debi & garret
july 28, 2007
On Saturday, Joy and I shot a wedding at the beautiful Viansa Winery in Sonoma. Both Debi and Garret were so emotional during their ceremony... they were so happy to be marrying each other! I have posted a few of my favorites, but feel free to click on the slideshow below to see highlights from the whole day (or click here to see the slideshow in its own window.)
Labels: wedding2007
I really LOVE my clients. Earlier this year, Joy and I shot Monica & Martin's beautiful wedding at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco. I'm at my sister's house today and what arrives in the mail but a big thank you package for me, Olive and Abigail! The super thoughtful Monica & Martin have not only sent me a Blythe petite doll (I'm completely obsessed with her) but they found a photographer's outfit for my full-sized Blythe to wear as well. Olive & Abigail got toys and treats!
Monica & Martin - you are so thoughtful. Thank you so much! I love how your Thank You cards turned out. The image you chose to use is one of my favorites from the whole day. When we went to the top of that hill to shoot, I loved that we could see your church down in the background. It just MADE the whole shot!
Check out the loot - You can see Olive back there... she couldn't wait for her rope toy to be photographed before she started chewing on it.
I'm in the Bay Area for a wedding in Sonoma tomorrow, but the first thing I'm going to do when I get home is put Blythe into her new photographer's get up. I think the Engrish costume title makes it perfect. 
on to the next yummy...
The BEST part...
Labels: kudos, olive, personal, wedding2007
My twin sister, Joy, is an incredibly integral part of my business. She and I are best friends and lead about as opposite lives as you can imagine. (I'm single and live alone in West Hollywood. Joy is married with two beautiful children and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.)
I'm at her house now because tomorrow's wedding is in Sonoma. I love shooting weddings in the Bay Area because it not only means Joy is my second shooter, but it means I get to play with my cute nieces, Penelope & Millie!
I used my "jb low red" preset on both of these images. I just love the look.
stephanie & john
july 21, 2007
There was no detail forgotten at the gorgeous wedding I shot on Saturday. Shooting along with me were my sister, Joy, who flew down from the Bay Area, and all the way from the East Coast, Amy Trahant of Take Aim Photography who is participating my Tea for Two mentoring program. The day flew by, but we had great fun the whole time! How happy was I that Bear, John's dog, was in the wedding party?
Details:
wedding and reception venue: Shutters Hotel on the Beach
coordination: Stephanie Lairson
floral design: City of Commerce Flowers
Hair & make-up: Sheree Pouls, Lips & Locks
band: West Coast Music
bridal gown: Priscilla of Boston
honeymoon destination: Fiji
Super fly slideshow set to the couple's first dance song (to see it in its own window, click here):
Labels: wedding2007
Because I'm going out of town next week, July's PUG (Pictage User Group) was held this week instead. I lead the Los Angeles PUG on the last Thursday of each month, and if you are a photographer in the area, please come join us!
Our speaker this month was the very handsome and talented photographer Mike Larson. He was quite inspiring and had a lot of great things to teach us about how we should be approaching our business and personal goals.
Also, I want to give a big thank you to Alice G Patterson who was July's Studio Spotlight. I think Alice's tag line "big Events, little Moments" is just so cute! She showed us some beautiful work, and it was really great getting to know a little bit more about her.
Afterward, a bunch of us went to Canter's to get Matzo ball soup - my favorite!
the gang:
Mike Larson:
Alice G Patterson:
Mike Larson, Robert Evans, me and the Matzo ball:
Labels: networking
lisa & sam
july 14, 2007
Lisa and Sam were so excited to get married on Saturday, and I don't think Lisa stopped smiling the entire day. She and Sam are a gorgeous couple, which certainly makes my job a lot easier.
I am really loving that ShowIt Fast allows me to share slideshows from my most recent weddings right here in my blog! You can watch their slideshow by clicking the "play" button in the slideshow below (I chose their first dance song to play in the background), or just scroll down to check out my favorites!
Labels: wedding2007
This past week has been an insane week of getting up early and running all over the place. Thursday morning, Robert Evans and I flew to the Bay Area to attend Kevin Kubota's Lightroom workshop in Walnut Creek. I was really excited because it meant I got to see my family as well as learn some new skills by the super talented Kevin Kubota. The class was all day on Friday, so my sister, Joy, organized a really fun sushi dinner for a bunch of local photographer friends on Thursday night.
Joining my sister and I were Gene Higa, Ann Hamilton, Robert Evans, Kevin Kubota, Frances Marron, Allyson Wiley, Julie Mikos, Heather Whiting & Jennifer Skog.
One COOL thing I discovered is that my custom presets work in both Bridge CS3 and Lightroom on JPEGS!!! Woo Hoo! I'm off to work on the beautiful wedding I shot this weekend... check back soon to see those images!
Labels: networking
I'm a little behind on my blogging, but I'm going to try to catch up this week!
Very early on Wednesday morning, I drove to the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda to photograph the creation of a new presidential library & museum. The head of national archives was there as well as the head of the private Nixon foundation. The event was to celebrate the handover from the private Nixon foundation to the National Archives. 42 million documents will be coming, including all of nixon's offical records and most likely the famous WaterGate tapes as well!
