I’m writing this by candlelight =)
Monthly Archives: March 2008
Featured Link: Mike’s Amazing Cakes
Most of my wedding industry friends know that I LOOOOOOOVE cake. Next to trying out some wonderfully artistic photo setups with fun, easy-going couples, my favorite thing about weddings is the cake! Seriously, how could you not love a free slice of heavenly deliciousness?
Given how beautiful just about all wedding cakes always are, I’m sorry to say that not all wedding cake tastes great, which is why I’m always on the lookout for really super-duper cake vendors that I can recommend to any brides that are looking for one.
So when I saw Mike’s Amazing Cakes, I think my brain blew a fuse. “Work of art” would be an understatement for these creative confectionary concoctions, this guy is some kind of frosting wizard…I’ve never seen anything like it! I think my favorite is the topsy-turvy fantasy creature one, with the dragon on top.
And best of all, Mike ships his cakes anywhere in the United States “and points beyond”! If there are any brides out there reading this who haven’t hired a “cake artist” yet, definitely let me know if you’re going to use him, because then I’d INSIST on shooting your wedding!!
Check out Mike’s artistry:
http://www.mikesamazingcakes.com/
WPPI 2008 Recap
I’m fresh from WPPI 2008, or at least as fresh as one can be after a 3-4 day stay in Las Vegas…I don’t know about any of you, but everything I brought (including my hair!) now smells like moldy cigarettes, EEYOOO!
Because of high winds across CA and NV, our flight was delayed an hour. While we waited in the airpoirt, Matt relayed his opinion about what we were about to encounter at WPPI:
The first thing Matt did when we rolled into our hotel room: bust out the laptop and set up internet service.
That’s how we Children of Technology roll.
This year’s WPPI was great, I met a lot of friendly faces and hung out with the coolest people!
Here’s just a few:
Brooke & Paul from Seattle
Jason Meyer
Jim Kennedy
Jasmine Star
Serena Choi
Xuong, Margie, & Connor of Happy Photos
It was so much nicer than for me this time around, because last year I didn’t know ANYBODY! This year I feel like I ran into everyone under the sun; I even bumped into Chris and the Welcome Reception mixer, who was a college classmate of mine and is now getting into portrait photography. RANDOM!
Monday was a heck of a day. We sat in on Mike Colón’s Nikon salespitch seminar about shooting 100% natural light w/out flash, and how it’s possible now with low/non-noise cameras such as the Nikon D3 
I’m not a big fan of “flashing people,” (hee!) so the idea of entire weddings without any kind of flash is so exciting!
There’s a big ol’ awesome stained glass dome in the Paris hotel that no one can resist photographing.
We met up with some people for lunch right before the trade show opened:
Lunching w/ fellow SoCal photographer Jen Harris
L-R: Jeff & Dana of Sipper Photography, Lilia & Raymond of Lilia Photography, Matt & myself, Kristen Wild, Jeret Slack, Jen Harris, and Melissa McClure.
WPPI Trade Show 2008!!
My humblest apologies for how shaky the video is; obviously I will not be winning SteadiCam Operator of the Year anytime soon. But it at least gives you an idea of how big and busy the trade show usually is. I noticed that there seemed to be double the number of professional photos labs represented there this year.
Me with a Nikon D3 at the Nikon booth. Mmm. Noiseless.
By the way, you all may be interested to know that Nikon boss-man “Ed” confirmed to me that Nikon is releasing a 45mm tilt-shift lens this summer!! It’s going to cost obscene amounts of money though, I think he said something like $1400 if I remember correctly. Bummer. I consoled myself with a LensBaby instead…I probably could have resisted their trade show special prices, but Matt talked me into one. Maybe I shouldn’t take him to the trade show next time, he’s a bad influence!!
Taken in and around the Bellagio and Caesar’s Palace with mah new toy, the LensBaby 3G!
We also saw a Yervant seminar which was enjoyable, and then we went to a seminar to get some action from my HERO!
