Tuesday, January 31, 2006

my PUG

Tonight I hosted my first PUG meeting! Pictage is launching groups around the country, and mine is the West Hollywood group. PUG stands for "Pictage User Group" and is meant to be a way for local photographers to not only network and preview new Pictage products, but to act as a voice to let Pictage know what we might need from them. I will be leading a PUG on the last Tuesday of each month, so if you're a photographer in the West Hollywood area, come on down! If you are not familiar with Pictage, click here to check out one of my sample events.

I decided to have our first meeting at Wahoo's Fish Tacos on Wilshire because there is lots of free parking (a big deal here in LA) and we could get yummy chips and salsa to munch on. Each month we will be doing a studio spotlight, so tonight my company started things off. I brought a bunch of albums and products for everyone to check out, and I talked little bit about myself before we started our meeting. I was glad Deb Gerson was the only one there I knew because it meant that I got to meet a bunch of new people. Networking is really important as well as really fun (but sometimes fattening if you're doing it at wahoos.)

A bunch of my albums out for perusal purposes



Photographers checking out Jules' stuff and just getting to know each other...

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Saturday, January 28, 2006

ONE

one minute ago: reading Joy's blog and getting this idea.

one hour ago: looking at my Year End Report and writing down what each miscellaneous item was for.

one day ago: doing a shoot for David Regier's CD cover, editing that down and doing a little PhotoShop work to my favorites. Finalizing a few pages on a client album and watching the end of "You, Me and Everyone We Know" as well what I had on Tivo - "The Office" and turning off "Scrubs" because it has just gotten so bad.

one week ago: (had to refer to Entourage to remember) meeting with a client in my living room for the first time since I've redone it, going to Marty's house to cut matts for the photographs that will soon be on the walls.

one month ago: (had to refer to my blog to remember) went to Sonoma with Jason, Joy and Brett and did a little wine tasting and winding down.

one year ago: sad to say the only thing in my calendar for that day is an appointment with a chiropractor whom I don't see anymore. At that time I was meeting with clients at the Bridal Bar and changing my pricing structure for 2005.

one decade ago: in January of 1996 I had just started working as the personal assistant to Chris O'Donnell. We were working on the lot of Universal Studios on a movie called "The Chamber" and preparing to live in Mississippi for three months.

one quarter century ago: in 1981 I was 10 years old and living in Clayton, California with my immediate family and any number of cats (mom and dad didn't seem to understand the value of spaying our pets.) My family traveled together a lot, and I think we went to Italy that summer...I am really glad I did a lot of traveling as a kid, but I don't think I had the appreciation for it then that I do now.

Its interesting to reflect on one's life... I wonder what the next 25 years will be like...

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Friday, January 27, 2006

David Regier

David Regier is a talented musician from San Diego. Today he drove up to meet me at LACMA so I could shoot images of him for the cover of his new CD, "All Glory." He is a fun person, and we got a lot of great stuff. Here is a small sample, but you can view all images if you click here!









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Thursday, January 26, 2006

Mark Seliger

Tonight my friend, Robert Evans, invited me to Mark Seliger's show at the Fahey Klein gallery on La Brea. I met Mark back in my Chris O'Donnell days when he came out to London to shoot Chris there. I remember he convinced Chris to get into the fountain at Trafalger Square even though getting into the water isn't really allowed. The shots were worth it, though!

Mark's show is titled "In My Stairwell" and is, well, a series of shots he's taken (on medium format film) in his stairwell.

I love projects like this. I think as a photographer it's important to find personal projects to keep yourself inspired and keep photography fun. I myself did a few recently (the color project and the alphabet project) and I'm in the process of figuring out my next one. I haven't had an actual show in years, so I think that may be a new goal of mine...

There were a lot of people at the show, so of course we ran into some friends.



Robert, Jules & Josh



Checking out the show



Jules Bianchi and Debra Gerson of Gerson Photography



Ira Gershoff of Leather Craftsmen, Jules Bianchi and Robert Evans.

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Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Johnnie-O

I have been friends with John O'Donnell for about 10 years now, and I am so excited for him because he's started up his own line of cool clothing! John is an avid golfer, and this clothing line is all about that particular sport.

To get awesome product shots of his clothing line, Mr. Johnnie-O hired his good friend, Jules Bianchi. We had fun together getting those shots, but what I'm looking forward to is the fashion shoot we'll be doing in a few weeks featuring gentlemen wearing Johnnie-O on the golf course! You can check out the Johnnie-O website by clicking here. (Of course, I just photographed the line today so there isn't much on his site yet... but give it a few days!)

Here are a few detail shots and a few of the product colors just to give you an idea of what we did today. Check out the neat features on the shorts like the built-in shammie to clean off a dirty golf ball, or the ability to embroider your club's logo on the back! To see a larger version of everything, please click here.





