Published Again!

This one probably only counts in my mom's book. Haha.

I got an email from a Michelle Sharp of Annie M. Events last night telling me that she was featured in Bride And Bloom Magazine. She sent over a PDF of the page and I noticed that one of my pictures made it in... kind of. Last year I did some headshots for Michelle and she used one for her picture in the magazine. So should I count it or not? Haha.

By the way, the rest of the photography on the page was done by a friend of mine, Lauren Hillary. She's great.

Hope, Coffee and Melody

Back when I was a musician I was recording an album and I had a guy produce it named Robbie Seay. He became a friend and in the past few years I've gotten to watch as his career has taken off. He recently had one of his songs featured on the American Idol commercials which was pretty cool. Anyway, most of his songs, in some way or another, have the theme of hope woven throughout them. He's even got the word "hope" tattooed on his arm.

A few weeks ago I blogged about finding out that Cyndie and I were expecting another child. We were thrilled to say the least, and the amazing friends and family around us made that even sweeter by celebrating along with us. A few days ago we realized things weren't going well with the pregnancy and shortly after Cyndie miscarried. Needless to say, we were and are devastated and again the people around us shared in our disappointment and have showered us with love.

After we learned of the miscarriage I was in the car driving to a shoot and put on Robbie's new album to listen to. One song in particular stood out to me, New Day. There's a part in it that says:

" I know it might seem that the world is crumbling, but it's me and you dancing in the kitchen at 2am, and we're still alive. And it might not be the prettiest thing that you've ever seen but its a new day. And it might not look like a beautiful sunrise, but its a new day."

It might be cheesy to gain solace from a song but I did. We're surrounded by amazing friends and family and there's always hope for tomorrow.
The first and last line of that song is:

"I'm gonna sing this song, to let you know that you're not alone. And if you're like me you need hope, coffee and melody."

That pretty much sums it up.
Hit the backwards play button to start the song. (2nd from the left)

It crackled!

(edited because Kenny's post is way better than mine)

I got a call tonight from my friend Mike Colon asking if I wanted to come over and play poker with some of the people who attended his workshop this week. I'm always down for poker so I was definitely in. Well I wasn't prepared for what I witnessed. My buddy Kenny Kim has done a way better job of detailing the event so I hijacked his post about it from his blog... hope you don't mind Kenny! Check out his site and blog too. He's an awesome photographer from the Chicago area.

Here's Kenny's account:

I just witnessed something unbelievable. I'm not even sure if I should blog about it but I think the whole world needs to know what just happened. We all know that Mike Colón's Experience Workshop has made an impact on so many photographers. We just finished with his 8th workshop and this one was no different. But for one person, that impact will last for lifetime...literally.

Disclaimer: What you are about to witness was not, in any way, condoned by Mike Colón. It was voluntarily done by one of his workshop attendees, Phillip Glickman from Envisionography.

Synopsis: During the second day of our workshop, one of the attendees, Nathan, noticed that Mike had his logo branded on his belt. Mike explained to us that he has a branding iron made of his logo. Phillip told us that he also has a brand of the Christian fish on his left thigh. He then told us that he would brand Mike's logo on his other leg if someone dared him. Obviously no one took him seriously. So we thought..."

On the last night of our workshop, Phillip decided to put his money where his mouth is and decided to BRAND Mike's logo on his thigh. I'll let the photos tell you the rest of the story...






It was so hot that we actually heard the skin 'pop' and smelled the burning flesh!







Gnarly! David Escalante videoed the whole thing and will have it online pretty soon! I'll let you know when.

I came in second in poker tonight. I played good and won a little bit of money but got called in some crazy situations in the final hands to lose the heads up match.

Ceremony Magazine

Last night Cyndie, Makenzie and I went out to dinner with our friends Travis and Hayley. After dinner they all went to get some ice cream and I split off and went to get some coffee. The closest place for coffee was Barnes and Noble so while I was in there I decided to look through the magazines. I saw the new Ceremony Magazine was out so I picked a couple up. I'm so excited to have another wedding in there this year. I was also happy to see my name in there a few more times. A few of the vendors I've worked with advertise in the magazine and used some of my images for their ads. Sweet!

Here is the wedding:



And here is Annie M. Event's ad featuring one of my favorite brides of the year, Bina.

And lastly the Ebell of Los Angeles used one of my images as well. Its the room shot in the top left corner. If you're looking for a venue, that place is incredible.

Indoor Shoot Setup

I've had several people ask what the setup was for the lifestyle shoot I shot last week so I thought I'd tell you guys in case you wanted to try it out.

