire dancers on U.N. Plaza, street festival on 3^rd Street in the Bayview, crowded gallery openings. She delivered amazing photos in all the situations. She’s detail oriented and a pleasure to work with.

Astra is awesome. Really reliable and great turn around on photos. I highly recommend her work.

Astra really is one of the most talented photographers I’ve met. She has such a unique perspective on how she sees the world. I cannot stop looking at the photos she took of me with my cats. It makes me wish I would have asked her to photograph my aging cat before she passed and I already have a million photos of that cat! She is extremely professional and makes you feel totally comfortable. I honestly can’t say enough good things about her and her skill level. Don’t hesitate, book her for your photography needs.

Astra is one of our favorite freelance photographers. She’s taken some of the best and most vibrant photographs in our archive– images that benefited both our organization and the visual artist and performers we were exhibiting. We have used her images on our website and in print marketing campaigns. She’s also done audience documentation for us and has a great eye for snapping beautiful, candid portraits of people enjoying an event– people smiling, laughing, and interacting in ways that are interesting and tell a story about their experience. No matter how many photos she shoots during an events, always sends us a well-​curated selection of the strongest work. Can’t recommend her enough. Wish we could give her more than 5 stars!
— Jess Young, Communications Director, SOMArts

Astra is an amazing photographer, wonderful to work with, and takes utterly GORGEOUS photos. She deserves all 5 stars; I wish I could give her more.
I met her through a friend, eventually hired her to shoot my family reunion. She was prompt, very communicative, easy to work with, and was such a great addition to the party! Her photos were fantastic and really captured everyone in their best light. All my relatives loved the pictures afterwards. Based on this first great experience, I wound up recommending her to very close friends for their wedding, and (no surprise) those photos turned out beautiful as well.
I would definitely hire Astra again in the future. Looking at her website, it’s clear she’s talented at more than just event photography! She’s creative and fun and will work with all your ideas (or bring her own to the table if you have none!).

There are multiple good things to say about Astra. She took wonderful pictures and she is just a really sweet and friendly person in general. She is really great about responding to emails and text messages, and as someone who likes to know what is going on, this was super helpful and put my mind at ease when it came to scheduling. The pictures came out amazing and the turn around time was really fast. She uses film instead of digital, which was really cool!

I met Astra a couple of years ago. I was doing a lot of modeling at the time and was searching for new photographers. We had a couple of shoots together within one week (she was visiting town), and it was a great experience. Astra is creative, talented, experienced, easy to work with and a joy to work with. All of our images were unique and brilliant either in color or in contrast (if in black and white) and lighting and mood and composition. She has that ability to capture great moments and expressions. To this day, some of my favorite images ever taken of myself are photos Astra captured. I’d recommend her to anyone and hope to be in the same town as her again sometime to have another shoot!

I actually met this amazing photographer years and years ago at a $ 5 art party where she was selling original Polaroids. She asked me if she could take my photo and I was completely at ease with her. I got lucky because she was in school at the time so as I got to know her better we would go out and have practice photo sessions all over the city.
Since then she’s developed a style that is unlike any I’ve ever seen.
— Saturated Colors
— Amazing texture
— Depth of Field
— Interesting Angles
— Beautiful Eye for Detail
She has the ability to truly capture the inside of a person — their real true self — in the photographs that she takes. I always thought that was total bologna until I met Astra and she took my photo. Even before she truly knew me… she could SEE me through her camera.
I’m not a model. But I sure look like one when Astra takes my photo.
She works with her clients and makes sure they are happy with the end product.
Her genuine personality and her professionalism are like none other. if you snag her for a session — you will NOT be disappointed. I’ve booked her for corporate head shots, portraits, events, product photography and interior photos of my art studio space. All projects have turned out stunning as well as always under budget. I’ve always been super impressed by her. You will be also!