easy like Sunday morning...

Sundays are the best. Sometimes I'm working on Sundays, which I love, but other times like today, its just a day to hang out. This morning Cyndie and Makenzie and I went to church at Cornerstone in Anaheim, which by the way is a really cool church if you're looking for one. This afternoon we watched an episode of The OC. We never really got into the show before but this summer, with the lack of original programming on TV, we bought the 1st season on DVD. We drove to Colorado and back and pretty much exhausted that season, so we moved on to season 2 and we are so addicted. I know it's pretty lame.

Tonight after dinner we went outside and were playing around and the light was just so amazing. I went in and got my camera and started taking pictures of Makenzie. She is so amazingly beautiful. Seriously every picture was awesome but here are a few of my favorites. Oh, the last one is for you Sara France. My bassett hounds, Copper (in the background) and Penny.

Are you kidding me?

So today I drove up to Ventura with my family to hang out with some old friends and also to shoot their family pictures. We sat around and watched the kids play, barbecued, played some darts and then about 6:15 or so we piled in the cars and took off to the beach to catch the beautiful late afternoon light.

The shoot was going really well, the kids we're cooperating and the light was awesome. We got the obligatory posed family pics out of the way first and then the idea was to just hang out and shoot them playing for as long as we had light. So we're playing at the beach, when all of the sudden this guy and his dog walk up. He's carrying a surfboard and the dog is wearing a life jacket. So we're all thinking oh that's so funny, the dog's gonna go swimming while the guy goes surfing. Then the guy puts the surf board in the water and the dog jumps on. Turns out its the dog that's the surfer, the guy was just there to body surf, and the dog is going nuts. The guy would take him out into the waves and the dog would catch one and ride it all the way in and sit there and bark at the guy until he took him back out. Amazing.

I'll put up some pics of the shoot tomorrow.
talk to you soon.
michael norwood

How do you say party in Italian?

Yesterday I gassed up the car, picked up a few friends and headed on down to San Diego to hang out with the amazing Sara France. Sara just got back from shooting a wedding in Italy with David Jay so she invited 40 of her closest friends down to her place to hang out. This was no ordinary party however. Sara teamed up with Kristen from Your Day, an event coodinator, and put on the most over the top party. Puffy would have been proud. I could go on and on about how amazing the party was but Shyla and Jasmine have already done the work for me, so check out their blogs! It was a really cool night with great people.

Back to the film world!

A few years ago I excitedly gave up shooting film. We're living in a digital world and I am digital girl... I mean boy... photographer...whatever, I love digital. There is something magical, however, about shooting some velvia or ilford 3200 (really cool film), so the other day I bought a Holga. A Holga is this awesome, totally lo-fi medium format toy camera. So now at all my weddings I'll be shooting a couple rolls of film just as a little extra. So much fun. I took it out and shot a roll yesterday and now I'm having it processed. I'd forgotten what it was like to wait. But it's kind of fun waiting to see what kind of shots come out. I'll let you take a look once I get them back from the lab.

meetings, meetings, meetings

When people ask what I do I say, "I'm a photographer". I was thinking on the way home tonight though about how much of my work is actually photography... and it's not really all that much. I mean, yeah, its the reason I have other things to do, but so much of my work is meeting people.

Yesterday I had a PUG (Pictage User Group) meeting and I met a ton of great photographers and made alot of really good contacts. Right after that I met Trever (another photographer), my great friend and sometimes business partner to hang out, talk about business, eat some greasy fast food and most importantly look at his new Mark IIn (its a Canon but still pretty nice). Tonight I met up with the girls from Simply Mumtaz Events (which I talked about a couple days ago). They invited me to a ISES dinner aboard the Queen Mary where I met so many event and wedding planners I can't even begin to keep them all straight. Tomorrow I'm having lunch in LA with another client, Saturday, meeting one for coffee, and finally Sunday, shooting "Save The Date" pics for Bryn and Matt. So all this "work" and only one day of shooting.

David Jay says all the time that people hire you because of who you are not necessarily because of your talent, and that there are a lot of really talented people not making ends meet because they never make the effort to have a relationship with their clients or they think that their "art" is the most important thing.

Bryn, the girl from the couple I'm shooting on Saturday, sent me an email today and apologized for writing me to often. I love hearing from my couples. I want to be their friend on the wedding day, not just some random guy taking pictures.

I love what I do. I love that my job is my creative outlet. I love when everything lines up and this amazing picture emerges but that's not what I like most about my job. The best part of my job is taking those amazing pictures of people who I would hang out with whether I was getting paid to be there or not.

its all about the details...

Yesterday I had the pleasure of shooting Bahar and Mathieu's wedding alongside the uber talented Joe Photo. It was amazing. Joe is one of my photographic idols and it was such a trip to get to hang out with him all day. Karli and the gang from Simply Mumtaz Weddings coordinated the wedding and every last detail was painstakingly planned and executed. The wedding was at the Ritz Carlton in Marina Del Rey and the location, weather and scenery couldn't have been any better. I really want to thank Karli for bringing me out for this incredible wedding. I will be posting more throughout the week but here are a few to get started.

So I lied... but I have a good reason.

Ok, I'm sorry. I lied about posting all week from Colorado but its not totally my fault. The internet access was intermittent at best and completely non-existent the last two days there. But I'm home now and things are getting a little more back to normal.

In other news... I'm shooting what looks to be an amazing wedding tomorrow at the RItz Carlton in Marina Del Rey. It will not be your typical wedding. The bride is Indian and the groom is French. It will be a traditional Indian ceremony where the groom will be arriving on a white horse! So many details to capture. I had the pleasure of meeting the families today and they were so great. It was really neat to see the bride and groom's families so close.

I want to thank Karli for giving me the opportunity to shoot this wedding. I wrote about my meeting with Karli a while ago and what a great person she was. She is really the coolest person and so great to work with. I'm so glad I get to work with her at Olivia and Jose's wedding in a month or so.

I'll post some images from the wedding tomorrow after I get home.

peace,
Michael

Rocky Mountain High... Colorado

I'm sitting in an enormous leather chair looking out a gigantic window overlooking the picturesque Rocky Mountains in Winter Park Coloado. Here for a little work and a lot of play, I'm so excited for a change of scenery. Lot's of things have been happening, weddings have been booked, new equipment has been purchased, websites have gone "live". Busy does not describe my life right now but its the good kind of busy. I love what I do. Thanks for letting me do what I love. I'll be posting pictures all week, come back and see 'em!


talk to you soon,
Michael Norwood