Snowboarding Trip

I'm hesitant to post again and cover up my BIG news from yesterday, but I want to keep my blogging streak alive. So if you didn't come here yesterday, keep reading after todays post.

This time of year, while not full of shoots, is still great. I've got tons of meetings with new clients. I get to catch up with other vendors, and I get a little break for some snowboarding! A few weeks ago Justin Lyon invited me up to Mammoth to go snowboarding. Of course! The Lyons just put up some images from the trip so I jacked them.

A sweet self potrait of Justin... who, as I mentioned before is the producer of the hit kids tv show Yo Gabba Gabba!


Me and Justin trying to contain our excitement.




Supposedly he's gonna send me some pics from last week when we went up to Big Bear with super-star photographer and semi-pro snowboarder, Mike Colon.

In a few weeks a bunch of us are gonna take over Mammoth for a few days. Can't wait!

Theo Jansen

My friend Trever sent this to me today. This has nothing to do with photography but I think you'll be inspired.

California or Colorado?

I took this a few minutes ago for my boy, Fred Egan, who recently laughed when I said we had ski mountains in Southern California. Who's up for some snowboarding?

The Indestructible iPhone

Last week I got a call from my buddy Mike Colon asking if I wanted to go snowboarding. So we went up to the mountains with a couple other friends to take advantage of the incredible snow conditions up in Big Bear.

Late in the day we were boarding through the trees and ravines and I got into some super deep powder. I fell end over end. After I got up I caught up to Mike and Justin who'd sat down to wait for me. We went back down to the bottom of the mountain to see if we could find our other friend Travis that we had lost along the way.

After a while we jumped back on the lift and Mike says, "oh no, I lost my phone". After a couple minutes he realized that he just put it in a different pocket. At that point I thought I'd check just to make sure my phone was still in its place. Nope. After we got off the the lift I searched through all my pockets only confirming my fears, my beloved iPhone was gone. Mike was optimistic. He said we'd just retrace our steps and find it. I was a not so sure. On one hand we went off the trails so it was less likely that someone else had found it and pocketed it but on the other hand we went through the trees, with tons and tons of powder... there was next to no chance that we'd find it.

We set off going through the forest, retracing our tracks. About halfway down I'd all but given up but we kept going. We stopped where I fell earlier only to see just how deep the powder really was. A little ways down we stopped where they'd initially waited for me. I stopped and knelt down knowing that I'd never see my phone again... just then a tiny black spot in the snow caught my eye. I reached deep into the snow pulling out MY iPHONE! If I'd stopped 6 inches in any direction other than where I did I wouldn't have seen it. And the even better news, it still worked! After about 45 minutes buried in the snow it kept going like a champ. After I pulled it out of the snow Mike asked me if I was praying on the way down, "all the way," I said!

Life was good again. Good friends, incredible snowboarding and I was reunited with my precious iPhone. Let's do it again guys!

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.

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.

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.

Up late.

My good friend Travis and I are at the midnight showing of I Am Legend. I haven't been to a midnight movie since college. I hope I can stay awake.

New York Engagement

Its soooooo late so I'm not going to write much now. I'll fill you in on our trip later. Yesterday I shot Jennifer and Andrew's engagement pictures. We travelled all over Manhattan and even took a little trip over to Brooklyn too. We had a blast and got some really fun images. Here you go!












And finally a sweet picture of the Manhattan Bridge I took while we were in Brooklyn.

Aughhhh!

I was putting one of Makenzie's Christmas presents in the garage and when I opened it up this was what I was greeted by! I hate spiders especially black widows.

Date Night

I took Makenzie out a few nights ago for coffee. She's so much fun. This picture shows a few things: #1. my beautiful daughter and #2. Starbucks brought out the Holiday Cups! Sad as it seems, here in southern California where we have no seasons, the holiday cups are one of the things that make it feel like Christmas time... atleast for me. After the holiday I promise to get back to regular posting (weddings, engagements... etc.) Also next week Cyndie and I leave for New York again for a spectacular "Christmas in New York" engagement session. Look for that soon!

Cyndie, Makenzie and I are having our first solo holiday tomorrow... just the three of us. I'm actually really excited. We don't really care that much for traditional Thanksgiving fare so we're gonna start our own tradition and make some really great steaks. A good filet beats turkey any day.

Hope you guys have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Back Home

Well I'm home. I have a shoot in L.A. tonight so Cyndie, Makenzie and I went out to get some Chinese for lunch before I take off. Like I've said here before we love Chinese but we've had a rough time finding a restaurant that compares to our old favorite back in Texas. So we keep searching. While Cyndie and I have yet to be thrilled Makenzie just loves every place we go. All she cares about is whether they have steamed rice. Here she is polishing off the rest of the bowl. I wish I could show you the mess she made eating that whole thing (you can see some of it in front of her plate there) but the busboy just cleaned the table. Haha.

Denny's

I took this weekend off and drove out to Lake Havasu to hang out with my brother. We just went and saw "American Gangster" (great film by the way) and now we're grabbing a late dinner at the only place still open... Denny's. Mmmmmmm.

NickOnkenDotCom

Last night I had a shoot in Beverly Hills (that's where I wanna be). My friend Zack came along to help me and after the event we headed out to grab some sushi. After an awesome meal I got a call from my good friend Nick so we went out, grabbed a drink, talked shop and hung out for a while. If you're a photographer and want some inspiration or even if you're not a photographer and just wanna see some pretty pictures, go check out Nick's stuff. He's amazing.

Halloween

Here are a few pictures of Makenzie from Halloween and the pumpkins we carved (its kind of hard taking pictures of jack-o-lanterns). She had so much fun and doesn't care too much about candy which is nice.

Good Food

Last week after a shoot in Beverly Hills I didn't have it in me to fight traffic going home so I called some friends to get together for dinner. This is "our" place. SoCal's best fried chicken... Honey's Kettle. We ate, laughed (mostly at me), and talked photography. It was great. You might know them... One of my favorite couples, Marcus and Crissy! They had planned on getting on a plane for Mexico to celebrate their anniversary but with dinner with me on the table they decided to put it off one day. Not really. They did miss their flight though. Thanks for a good meal and a great time guys!

Nike+

I spend an inordinate amount of time behind a computer. This is one of the hazards of my profession. Well about a week ago my friend Fred, who is also a photographer, decided that he was going to do something about it. So he challenged me and a bunch of other photographers to a 30 mile race. Everyone has an iPod Nano and the Nike+ system and it will track your runs and display them to the rest of the group. I'm totally out of shape but I'm also extremely competitive so I went out last night, right when the race started, to get a head start on the competition. I also ran this morning and have run about 7.5 miles so far. I'm in the lead right now but I have a feeling I'm gonna get some competition pretty soon.

Film from the Salton Sea

I picked up my film today from the Salton Sea. It was cool to see... not near as cool as the black and white stuff but still cool. So here are a few. If you go down a few posts you can check out some of the digital images I shot. Aside from the few pictures I used textures on I think they're pretty similar. Which do you like better? I'm up in the air.