Mary Cheung

Teaches at Aperture Academy

Mary Cheung is an Aperture Academy instructor specializing in portrait photography.

Mary is a high school photography teacher during the weekdays, and a professional photographer specializing in weddings, engagements, and portraits during the weekends. Mary first combined her two passions—teaching and photography—as a student at San Jose State. After receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography, she went on to obtain a teaching credential and is now a digital photography teacher at Gunderson High School.

As a teacher, Mary brings energy, enthusiasm, and her love of photography into the classroom. She has a philosophy that everyone is capable of learning with the right motivation—and it is her job as an educator to understand each student’s strengths and weaknesses to bring out the best in them. As a photographer, Mary loves photographing people, and one of her greatest joys is seeing the excitement from her clients when they receive their images. She also loves to travel and take photos of different landscapes and architectures. Her ongoing Cityscapes and Ghost Towns projects give her a nice outlet to her normal wedding and portrait sessions.

Even during her down time, Mary prefers to be interacting with people. She enjoys the simple things in life that can be shared with friends. Whether she is running, playing basketball, or hiking, Mary loves all forms of physical activity, but at the same time, she is equally happy hanging out and playing board games. Having lived in San Jose most of her life, Mary is a huge Bay Area sports fan and hopes to physically attend a championship game one day. Go Niners, Warriors, Giants, and Sharks!