I'm a Silver Member!!

Yes, I just found out I have become a 'Silver Member' of the WPJA!! They give this award for getting a certain number of contest wins... so cool. The coolest thing is that it's an honor just to be a part of WPJA (The Wedding Photojournalists Association), but to be a Silver Member??? Too cool!!

I am definately not a 'contest freak' (I usually submit images the hour before the entry deadline:), but am very stoked to get this recognition!

I would like to thank...... just kidding!

Teresa and Tommy Engagement

Teresa and Tommy were a tough shoot- not because of them- they were great. The problem was the howling winds at Laguna Beach!!!

Their wedding will be at Black Gold Golf Club in Yorba Linda- can't wait!Notice the wind... it was about to push them over! I tried to get them to go on the rocks next to the wave spray... but it was a little too crazy out there.
We then stopped in Laguna Canyon the way home:

Jennifer and Pete

Last weekend's wedding was cool for many reasons: Jen and Eric were fun to shoot; The location was soo cool- the Hollywood Roosevelt, a circa 20's (I think) hotel right on Hollywood Blvd; And their coordinator was great to work with- Amy Zelinski.

I would love to shoot in LA more often, it's such a different feel than the OC- not better, just different.

In a little bar/ coffee shop in the hotel:
Amy asked "Where would you like to shoot the dress".

I replied "Right where it is will be perfect!"
The light in the room was great, there was a window to the right of her and there was another back behind her which made some cool rim light. I normally would expose her face correctly but I love the drama the side and rim lighting makes in this.
This was right in the room:
And in a dark stair well:
Jennifer and Pete were a lot of fun to work with. They will be moving back to his place in England in a few weeks- hopefully they'll refer me to some English Brides!! I would love to see that country!

Thanks guys!

Rocquel and Mike

Rocquel and Mike are getting married on May 19th at Cannon's in Dana Point- cool place. We decided to shoot the engagement session in Downtown Fullerton and got some pretty cool stuff. Every time I shoot there I find cool new places. We got all these shots in just a couple square blocks.

This first shot was across the street from where the new studio will be- love the brick!
This was right next to the brick wall- it was so cool that Rocquel and Mike trusted me enough to sit on these old pallets- love the shot. They were so good, always playing and very comfortable in front of the camera.Another old building on the next block.

This is the side of a little apartment, cool corrugated steel walls.
Thanks for being such good sports guys- can't wait for the wedding!!

Do It Now!

Time is running out! Our children will have a drastically different planet to live on than we have known in the past if we do not act now to stop global warming!

Sign the petition- only 700,000 people have signed so far!!! It should be signed by millions! Sign it here.

Also, think about every bit of energy you use all day long... be conscious of wasted resources always.

Yes, you may have guessed it- I watch "The Inconvenient Truth" last night. It is a total trip how bad this has gotten and US politicians were warned about it in the 70s! It is very hard to have faith in our leaders and system of government when it allows such a small number of people to make so many bad decisions.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it"
Upton Sinclair

Rent the DVD and have a look for yourself- then act! Do something to change the way you waste!

TheInconvenientTruth.com
What you can do: click here and look through the pages.
Check out SCE too.

Can't reduce your consumption as much as you should or want? Offset your usage by donating to firms to fund green energy projects. Try New American Dream to find a good place to support.

The Fort Across the Way

Since we moved into our house I have thought about building a fort or tree house in the field across our little street. The kids have been too small to climb and play in a tree house... until this year!I also bought a cool teak swing from Ikea about 3-4 years ago to put in a tree . It's not like we don't have any large trees 'cause they are all over the place, just none with a good branch that's not over a retaining wall or over the street.
The kids are on Spring Break this week so we have been setting up shop in the trees. We put up the swing today:Caysen's in heaven when we play out there!! I just love that we have this space to play!Bay like's it too:Here's the aerial view of the tree house, we still need to put a roof and walls but they love the platform we have up so far.Mommy was out getting dirty today too! It's a little hard to swing due to the super long rope and the dodging of the branches and sticks- I can't cut them all back because we want to keep it as secret as possible so the 'bad' pirates can't find us!

Easter!

Any reason to give the kids candy is always a blast- they are deprived otherwise so they really appreciate it. They were so excited to see what the Easter Bunny brought!
Bubbles of course. They lasted about 20 minutes until the bubbles spilled all over the street and Bailey dumped out the rest.. yes, Caysen's too!

Cayse just spotted a hidden egg! We went over to Gram Carolyn's as we do every year for dinner and the egg hunt.Bailey and her cousins looking for the big one!

'Sammy Sue' was so deprived... not being able to swim with the big kids. So I had to at least get her feet wet! She so loved it, kicking and talking, so much fun! I hope she didn't get sick- it was kinda cold! Thanks to big bro Jer for the cool shots of me!

The New Studio!!

For those that haven't heard yet, we will be moving out of the home office and into a very cool space in Downtown Fullerton! The business is getting too busy to work from home any more and we need some employees to help with the workload to better serve our increasing number of clients.

Jeni will be doing the decorating of our new space. We will also have some help from my genious brother (Jeremy) as far as the layout and construction aspects- if you have seen our home, you can imagine how giddy I am to see what Jeni and Jeremy come up with!

We plan on having a big party to kickoff the opening, let me know if you would like to come! We also plan on having lots of reasons to come by the studio- point and shoot classes, photoshop classes, professional seminars by my colleuges and I, special discount studio session days, etc. There will also be a gallery showcasing local photographer's works to check out- new shows quarterly.

