As Promised........

Its taken me a while to get this up on the blog, i have a ton to get done and oh so very little time to do it in. So here we go! We kick things off with the Goodban wedding! Jen and i had the great pleasure of photographing Dales wedding, i have know Dale and his family since he was just a little kid. So it was really neat for me to be able to capture his and Lori's special day. I couldnt have asked for more laid back people, everything that came up they had a total go with the flow attitude and they gave me total control over the photos. Its always so nice and easy to work with couples that hire you because they like your work and are not trying to control your images. The day was perfect, sun was out, no rain and best of all great people. The reception was awesome too!! All the little kids took to the dance floor and 2 in particular turned out to be little break dancers.......it was awesome. So heres an extra dose of sweet images from their day, my apologies for taking so long. More to come in the nest few days! So stay tuned. ENJOY!!

Goodban/Lee Wedding.....Sneak Peek

Visiting the home of Joshuas Tree.....

Last weekend we went camping with our Growth Group out to Joshua Tree National Park. We had a great time visiting Jumbo Rock, sitting around the campfire making smores and hiking around. I had some chances here and there to take some photos, took a bunch of panoramas (i wont post them here because they are huge and want to figure out a way to display them big). On the hike out to skull rock ( wich by the way was a little disappointing) we encountered a rattle snake wich really made my day being able to photograph it. The only thing that i was really bummed about was that i left my extension tube back at the car so i wasnt able to get any closer. Also did some night photos wich was a lot of fun, did a 40 minute exposure that 1st night wich came out pretty good in my opinion. So here are some pictures for you to enjoy, ill post some photos of our group later on or in a later post. Enjoy!

Making the best of crappy weather.....

Last Sunday i had a incredibly fun shoot with Brandon Camillo. You may remember the Camillo name from a couple of years ago since i also shot his sisters senior portraits. Now i know that i had stated before that i would NEVER shoot at the old bonsall bridge ever again, alas on Sunday i had to eat my words. Sunday we had this gross overcast, no detail in the clouds just thick grey. Well this destroyed my plans to shoot around the coast and we didnt want to reschedule.......so in the grayness we shot. Since im not to familiar with the fallbrook area i let teylor and brandon choose a place, they suggested a park near the HS. So off we went!! We started at the park, and while the area itself was pretty..........i just wasnt feeling it at least not in that light. As we progressed i eventually learned that Brandon is really more of an outdoors kind of guy, likes to surf and skateboard AND whats this? you brought a skateboard with you?! 2 of them! FANTASTIC!!! How can we get to use these things? We needed something that provided a good backdrop and zero traffic...........The Old Bonsall Bridge. With little time and the realization that we didnt have time to find a different location, difficult as it was for me i suggested the bridge and there was excitement. As soon as we got there the skateboard came out and it was a different Brandon, i knew that we would have to have him ride it for some of the photos. As soon as we started to work on some photos with him riding around he was excited to work on the pictures and to look at the results, just much more engaged. We also had some fun rigging my camera to the front of his board and figuring out how to make a picture work. I had a blast! Brandon was awesome and once we got the board out was really energetic and i was glad to see he was having fun. Poor Teylor........i volunteered her to be the holder of the flash, she was such a good sport about it. Thanks TEY!! I couldnt have done it without you! As always the challenge is to come away with something unique and that captures who your subject is, especially when you've shot in an area that you've used so much before. I think we achieved that.......ENJOY!

Sucking the color out of my photos....

I continue my learning adventure into the B&W world by taking the color right out of some of my photos. Let me know what you guys think, some of them are still being worked on but i thought it would be fun to document the learning process.













For all of you who cant live without color, heres some others ive been working on :)

Aperture 3........

I recently acquired Aperture 3, its Apples RAW conversion software for the Mac. So far it has been incredible! I love its organizational tools, how everything is integrated into the program itself, from making photo books, exporting for the web, making slideshows and the list goes on and on. It has forced me to rethink, redo, and plan out my organization structure........organizing terabytes of photos is an incredibly painstaking process but worth the time. The editing tools in the program are awesome! They have made incredible changes to the program since it was 1st released, while organizing photos and importing i have been taking some time to put it through the paces and have been processing some files. It has been a lot of fun and for some reason i find some things easier to do in aperture.......im not sure why but it just works out that way. One thing that i have really been enjoying is working with Black and White. I always found it daunting before but its been so fun right now, i am by no means a master at this yet and i know that i am just barely scratching the surface of B&W conversion. I think ill take some classes on how to best utilize the program. Anywho, heres some examples for you!

Here is a B&W version of Spouting Horn in Kauai


And here is the color version, both were processed in Aperture 3


Heres one that i shot in color, never liked it in color but i like it a lot more in B&W. A slight color cast was added to it all done within Aperture. I did 3 different versions of this file in less than 10 minutes......it was awesome!


This is an old color edit i did a couple of years ago, i had not updated this image since my initial edit until today. Wether the difference was because of the program or just my growth in how to edit and knowing what i want in a photo i dont know.......all i know is that i like the new one better.


New version ;)


This one is a couple of years old as well, i had tried to convert it to B&W before but could never get to where i liked it. I still am not completely satisfied with it but its a lot closer than it was before. Here is the color version (im going to redo this one in Aperture in color and post it later)


B&W


I know what youre thinking. Why in Gods name would i ever turn images from Hawaii which is nothing but color into B&W. Simply put is that i have always felt that color is eye candy i love the reduction of an image into nothing else but tones......i think ill shoot more B&W in the very near future.