Sonoma

Who's on holiday? In the time since I said Jules Bianchi Photography was officially on hiatus I've added a section to my website, designed a sample album, met with a potential client regarding her 2006 wedding and shot, edited and released a family portrait (not to mention agreed to shoot a New Year's Eve wedding with my friend, Becker, when I could have had that day off!)

Okay. I'll admit I have a little bit of a work-a-holic problem, but yesterday I did something non-work related and fun. Um, okay, I DID bring the 5D along...but Joy was shooting a lot, too! (As she should since she shoots most of my Bay Area weddings with me!)

Joy, Jason, Brett and I drove up to Sonoma to do a little wine tasting and have a nice dinner at The General's Daughter. Joy dressed up because she said you never know when you might end up on Jules' blog.

Its so true.

Labels: personal

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Grace

Today I had the pleasure of photographing an adorable little lady named Grace. She is as smart as a whip, and super cute to boot. I spent an hour or two playing, er... shooting Grace and her family amongst some beautiful yellow leaves!

There were far too many favorites to choose from, but just to give you an idea...

Labels: family portraits

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A Momentous Occasion

Quite unplanned, my IMMEDIATE family ended up at Starbuck's together today. It was so much fun to just sit and reminisce over past Christmases for an hour or so. The four of us haven't been together like that since I was a little kid, and it was really wonderful. (Those of you with divorced parents and siblings with young children will understand how incredibly special this is.)

Taken with Joy's cell phone:

Labels: personal

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Christmas Day

I don't want to go back to work! Living in Los Angeles, I don't get to see my family as often as I would like to. Because I miss them so much, I decided to drive to the Bay Area a full week before Christmas specifically to spend time with them. Man, has this week flown by.

I always spend Christmas Eve with my father and Christmas Day with my mother, as does my sister and her family.

My mother's pretty staircase



Penny & my Dad



my Mom & me



the trouble with being a twin...



Mom loves her embroidery machine so a lot of my gifts have my logo on them... even my new towels!

Labels: personal

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Merry Christmas!!

Personally, I think the anticipation is more fun than actually opening the gifts, but I don't know if Penelope would agree with me....

Labels: personal

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Five Page Feature in The Knot!

I noticed on my friend, Jessica Claire's blog that the North Carolina Knot featured one of her weddings. Way to go, Jess!

But it reminded me....

The Southern California Knot came out recently, and I completely forgot to do a little bragging!! Wendy and John, whose wedding I shot this past April, have a five page spread of their Greystone Mansion wedding featured in the latest issue! To see more of Wendy and John's wedding, please click here.

To see more of Jules Bianchi Photography in the press, please click here.

Congratulations Wendy & John!

Labels: news, wedding2005

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Santa Jeffrey plays the favorites

My brother is 14 and has been making a Christmas CD since he was 10. He plays violin and piano, and every year he records himself playing Christmas carols to give as a gift to his friends and family. When he's famous, I'll have the whole collection!

Here are some favorites for the CD cover from the shoot we did tonight:

Labels: personal

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Holiday Self-Portrait

Today my four-year old niece, Penelope, and I spent the day in the kitchen baking. We put together another snowman cake and made a chocolate meringue pie! Who knew I had it in me??

Of course, we had to get a festive shot together...

Labels: personal

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Snow in California!

My step-mother gushed over the Snowman cake in the William Sonoma catalog, and since I am supposed to bring dessert for Christmas Eve, I decided this would be the perfect thing! I'm going to give her the tin you bake him in as a gift.

I can't believe how cute my Snowman came out!

Labels: personal

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I love the holidays

I was so blessed in 2005! A heart-felt thank you to everyone who touched my life this year.

Jules Bianchi Photography is officially on hiatus until 2006. Merry Christmas everyone!

Labels: kudos, news

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Holiday Cheer is here!

Last night was so much fun! I'm so happy because I have finished all of the work I needed to do, and now its time to celebrate the holidays and relax.