I got this photo today from my new landlord... This is the front of our building!! Our entrance will be on the left side of the building, the front will be a super nice wedding boutique- how cool, huh!
As you can tell, we are so excited to get in the new studio, however, they still have a lot of work to do rehabbing the 80+ year old building before we can get in. We are shooting for July, but we'll see!!

Mazen and Sara Engagement Shoot

Mazen and Sara are getting married next month at the Ojai Valley Inn and Spa- sounds like the wedding is going to be amazing! They both are into doing things differently than others which is great by me- that should actually be my motto!

We did the engagement shoot Monday down in Balboa. I have never shot there so it was fun for me. We then went to 'The Wedge' to get some shots on the rocks- the waves were huge!! I tried to talk them into standing on the rocks where the waves were breaking but they weren't into getting mashed by the waves... Oh well, next time. LOL
I used my lensbaby action on this shot to mimic the blur and the vignette of it and other older or toy cameras.

In the alley cars kept getting way too close- we were only blocking traffic a little...
Mazen totally freaked me out when he rolled up in his Porsche! I have dreamed of owning only one type of car since I was 11 or so: a Porsche Carrera. He had the Carrera 4s which is pretty much a street legal race car. He tried to make it sound like he got it for cheap or something:"I got like $30K off the sticker price". Whatever, it still cost more than all the cars I have ever owned!

...some day Mazen, some day!

On the ferry:
On the jetty; Van Gogh painted that sky.
I used a off camera light on this one to over power the sun. See the glow on the right side of her hair? That's direct sunlight.
My favorite. As we were walking back to the cars I saw this awesome backlit scene- love it!

Vegas! - The Parties

Vegas used to be all work and no play but every year I know more and more people so the work part lessens and the play part increases...

Here's Vic, Aundrea (runs BluDomain with Harald, below) and I at Sara and Lauren's party the first night:Here's Sara France and Lauren Hillary at a party on the second night we were there. This was in a suite at the Palms with a bowling alley in it!! These shots were from a cool photo booth: Usnaps.

Here's Alex (a videographer buddy of mine), Mellissa (a great photographer from New Orleans), Joe (a neighbor that we- Jeni and I- met for the first time- so glad we did!) and Victor (one of the many photog's from Ladera).
This is Harald, the genious that designed my site.. I guess I better pay my bill on time! he was the host of the shindig.
This is the group of us that went to the afterparty at the Foundation Room on the top of the Mandalay Bay- such a cool view of the strip!

This was my last night in Vegas and finally got to chill with the boys from my hood- Mario and Paul , Bill, and Mark- always good times at the local dive bar! I have been coming to Vegas for WPPI with Mario and Paul from the begining of my career- they always have kind words about my work and they continually inspire me with theirs.
The local dive bar referred to earlier:

Vegas! -The Drive

I love roadtrips- no matter where you are there is always cool stuff to see, and of course, to photograph. I had a wedding in Palm Desert the day before we went to Vegas for WPPI so we stayed at the In-Law's in Rancho Mirage that night and left from there.

Instead of backtracking to the 15 and going up from there, we went South toward Coachella and headed over to the 95, which runs right next to Havasu. This route took us four hours but there was some cool sights along the way. We were in a bit of a hurry so we didn't really stop... just lots of "oo oo oo" from me as we passed cool stuff.

I was taking lots of shots with the point and shoot from the car like the one below of my trusty old truck turning 100,000 miles!! I love this truck as it was my companion on my solo drive to Alaska after finishing school back in '99. I ate, drank, slept and... (well, lets not get into all the details) in it. Notice all the extras I got, the temp. gauge, the speedometer and fuel gauge... all the luxuries. It has great AC though- that's a must!

(notice the bug splatter)

We came up to a line of cars waiting for this multi-mile train to pass- mostly huge RVs and semi's... I wasn't into trying to pass them all once we got going- so I ventured into the dirt field on the right side of the highway to see what was in the front of the line. It was so cool, like the first guy in line was saving a spot just for me. There was about three car lengths of empty road so I just rolled right up there- I love good swoops when they work out right!

Jeni drove up with me but flew home early as to not be away from the kids for more than 48 hours- so I drove home solo. I left a day early to surprise Jeni and the kids so I was in a bit of a rush on the return too. These last two were taken as I was driving with the point and shoot... major PS to make them cooler!I played around with this shot for awhile, experimenting with different layers, masks, and blending modes. Feels like Mars... sometimes it feels like you're on Mars making that drive from Vegas!

The Geurts Family

I am totally lagging due to the Vegas trip last week but I wanted to share this shoot with you. Phil is my attorney and has a great family! This shoot was before Vegas but loved what we got. We started at the beach but talked them into stopping by my secret location on the way home...

The boys were crazy and fun- reminded me of myself and my two brothers.
The youngest and the only girl was crazy cute!!!
At the beach:The secret spot at the perfect time of day:This was the coolest spot- I have been eyeballing it for months! It was great finally shooting there!

Kirstie and Dorron at Disney Concert Hall

Yes, it was my first shoot at the concert hall- SO COOL!! Kirstie and Dorron are into architecture so this was a great place to shoot their engagement session. We got great blue skies and not too many poeple to get in the way. The security guys are really cool- if you don't use lights and big reflectors they have no problem with you shooting there (I brought reflectors, of course, and they didn't even hassle us!). The side of the building actually acted as a reflector in a few shots so we just looked for the banking sunlight and used that!

This was on the shady side:
Fisheye:
This was a cool spot- this image is actually a composite of two shots:
Dorron was sitting on a metal bench acting like a reflector, that's why they are so well lit!
I loved how the line from the corner of the structure pointed right to the couple.. .and I had Dorron keep his foot out to continue the line:
Can't wait to go back!