I, like soooo many others, absolutely love Kevin Kubota. He’s an entertaining, concise, and coherent speaker and just full of useful information. He usually speaks about Photoshop actions and post-processing workflow, but he has an awesome photojournalistic shooting style, too. The particular seminar he was teamed up with lightning-fast posing guru Doug Gordon, and they’re awfully funny together. I tried to catch some of the funny moments, but most of the time I couldn’t get my camera out fast enough; generally they like to get people on their feet, bouncing beach balls, yelling and clapping, and dancing. You have to get up on the stage and dance with Kevin if your phone goes off during any one of his seminars.
I wasn’t able to get to my camera in time to catch some of the primo moments, but there is this: Kevin routinely gives away sweet prizes (such as LensBabies, Photoshop actions, T-shirts, etc) throughout his seminars, most often to people who will get up and shake their booty with him! At one point so many people crowded onstage to dance that he tried to thin the herd by picking someone whose birthday is closest to his. Of course, someone in the back of the room began shouting that today was their birthday, and Kevin calls them a chicken for not coming up and dancing, lol!
Taking notes during seminars
OMG what a long day! I don’t know how all those St. Paddy’s Day revelers manage it.
Then again, they weren’t schmoozing and at seminars and a trade show all day.
Me w/ Laina
On Tuesday we had breakfast with my buddy Laina, whom I know from college. She happened to be in Vegas at the same time to celebrate her birthday (another March baby!). Then we did a little more of the trade show, where I ran into Amy and David of Journey Photography, who were smart enough to volunteer as models for some of the photographers at the convention. That’s definitely one way to get a high-end photographer’s ear!
Me, Amy, David. Golly, they are TALL. Or maybe I’m just a lot shorter than I thought I was.
I love this shot that Justin took of Matt. Matt is hanging on my every word in this pic, like a good little minion =)
We met up with my friend Justin for a drink before heading off to the Zookbinder’s party at the Tequila Bar in Bally’s, which was pretty spiffy b/c in addition to free tacos, taquitos, and quesadillas, it was an open bar. OPEN. BAR. Hot stuff, Zookbinders! We spent about an hour shooting the breeze with Kathy and Mike from Brooks Photography in Las Cruces NM, and Denis Rule from Ottawa, who had a lot of insight into marketing!
Then it was off to see David Jay and Jeff Jochum talk about working smart (not hard!) before dragging ourselves back to our room! It was definitely a room service kinda night:
Wednesday was a lot more lax. I picked up my Lensbaby and some new Kubota actions and said hi to Kevin himself. I was actually a little nervous (you know how it is, when you’re a huge fan and get to meet the person!) and probably fubbled something about how much I’ve learned about Photoshop just by using his actions, but at least I finally got to shake his hand!! Lol. My HERO!!
We also wandered into the FAO Schwartz toy store in Caesar’s Palace to kill some time before our flight back home:
Rockin’ with the Very Hungry Caterpillar.
I tried to play “Yo-Ho, Yo-Ho, A Pirate’s Life For Me,” which is about the only thing I can play on the piano, but that thing was just so enormous that it didn’t work out so well. Tom Hanks makes it look so easy!
And that was that! I had a great time, but it was Spring Break there too, so I’m glad to be back among sane, sober people again!
[7] family photos
A few shots from a family portrait session (a WHOLE family…grandparents, parents, kids!) that I did on Saturday in Mission Viejo:
Justin…future ladykiller, fer sure!
Brooke
London
Armani
The grandparents!
40 years of marraige and still going strong!
birthday weekend!
The best thing about a birthday that happens to fall on a weekend is you can party for three days! At least that’s what I did, anyway…
On Friday (March 7, my actual birthday), I received flowers! First from my grandparents who doctored this bloom for me:
And next from Matt, who likes to send me tulips on special days (I think it’s a hidden message about how much he likes MY “tu-lips”!):
Bart did not even get out of bed for me:
On Saturday I had a 13-person family portrait shoot in Mission Viejo, and Justin was kind enough to come down and reassure me throughout. He also helped with some of the poses, because he’s a bigger poser than I am =p
Justin!
