Subscribe to RSSOver the past months I've done a few private workshops with people from across the country. I haven't really advertised it but I've been getting so many emails about this lately I thought I'd go ahead and let you guys in on the info and open it up to everyone.
The workshops can cover anything you want... shooting, posing/directing clients, processing/photoshop, blogging, pricing, pricing for destination weddings, dealing with clients, wedding day time management... its totally up to you. We can sit and talk for the whole time or we can get outside and put your new knowledge to use in a shoot... again, its up to you.
These sessions will, for the most part, take place here in Orange County but if you're scared of flying or have a group or would just rather me come to you let me know and we can work out the travel.
Click here to register for WOODSHOP!
For you photographers out there... I used some custom blogging actions made by my friends Craig and Chip, over at Studio563, to resize, sharpen, add my logo to the images and composite the verticals into one image. It easily cut my blog preparation time to 10% of what it was before. I know they're not quite ready for the public yet but shoot them an email and they'll let you know when you can get your own.
Here are a few images from Michael and Wendy's engagement session in old town Pasadena.
On Saturday about 238 lies were told... and that was just the tip of
the iceberg. It took about 30 people to pull off the elaborate rouse
that kept the incredibly nosy Jessica Claire from finding out that my brother, Jeff
was going to propose. Whether it was clandestine trips across country
to ask her father's permission under the guise of "work trips", fake
bachelor's parties in Vegas, or Hudson Lyon's birthday party being "canceled" at the last minute... it took a lot of work.
At about 6:15 that evening it all paid off though with Jessica being completely and utterly surprised. Cyndie and I were in charge of
getting here there. We said we were having dinner with some friends
down on Balboa.
If the images have my name and logo on them I took them, if they don't my good friend Victor Sizemore took them.
Here's Jessica as we turned the corner saying, "Jeff took me here once."
Here's where Jess noticed Jeff standing by the ferris wheel. You can see the confusion in her face because she'd just talked to Jeff on the phone and he told here him and his friends were "off to play some blackjack." Haha!
After it was official I jumped on the ferris wheel to take a few fun images of them.
We ended the night with dinner at the pier with about 30 of our closest friends and family. It was an amazing night.
Congratulations guys! I love you both so much and I'm so happy for you!
Its been so long since I blogged I had a hard time remembering the URL to login... then an even tougher time remembering my username and password. I apologize.
Last week I went to New York for a shoot and a few meetings. I absolutely love it there. The city, the weather, and most of all... the people. I hear from a lot of people that Orange County has a community among photographers that doesn't happen in the rest of the country. Every time I'm in New York I'm reminded of how wrong that statement is. I stayed with my good friend and amazing photographer Carlos Andres Varela while I was there and EVERY night he took me out and we had the best time hanging out with our other good photographer friends Mel Barlow, Jason Groupp, Allan Zepeda, Lindsey Thorne, Shelly Kroeger, Angelica Glass and my favorite photo editor Rebecca Crumley. There are awesome photographers and an amazing community in NYC and I'm so happy be a small part of it and to call them my friends.
On to the real reason for the post... On Wednesday I met my new BFFs Brett and Claire in Manhattan last week to shoot some portraits of them. They wanted some shots of their first trip to the city. Brett is an awesome wedding photographer from Oklahoma. Check out his work. We had a blast running around the city on what was the most perfect day I've experienced in a long time.
Ok, on to the images.
We started down in the alleys in China Town.
Then we headed up to SoHo. They wanted some paparazzi style images like these from last time I was in New york.
Then we caught the subway and headed up to Madison Square Park in the Flat Iron District.
We ended the shoot in Central Park.
New York is my favorite place in the world to shoot. I'm going to be back there the first week of May. If anyone else wants a shoot there shoot me an email!