For the shoot I had 2 Profoto Acute 2 1200 packs and 2 strobes. It was a very simple setup. One light was outside at a 45 degree angle to the window. It was set pretty hot so that it would blow out the window and look like direct sunlight beaming in. For the other one, I didn't want it to look like artificial light so it was never in a direct line with the couple. It was always around walls, through doors, with the light bouncing around before it got to the couple. It took a little playing around to get the right amount of fill from the inside strobe. We just played with the positioning and the ratios and after a little experimentation we liked what we had. Both the strobes were triggered wirelessly by pocket wizards. I also had a few white foam core reflectors that I used for fill if needed. You can get foam core at pretty much any pro-photography store, its super cheap and the quality of the light off of them is way better than those silver or gold 5-in-1 reflectors.

That was it. Once you get it right you can just shoot away and you have awesome, consistent light. Let me know if you have any other questions.

San Francisco Engagement

Sunday I met Pat and Patty in the city for their engagement shoot. We started by the famous Palace of Fine Arts and ended the night at the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero. We had a great time and even figured out that Patty went to junior high with Jennifer whose engagement I shot in New York last month. Here are a few favorites from the day.

Lifestyle Shoot

I got a call from a magazine a couple of weeks ago asking for a very specific lifestyle kind of image. I called some friends to model for me and we planned the shoot. Well it turned out that the only time we could get together was at night and the images I had in my mind were daytime images. So I decided to try to create daylight. I rented some studio lights and this is what we came up with. I'm super excited about the results. These were taken between 10:30pm and 1:00am.

Engagement

I was going through some images tonight and came across an engagement I shot a few months ago. One series of pictures in particular stood out to me so I thought I'd share it with you guys.

Technorati

I know I'm way behind the curve on this but if you read my blog and have one as well... I'll be happy to return the favor!

Poker Video

My boy Lan Bui made a video of the poker game from Becker's the other night showing, among other things me "sucking out" on Lan to put him out of the game. Haha.

Just pick which format you'd like to watch the video in (flash or quicktime) and it'll start playing.

• Flash
• | QuickTime

by: vPIP	Embed (copy & paste):	close

iPhone Friday

I was looking through some of the pictures I took with my iPhone and thought I'd share a few with you. None of them alone would merit their own post but I figured I'd start something new and put up my random photos from the week on Fridays to let you in on my thrilling daily life.

Photo #1: While we were in New York we saw these posters EVERYWHERE and I had to get a picture. That's not all that exciting, I know, but what is exciting is that my friend Brent plays bass/cello for One Republic. Its been fun watching them explode over the past months. About a year ago I was bowling with Brent and he was telling me about "this new band" that he joined. He said they were really good and had a huge following on myspace. What a difference a year makes. The craziest thing recently was watching them play on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve.

Photo #2: A couple of days ago I had to drive over to Costa Mesa to drop of some prints at Leather Craftsmen for one of my client's albums. It was about 4pm and I knew I'd get stuck in ridiculous traffic coming home so I did what any crafty photographer would do... I took my child with me so I could use the carpool lane. Makenzie had just woken up from her nap and was watching TV and wanted nothing to do with a trip in the car so I bribed her with dinner at Chic-fil-a. It was kids night and the cow was there so she couldn't have been happier. Kids eat free on Tuesday nights. How sweet is that?

Photo #3: Poker is fast becoming my favorite pastime. Whether its on TV, online or a live game, I'm down. At least once a month my buddy Becker has a poker night at his house. I've finished in the money a few times but the last 2 times I've gotten put out on ridiculously bad beats. Last time by Jessica Claire(I went all in on the turn with a full house, 10s full of Jacks, she called and had Queen 10. Only a queen could save her... of course she caught it on the river) and tonight by Becker (I was the big time short stack, I went all in with pocket tens, he called with Ace 8 and caught an Ace on the river.)

The one thing that makes me feel okay tonight is that I got some sweet revenge on Jessica. She raised pre-flop, I re-raised her and she went all in. I called and she flipped over Ace 3. I had pocket kings and after a WAY to stressful flop, turn and river I took her out.

This is a super bad picture but check out the sweet [b] logo chips Jessica got Becker for Christmas.


I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon for Mammoth. I'm going snowboarding with my good friend Justin Lyon, producer of the hit kids show on Nickelodeon, Yo Gabba Gabba and husband to another one of my photographer friends Amelia Lyon. Last week it snowed 10 feet up there! It should be epic boarding. I can't wait. Check back on Sunday and I'll let you know if I made it back in one piece.

This concludes the inaugural edition of iPhone Friday.

Kids

Over the holidays I got the chance to shoot some kids portraits. I had such a great time and I'm looking forward to shooting kids more. If you're looking for kids or family portraits shoot me an email. With weddings slowing down for the next few months, now's the time to book your session!