Labels: events
My friend, photographer Leanna Creel, is a volunteer for a cool organization to help inner-city kids called Photopiece. Photopiece is a 10 week course with the goal to expose, inspire and accompany teenagers as they learn basic photographic skills.
Each week they invite a different kind of photographer to speak, and this week I was invited to speak about wedding photography. I brought sample albums and talked about how I started and what it was like to be a wedding photographer. I was very flattered to be asked to speak and very impressed with the kid's work that I was shown. 
I wanted to show off this cool ad that Ron Dawson of Cinematic Studios has currently running in Rangefinder magazine...isn't it CUTE?? (Thank you, Brian Palmer, for the scan!)
The Artistic Guild of the Wedding Photojournalist Association [AG]WPJA has a contest each quarter, and I always forget to enter. Joy finally decided to do it for me, and this Holga shot from Lindsay & Spencer's Bel Air Bay Club wedding won in the Portrait category! Okay okay... so its 11th place, but I am happy to be recognized! Congratulations to my friend, Anna Kuperberg, who won first place in the "Getting Ready" category. Congratulations to Lindsay & Spencer, too!
I have a lot to blog about, but this week has been crazy ... more soon!
Labels: news
I just adore everything Soolip. I have shot their store interiors, three A Soolip Weddings, their line of hip wedding invitations, their uber cool corporate invitations and family portraits for owner and founder, Wanda Wen. Today, my house was like a mini-Soolip store with products scattered about as I shot them for the new ecommerce site. Now you can buy yummy Soolip goodies at stores across the U.S.!!
Here is a small sample of what we shot. To see more, click here!
Everything is so lush and textural, I just LOVE it.
These flowers have ties - they are perfect for your hair or wrist.
matching lush rug or table throw.
A string of cotton flowers.
For a very stylish office.
For designer journaling!
So your magazines have somewhere pretty to live.
Fancy folders.
This frame is made of rolls of tightly wound paper. 
Labels: product
stephanie & jeremiah
07-07-07
What a crazy (lucky!) day 07-07-07 was! Stephanie and Jeremiah were married at the lovely Spanish Hills Golf Club in Camarillo. My sister, Joy, flew down to shoot with me, so we thought it was really cool that the stylish Angel Swanson from Events of Love & Splendor coordinated the event with the help of HER sister, too! I thought Stephanie's flowers were unbelievable, and she had The Tea Rose Garden to thank for that.
The reception was one giant party with Lion Dancing, Taiko Drumming, Joe Bruin, a Cigar Bar, a Coffee Bar, a Martini Luge, a beautiful rolled fondant cake by Bread Basket (yes, Joy was SO excited to see that!) and a Photo Booth from Photoworks Interactive that gave Stephanie & Jeremiah a finished Guest Book by the end of the night. Joy and I added our own page, too, of course.
Here is something fun and new! The ability to see the slideshow RIGHT here in the blog! You can also click here to see it in its own window.
Labels: wedding2007
SUPER NEWS!
I just found out that I have been accepted to speak at the 3rd Annual Los Angeles Pictage Partner Conerference. I'm so excited! I am going to be speaking about workflow, ("Getting from I do to I'm done") and now that my presets work for Lightrooom, (Thank you, Karin Linde!) I guess I'll have to include a little info on that. (BTW, if you have purchased my presets for ACR but would also like them for Lightroom, please let me know, and I will send them to you.)
I have the posters from the first two PartnerCons up in my office!! 
Labels: news
Okay okay... last week's contest was easy breezy - in honor of summer...CHERRIES!!!
Labels: contest
I can't believe how many people have been emailing me about my custom presets!! Many of you wanted samples, so I have attempted to make some... however, you must know that the presets look different on different images, but these examples will give you a good idea of what you can expect from the custom presets. (There are also many presets for non-custom changes such as "burn edges ON" and "burn edges OFF" or "WB shady" "WB daylight" for easier batch processing. But those are harder to show examples of!)
Just to be clear, the presets (xmp files) are recipes that you apply to RAW files. In Bridge, you can apply one preset look to many RAW images to batch process them. In other words, if you wanted 15 images to be black and white, you could select all 15, right-click (or hold the control key while you click) and choose one of the black & white options from the pull-down menu. All images selected would then turn black & white. Or if you wanted to change the white balance from daylight to shade, you would select "shade" and apply it to all those files at once. When you run the image processor in PhotoShop this is how your jpegs would look. The presets will also be in your ACR window under the Settings pull-down menu, and you can further tweak the exposure, shadows, etc, while in ACR.
You can later change your mind and choose another preset over the same RAW image and make it look totally different! You can apply a few presets to the same image to change the look of that preset as well. (for instance, you can choose one of the b&w presets and then choose a preset white balance to significantly change its look.) And finally, you can still use actions once the file is a jpeg to further tweak it, but you don't have to!
Here are a few examples:
Labels: photography
michelle & nick.
Yesterday I had the great fun of shooting a wedding with my talented friend, Deb Gerson, at the gorgeous Rancho Del Cielo in Malibu. Michelle and Nick were great to work with and had amazing taste... I loved all of their details!
What I saw:
Labels: wedding2007