Yesterday I picked up some film I shot at Ilanit and Daniel's wedding a few weeks ago. Man, I'm so in love. They asked if I would shoot a few rolls of black and white which I was more than happy to do! I shot Tri-X 400 and Ilford Delta 3200 which I'm beginning to like even more than T-Max. They chose to see each other before the ceremony so that we could shoot some portraits in the daylight. I shot the first look and a few portraits of Ilanit using the film.
I'll blog the whole wedding soon but I couldn't wait to get the film up.
If I would have shot these in digital this first shot, with here eyes closed, would have gotten thrown out. There's something I love about it though.
I'm determined to get caught up on blogging. If you knew how many weddings and shoots I was behind you'd either laugh or have a new level of respect for me. Probably laugh though. Last New Year's Eve was spent in Atlanta shooting the out-of-control-awesome wedding/vow renewal of Ami and Scott. They had a beautifully intimate celebration and I'm so glad Jessica brought me along!
If you remember from the rehearsal images at Turner Field I shot film that week. It was a lot of fun. I love choosing in the moment whether to shoot in black and white or color. Shooting black and white in camera has always annoyed me in digital. I always wonder if I would have liked the shot better in color so I just don't do it. With film its different, I love black and white film so much I never think that. On to the images.
I love these first few of Ami right after getting dressed.
Scott knows how to work it for the camera too.
A few portraits around the venue. It was COLD that day. Ami was such a trooper!
I love this series right before Ami heads down the aisle!
During the cocktail hour they had blackjack tables set up. So fun!
Ahhhh details. This wedding was FULL of amazing details. The two long tables might have been the best I've ever seen. Just amazing.
I love black and white film so much. It even makes the table shots interesting.
Ami and Scott hired professional dancers to entertain during dinner and to teach the guests during the dancing, it was such a hit.
Ami and her dad. Love his expression.
This little series was during the same day edit the videographers showed. It was awesome and got some great reactions from the couple.
Happy New Year!
This is the longest post ever. Brittany and Taylor are some of my closest friends and I was so honored to have shot their wedding a few weeks ago. I've known Brittany since she was in third or fourth grade so shooting her wedding was a little surreal.
Summer, the bride's sister did all of the florals and really designed the whole wedding. She's incredibly talented and when she has a website up I'll post it up here.
Because the wedding was in December we had a VERY small amount of daylight so I called my friend Brian Khang, who graciously came out to help me shoot the ceremony and reception details. So if you're wondering where all the normal details are, they're right here on his blog.
Here comes the deluge of images.
This is what December in the OC looks like:
Some of Summer's handiwork... I told you she's good.
It makes my job easy when the wedding party looks like this:
The guys were ok too:
The ceremony was held at St. Mark's Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach. It was actually a really cool church, inside and out. Because of the short day we shot all of the portraits there as well and I could have shot there for another couple hours. Really cool place.
I love this image of Britt and her dad right before the walked into the ceremony:
On to the reception!
I love these images of the first dance:
And this might be my favorite dancing shot I've ever taken:
Our good friend Whitney doing her best Beyonce impression:
You might recognize the couple in the middle square here. Its Trever and Brooke. I was a groomsman in their wedding last July. I also shot a few portraits of them. You can see them here. Brooke is Brittany's sister.
I'm bringing back the animated gif. I loved this series so much I had to do it this way!
Sparklers are never a bad way to end the night!
This was actually a little nerve wracking as a photographer. The only light I had was the sparklers and while they put of a good amount of light my shutter speed was still pretty low to freeze any motion. I shot these with the 35 1.4 at f2.0 so that I'd have a little wiggle room with the depth of field and at ISO1600 but my shutter speed was still at about 1/60th of a second... not fast enough for action. Because I shoot RAW I knew I could bring up the exposure a stop and not kill the image so intentionally underexposed the image a stop and shot it at 1/125th which froze a majority of the motion. In fact I actually like the little bit of motion blur there is. It adds to the feeling of movement and excitement in the images... at least for me.
This is one of my favorite images I've ever taken.
