Maui

With a busy spring season fast approaching I decided to take a break and run off to Maui for 8 days, starting tomorrow. I just finished a fantastic wedding with Nilda and Jason at the Swedenborgian Church with their reception at the San Francisco Ritz Carlton. Now they're off to beautiful Argentina for their honeymoon, while I head off to Maui for a quick trip of my own. With any luck I won't be reachable at all for the next week- so for those who may want to contact me...please be patient, I'll be taking great pictures, working on my tan, and will be back on April 2nd with lots of great stuff to share!

Albums!

Wedding photography for me starts with taking a set of awesome and fun pictures at the wedding day. But from there, one of the things that I enjoy most is the creation of an album. Since I give all digital negatives to the bride and groom, they often have 800 or so images to look through, and I totally understand how this can be a bit overwhelming at times. That's why I like to do albums, selecting a set of 100 or so of the best pictures and putting them together in an artistic way that tells the story of the wedding day, with all of the highlights of emotions, details and moments that otherwise might be put away on a disk. I've looked at hundreds of album companies and picked a few from all over (New Zealand, Italy, Oregon, San Jose California, and Ohio) to fit the different styles and taste of clients. Photos always tend to look better once they're printed, and albums are a great way to put a set of these together in an easily accessible and beautiful package.

I just put together an album design for a new company I'm offering called Vision Art, for a really nice coffee table style book album. The layouts below are a selection from the 9x12 album for Eric and Elaine's wedding. The album pages will look the same as the pictures below, but without the black borders.

Tracie and Matthew

This past Sunday I met up with Tracie and Matthew in the Palo Alto area, and spent a few hours doing some photos with the couple. We were out on a beautiful country ranch property that had some great light and wide open views. I grew up on a horse ranch in San Luis Obispo, and and really enjoyed spending some time outdoors in a setting that was familiar, beautiful, and is distinctly what California in the springtime should be like. We had a great expanse of mustard in flower to play with that I really enjoyed, and Tracie and Matthew were really perfect to work with- totally comforable with one another, easygoing, and willing to just take a break and walk around outside for a few nice pictures. Their slideshow is available HERE.

Carla and Tony - Saint Mary's Chapel

This Saturday I photographed the wedding of Tony and Carla at the St. Mary's Chapel in Moraga. We had a lot of fun, and had a great time with the halways and courtyard's around St. Mary's chapel, using the arches and great spanish archtecture to add a bit of a unique look to this couples photographs. Here are a few of my favorites. Also, feel free to check out the slide show HERE.







And check out the custom labeled M&M's. Usually I don't eat my still-life photo props, but after this photo I made an exception. Yummy!



I just heard back from the bride Carla, and she had this to say:
"Thanks so much! These photos are great! I love your work! I've forwarded the slideshow to several people - it made my mom and my cousin cry - and my mom's cousin says: This is the BEST THE BEST photographer I've ever seen. Oh, what a gift. Oh, ....lovely. So there you have it. Thanks again!"

I love hearing back from clients after the pictures. After spending the day with them, it means a lot to know that I've made a nice impact on their wedding experience.

Elaine and Eric - Berkeley City Club

This past Sunday I joined photographer Jonathan Mandel to cover the wedding of Jon's friends Elaine and Eric at the Berkeley City Club. This Julia Morgan building was simply spectacular, with beautiful arches, golden light, and of course a classy and wonderful couple. Here are a few of my shots from before the ceremony, with Elaine (slightly nervous) peeking out of her room to see how the ceremony was looking.



The ring bearer was a bundle of energy, and stopped just long enough for me to get this photo of him by the window.



Also some great flowers:


And take a look at the appetizers:


The ceremony for this particular wedding was truly unique, with some amazing poetry reading and a sincere and touching set of original vows.





What happens when you mix an accomodating, fun loving, good looking couple with an amazing location and great light? Great portraits!!!! I was so excited to be "working" as a photographer for this wedding, and am thrilled with the really unique looks for the portraits that came out. Here are just a few of my favorites.

Connie and Randy

Today I photographed the wedding of Connie and Randy. Things started off at the Santa Maria church in Orinda, and we then went over to Casa de la Vista on Treasure Island. The view was just spectacular, and I think that the pictures turned out well. Be sure to see the complete slideshow showing some of my favorite images.

VIEW SLIDESHOW







I also thought that this particular image was pretty funny. When I'm the one who is so often taking pictures it can be easy to forget to turn around, only to find that there are a whole lot of guests looking for the same thing! This is just fine with me- fun family photographers and enthusiastic guests make for a much more interesting wedding day.

Yosemite Trip

One of the things that I love most is spending time outdoors in beautiful places. When I was younger, I would go with my family almost once a year, and sometimes even more often out to Yosemite National Park- possibly one of my favorite places. This past weekend I was able to take some time off while my parents came up north from San Luis Obispo, and we went out together to Yosemite for a quick family getaway. Over the course of the weekend we saw pouring rain, light rain, fog and mist, wet snow, dry snow and a mixture of other precipitation forms that only the Sierras can bring. In spite of the damp and difficult conditions Yosemite proved to be as beautiful as ever (and I got the chance to put on my cool Mountain Hardwear rain jacket I got myself for Christmas this year). Here's a picture of me in front of Mirror Lake, braving the rain in style.


In addition to some good hiking up to Nevada falls and around the valley, I also had a great time running around looking for some good images. Rain made me worry about my camera, but lead to some really interesting images with a different tone than most I've seen.







I also had the chance to try out some interesting techniques with the creeks and waterfalls that were running in force with all of the rain coming down.





To finish off the weekend in style, we stopped of at the Ahwahnee Hotel for their famous Sunday brunch- one of my favorite traditions ever. I'm now back at home and on to "real life" with a set of weddings starting this coming Saturday. I can't wait to get back to the park though, especially once a little more snow gets on the ground.