After the shoot, I went out with some friends for sushi at Ikko Restraurant in Costa Mesa, which I must say delivers some seriously fresh sushi. Be prepared to empty your wallet though…they know they’re hot stuff. I think this is one of the few sushi places I’ve been to where the fish is not only amazingly fresh, but also seasoned for you so you don’t need soy sauce!
Alisha, who is normally not a fan of seafood, experiments like a good sport!
Me trying to discern what kind of fish I just ate. My face appears inflamed because they hid some mega-pockets of wasabi in some of the very first bites I had. Whew!
“What’s that?”
“I dunno, but it’s good!”
“I think that’s the ‘white fish.’”
So yeah, the above photo was taken at one of those points where I tried one of the sushi bits that I didn’t recognize.
Mark shows off our heart-stopper of a bill, to be divided between three credit cards. Buh-bye, stimulus refunds!!
After sushi we went to the movies, where I decided we were going to see Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day. It was pretty enjoyable. Goofy…like me.
Today my family threw me a mini-party so I could claim my gifts from them…
A couple of my cousins were there, including Emily, who is exactly 16 years younger than me to the day, and her sister Isabella.
Isabella giving me a massage.
My mom and brother prepping the poppyseed cake and strawberries…mmm…strawberries.
Poppyseed cake is the BEST
My grandpa
A little help opening gifts
My grandma gave me this heirloom charm bracelet that she put together as an army brat teenager living in Japan in the 40s.
Happy times!
[39] Wedding images
First off, I want to thank
Isn’t it cute? You light up my LiveJournal,
If you’re thinking “WHUUUUUTT,” just fyi, today was my birthday! Lucky March 7, that’s me! I know it seems pretty sad that I’m home updating my blog when my birthday falls on a Friday, but I’ve got plans that involve some fine sushi dining and Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day tomorrow night, so THERE!
In fact, I plan on engaging in festivities all weekend, and I’m taking pictures the whole way! So DOUBLE THERE. Lol!
I also wanted to put up some pictures from Ashley & Miguel’s wedding last month! They got married on a typical California February day…so it was BEAUTIFUL!…up at the Chart House in Redondo Beach. It was actually kind of unusual in that it was a day wedding, and everything was pretty much over and done with by 5 or 6pm…it was kind of cool, actually!
The ceremony was set up on a patch of sand outside the restaurant.
The happy warm weather kind of inspired me to take this kinky shot of the containers of the “unity” sand.
Miguel staring out the window, unaware that I was watching him. I daresay he was a little nervous!
Check out these champagne flutes. They kind of remind me of coral.
Feigning some ring creativity!
This is pretty much the expression this little boy wore for the entire day. I think I have days like that sometimes, too.
Ashley was totally stoked when she saw her bouquet!
Love this shot. Unlike Miguel, Ashley wasn’t nervous at all, in fact she was excited to the point of impatience!
Ashley’s dad was a real character. In fact, he kind of reminded me of some of the hams in my family…
Love from the ‘rents!
Ahsley and her dad taking a moment before the ceremony and looking out at the ocean.
A gaggle of little ring bearers awaiting their cue
Ashley and her dad approaching the ceremony area
The ring bearers keeping themselves occupied during the ceremony
Ashley got a little teary-eyed.
And she wasn’t the only one!
Well, maybe Ashley was a little nervous, after all?
It wasn’t ALL weepy, of course.
…Smiling nicely for family portraits :-p
This was HYSTERICAL. This boy’s parents were calling for him to come back and not get dirty, and he just TAKES OFF, right for the water! He didn’t get (too) wet, though…I was laughing my butt off. Kids…
Children always seem to enjoy the dance floor the most.
Ashley was really enjoying the dance floor, too!
The First Dance
Cake time!
Miguel going in for the garter!