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Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Polaroid Transfers

Today I drove down to the OC to give a little lesson on the art of Polaroid transfers to two talented photographers, Leigh Miller and Jessica Claire. I love doing both Polaroid transfers and emulsion transfers. Its a cool way to showcase one great shot, and with the proper tools, its something I can just do in my kitchen!

To see more of my Polaroid transfers, please click here!

The evening of fun at Jessica's house:

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Saturday, January 14, 2006

Olivia

I shot first-year portraits for Olivia's two older siblings, Kate and Will, and today was Olivia's turn. Even though the family has moved to Utah, they made sure to call me when they were in town to capture Olivia for her first birthday.









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Monday, January 09, 2006

Two Weddings in Ceremony Magazine

The new Ceremony Magazine came out this week, and Jules Bianchi Photography is the only studio with TWO featured weddings! Congratulations to both David & Althea, Trisha & Travis for having their gorgeous weddings chosen to be published. To see more of Trisha and Travis' wedding, please click here and to see more of Jules Bianchi in the press, please click here!

Not only did I have these two weddings featured, but my photographs are scattered throughout the magazine. My favorite example of this is the one that was chosen to start the Photography section of the magazine!





Trisha & Travis





Althea & David



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Saturday, January 07, 2006

Everyone's jumping on the blogwagon!

New blog #1.

Dina Douglass is a wedding photographer, but lately she has been shooting musicians for a book. She thought a blog would be a good way to showcase this and asked me to help her start one. You can check it out here.

New blog #2.

Yesterday my friend, Robert Evans, took me for the best sushi I'd had in a while in exchange for also helping HIM start a blog! Robert is a wonderful photographer who has also been shooting a lot more than just weddings lately, and he wanted to start a blog to highlight some of that work. You can see it by clicking here.

Way to go, guys, now you just have to keep them up!

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Thursday, January 05, 2006

My Blog Master

Okay people. Here is your chance to have a cool blog of your own. William has been one of my best friends since college, and he is the one responsible for making my blog look just like my website. If you are a photographer and would like your blog to match your website, contact him here. See Will's cool website by clicking here.

Tonight I went to Will's house to hang out. The first thing I noticed when I walked in was a crazy pile of wine corks on the floor. We finished off a bottle and added our own cork to the pile.



Working on my site...tonight Will coolified my comments feature, helped me figure out why my sidebar links kept disappearing and created a script that rotates my smiling face each time you visit my blog. Try it! Refresh and you'll see what I mean!



Jules & Will in the kitchen



What Will was doing in the kitchen... ladies, this was a MEAN pizza. You gotta love a man who can cook!! Will is going to make some lucky lady very happy.



Olive flirts shamelessly.



I have always wanted to do a book of refrigerators. I think people make huge efforts to design their homes, but the fridge has always been reserved for magnet-art and quick notes and therefore (I think) it more accurately reflects a person's personality. Will's fridge is no exception... and even features yours truly inhaling a watermelon at Canter's.

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More Soolip Invitations

Today I finished up the "bird's eye" view of all the Soolip Invitations. Again, if you are a bride looking for the perfect custom invitations, you must check out what Soolip has to offer. Here are two of my favorites from today:




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A Shout Out

I love to shoot weddings. I readily admit that I'm a workaholic and not only shoot weddings that I myself have booked, but give up my weekends (and holidays) to second shoot weddings with friends. Okay, yes, we do compensate each other either with money or with trade-offs, but I really feel that shooting weddings with my talented friends is also a true learning experience. My father used to tell me that you are heavily influenced by your friends, and these are people I definitely want influencing me! They are all so different from each other and so talented in their own ways.

I love to look at other photographer's work just to get inspired and see what other people are doing. The following five photographers are people I shot with in 2005 (some also came with me to second shoot on my weddings.) I want to thank them for letting me spend time with them and for being my friends! If I am booked for a wedding, I would readily refer any and all of them.

In no particular order:

Suzi Varin

Tiffany Stern

The Becker

Anna Kuperberg

John Riedy

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Sunday, January 01, 2006

Shooting with Becker

Tonight I spent my New Year's Eve shooting a wedding with my good friend, the wildly talented photographer Becker. He is so inspirational, and I learn so much from him. Thanks, b, for asking me to come along.

There were plenty of adorable children to shoot, which I love.













I just love this shot I took of Becker - it rained the entire day, but he's such a trouper... he was determined to get a shot of all the men in the front of the church, (please check out tonight's wedding on his blog to see it, its really fantastic) and someone was kind enough to hold the umbrella (unlike me who was hiding under the overhang shooting him with a very long lens.)









probably the kookiest thing I've seen at a wedding...a wedding pyramid!







and of course, the New Year's Eve Count Down.

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