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.

Shital and Mehul

I recently had the opportunity to shoot an engagement session for Shital and Mehul at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. They were a fantastic couple, and it was a blast working with the amazing architecture there. It almost felt like I was in Greece half of the time while maneuvering around those huge columns and domes. Incorporating the architecture in with Shital and Mehul and their great relationship together was a lot of fun, and I think that the photos turned out really well. A few samples are available below, with a slideshow available HERE.

Liz and Anthony

As 2006 drew to a close, I headed down to my home town of San Luis Obispo to help my friend Colleen Rosenthal photograph the wedding of Liz and Anthony. Liz looked just gorgeous, and fabulous pictures seemed to present themselves everywhere. We started with photos of everybody getting ready at the Paso Robles Inn, and used their fabulous gardens for some nice portraits. The group then headed back to the bride's grandparent's house for the wedding ceremony. The house is a beautiful old Victorian, where the bride's parents had actually been married themselves. It was a thrill and an honor to be there for such a wonderful ceremony in a place with so much personal history involved for the couple. The ceremony finished after some eloquent and tearful vows, and people then went back to the Paso Robles Inn ballroom for the reception. I was certainly impressed by the amount of love, sincerity, and amazing family relationships at the wedding. This certainly was one of my favorite weddings, and I feel quite privileged to have shared in the experience.

A full slideshow is now available HERE.