I love this time of year because everyone is in a good mood AND there are lots of reasons to dress up! Dina Douglass invited me to the Sunfish Design party, and I won a bottle of wine from the party raffle. Party Raffle! What a fun idea! It was exactly what I wanted to win because the next party was my good friend, Tina's, "Red Velvet, Red Wine" party. It was so festive with homemade red velvet CAKE to boot!! Tiffany Stern came, too!

Labels: networking, personal

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I miss Hazel

Since I don't have kids, I like to think of my pets as part of the family. Less work, more furry.

I have been thinking about Hazel all morning because she died a year ago today. Poor little Abigail was very upset, but not as upset as me. I know not everyone is a cat person, but Hazel was a really cool one, and I miss her.

baby hazel



bigger hazel

Labels: personal

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Casino Night!

When I first moved to Los Angeles back in 1992, I worked behind a desk in a talent management company for some really amazing people. Its remarkable that we've kept in touch all this time because tonight, I was working for them again! However this time it was in the capacity of photographer, shooting their annual Christmas party.

The theme of the party was Casino night, and I stayed two hours over my allotted time because we were having so much fun!

Labels: events

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Invitations by Soolip

Wanda Wen, founder of the fantastic Soolip Paperie & Press, called me yesterday and asked if I could photograph some of their beautiful invitations asap because she needed some images for a magazine deadline. I have always loved Soolip and A Soolip Wedding and was happy to do the favor. Wanda messengered the invitations last night, and Jessica and I worked on it for most of today. If you are getting married and still need to find your invitations, look no further! Soolip has an amazing collection.

Here are a few of my favorites. To see more, please click here.

Labels: product

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'tis the Season...

Because Jules Bianchi Photography is sending out 500 Christmas cards this year and I love the idea of handwritten envelopes, I am very fortunate to have someone as patient as Jessica in my office to help me!

Our workspace makes me really happy - today I walked in to find Jessica hard at work addressing the cards with Abigail supervising from an empty envelope box.

Labels: news

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Kevin Kubota's fantastic workshops

So I've been using Adobe Camera Raw to convert my RAW files for about a year now, and I have really grown to like the workflow. After seeing Kevin Kubota whipping around his G4 yesterday, I'm convinced that I will stick with ACR rather than trying to convert over to Aperture.

If you ever have the chance to see Kevin speak, not only is he charming and funny, but he's wicked smart!

Afterward, I had sushi with some fellow PhotoShoppers...once again I had to resort to asking the waiter to shoot us with my Nokia 3660 since my little p&s was back at the hotel... I think its kinda cute in an arty, fun way.

The Gang (in no particular order):
Stephanie Brockman & Jim Kennedy, Jules Bianchi, Tony Bison and his assistant, Jared, Carrie & Ryan Phillips, and Tiffany Stern (formerly Tiffany Nainkin.)

Labels: networking

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Aperture

Today Apple had a free workshop downtown to demo their new software, Aperture. All the photographers have been buzzing about it, and because I already shoot RAW, I felt I needed to see it firsthand. Plus some friends were going...Monday we are going to Kevin Kubota's PhotoShop CS2 RAW workflow so that we can compare the two programs.

Jim Kennedy, Jules Bianchi, Becker, and Kathleen (Becker's lovely office manager) in front of the festive Christmas scene at the Westin hotel where the workshop took place.

Labels: networking

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Bridal Bar Holiday Party

Tonight the Bridal Bar threw a party at the Can Can Parleur in Pasadena. I love being associated with the Bridal Bar not only because it is prestigious to be a part of such an elite group of talented wedding vendors, but because everyone involved with it is so genuinely likable. The party was fun and really different - we were treated to foot and hand massages, an amazing a cappella performance, beautiful blue drinks by Hpnotiq, handwriting analysis, and red leather nail kits with white stitching (as Jen Dery knows, I'm a sucker for stitching) were the parting gifts.

