Sammy Sue!!

I have been wanting to shoot little Samantha for a long time- you'd think I wouldn't have to wait too long considering she's my niece:) I have taken many shots of her since she was born but I really wanted to shoot her in the studio:
Created a custom Lightroom Preset just for this shoot. I love the high-contrast-but-still-kinda-vintage look. What do you think?


My favorite for last, this one's getting printed big for the studio!!
Thanks for the shoot Sammy-Sue. Just as I thought, super cute!!

Shooting Sammy for these great shots is just come full circle: her big brother was one of my first subjects when he was a baby- I got a first place in the first annual 'Zone One Student Exhibition' with a shot of him during my last semester at Orange Coast College- but I shot him with film and printed it in the darkroom!

Cade: in-studio

Cade was one of the toughest kids I've shot- he is so full of energy he just charged around oblivious to the fact that we were in the middle of a shoot!! How disrespectful! :)

He actually reminded me of myself and my brothers when we were little- yes, three boys, 4.5 years apart total.

Now keep in mind that this was our first real child shoot at the studio. It is so much different than shooting at someone's house! With studio lights the distance of the subject (Cade in this case) from the lights is crucial so when he's moving and walking and scooting and rolling to-and-fro, it's so hard to get the right exposure! On the flipside, it's so cool to be able to control the lights and make them do what you want.

I was running and jumping; on my feet, then knees, then feet again.... a bootcamp workout!

Now, all this said; It was totally worth all the work! This guy had some of the funniest expressions and him ignoring me made it easy to get his real personality to show through.
Is there anything better than a child's open-mouth laugh??



The couch in the next few was a prop Jeni found- love shooting over the back of it!!


That's the chair I'm sitting in right now:)
Billy Idol at one year old:
I created a new Lightroom Preset while working on this image- l think I'll be using it a lot in the future.

Cade: Thanks buddy- you broke me and the studio in right!!

Greg and Tonya- Vineyard Sunset

I'm sitting in a hotel room in Chicago resting up for my wedding tomorrow. I scoped out the area: the mom's house, the church, downtown for some portraits, and the reception site... it's gonna be a good day:0

Thought I'd catch up on the last few weddings:

A year or two ago I shot a wedding at the Falkner Winery in Temecula- the owners loved my shots and put a link to my slideshow on their site... that's how Tonya and Greg found me. I'm so glad they did because they are two very cool, very fun, and just great to work with!

Did I say stylish too??? ...With her Choo shoe's and his Zegna suit.
Getting ready is one of my favorite times of the day. The girl's room was buzzing with flower-in-the-hair issues, champagne corks flyin' and lots of laughter!



love this- full, high sun.. who'd of thought??

Gotta love the D3 (my Nikon), just dial up the ISO and you can shoot in the darkest stairway in the vineyard.



Had to turn and run up this hill during the ceremony- good thing I got a little training at Nikki and Matt's wedding the week prior!!:)

Don't you just love them!?


Now, are you seeing the killer sun I was referring to?
Sniper through the vines.
More of that sun!
Sun went down, and booted up the lights!
Looks like the sun's still out, huh? That's just my handy dandy flash:)


So much laughter that night! It may have been the result of the 'drinking gloves'. Yes, drinking gloves! The wedding party went to University of Wisconsin and were big die hard Badger fans... the drinking gloves are from their favorite dive bar called "the KK" (Kollege Klub). I guess whenever you are serious about something and you really don't want to let go, you wear gloves- like when I'm mountain biking or riding the motorcycle.

Drinking gloves, really? So funny!!
I love being able to shoot the D3 with no flash- love these natural moments without the obtrusive flash.

I was falling asleep driving to this wedding after traveling home from Cabo the night before but I got as fired up as I always do and adrenaline kept me going 100% all day... 'till I had to drive an hour home...

Check the slideshow: www.empslideshows.com, enter 'gregtonya'.