A few of the cast of characters:

Jules Bianchi and the artful photographer, Josh Bobrove, at the front door.



Jules with our host, the lovely Harmony Walton.



Two times in one week!! How lucky am I to hang out with one of my FAVORITE photographers, Robert Evans.



The accomplished wedding photographer, Todd Johnson getting a massage.



I love Margaret of Happy Day Video. She just got married, so of course we spent our time together looking at her fabulous wedding photos. If you ever need video for your wedding, she's the one. 8mm film, digital video - she is great at what she does and really fun to hang out with to boot.



Josh (with, as Robert says, his standard photo face on) and Lisa Vorce of Oh How Charming - I thought Lisa's red flowers were perfect for the style of the Can Can.



and last but not least, I was so excited to wear the shoes my sister gave me - I received many compliments on them tonight, so thanks to those who noticed.

Labels: networking

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Leather Craftsmen

I spent my entire day with fellow wedding photographers. I love having friends who know what my life is like! With the exception of last year, Leather Craftsmen throws a pizza party for its clients every December at the awesome (I'm not jealous!) studio of Robert Evans. Leather Craftsmen is the ONLY album company I use because they are, in my humble opinion, the best. They handcraft every album, and are so good about calling me if there are ever any questions or concerns about an order. Talk about customer service!

The party itself was fun, and afterward about eight of us went to The Grove for Greek food and a movie (and Anthropologie.)

photos courtesy of becker.

Becker and Ira Gershoff - our Leather Craftsmen rep. I see B had to settle for Diet Pepsi - poor thing.



Jules and Ira



The famous and adorable Mike Colon with our host and my good friend, Robert Evans



Jules Bianchi, Robert Evans and Dina Douglass



Ira and Joe Bussink in (as Becker likes to say) a Jules Sandwich.

Labels: networking

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Happy St. Nicholas Day!!!

Because my mother's family is from Ukraine, when I was a child we would receive our stockings on St. Nicholas Day instead of Christmas Day. St. Nick's is on December 6th, and it really helps kick off the holiday season!!

Even though I haven't lived at home for a long time, my mother faithfully sends me and Olive our stockings every St. Nick's. THANK YOU MOM!! I love you!!

Check out the STASH!! Mom MADE me a gorgeous cloth for my table to really help put some Christmas spirit in the house. Olive stuck her nose in the box and pulled out her ball herself. She seems quite proud of it.

Labels: olive, personal

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The Flexibility of Digital

I love the flexibity I have when shooting with my Canon 5D or 20D. I can have my images exactly as I want them!

regular color image



Sepia



Cross-Processed



Infrared

Labels: news

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True Love

Labels: olive

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You are my Home

My own personal iTunes. Jason Boles, creator of the wonderful "You are my Home."

Labels: personal

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San Diego Trip

This weekend was filled with wedding photographers and Holiday events. Tonight I had dinner with three other uber-talented photographers:

Becker, Sara France, Jules Bianchi and David Jay




Becker & Jules




After dinner we went to a cool Holiday party at the home of John Mirales and Jen Dery where there were catered appetizers and yummy S'Mores around a fire! And too many photographers to shake a stick at.


John and Jen




Tony Bisson and Jessica Claire




Jules Bianchi, Jessica Claire and Dina Douglass

Labels: networking

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Blythe

Last year I became obsessed with Blythe, a doll that first came to be back in 1972. I thought she was just the cutest thing ever, so I bought a few tiny ones on eBay and a large one with orange hair that turns blonde with heat. Now the dolls sit on my bookshelf guarding the vintage camera collection.... Tonight I decided to shoot them with the 5D to see which RAW converter I liked best. So far the winner is the Canon software that came with the camera. I want to be happy with PhotoShop CS2, but I'm just not. Might have to check out Aperture afterall...

Blythe as a blonde with pink kitty eyes



Blythe as an orangehead with blue eyes



Petite Feline Blythe - the first one I ever owned.

Labels: personal

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