J-Dawg Gets Student of the Month

A big congratulations to J-Dawg for getting Student of the Month for September. This is the second time he has gotten this and we are real proud of him. It's a trip to watch him in class. He is such a fireball 99% of the time, but when he gets into the classroom, he just chills out and does a great job.

After the ceremony in front of the school, he was presented with an award in front of his class. The students then took some time to write little notes to explain why they thought he was awarded with Student of the Month. It was freakin' hilarious to read what some of these kids wrote.

Here's a shot of the big man after the ceremony. All the recipients got to stand up there so all the parents could grab some shots. I tried to get him to do his Guitar Hero face but he didn't do it. I might have to post a shot from the Oceanside shoot to show his "ultimate shreddin'" face.

Dream Wedding

Even though I mentioned last month that I am not shooting weddings for a while, I wanted to post an image from a wedding I shot with Scott Robert back in May. For those that have kept up with my ramblings, I started attending Scott's seminars a while ago. He e-mailed me a while back and asked if I wanted to assist him with a wedding. Of course I jumped on the opportunity. I didn't find out until about two weeks before the wedding who the actual bride and groom were. The bride, Penny, was a dancer for Britney Spears. The groom, Steel-O, is a dancer for Gwen Stefani. Needless to say, the day was sweeeeet!

We had just finished shooting the bride getting ready and as we walked out of the room, Scott saw the shadowed texture on this wall. While Scott was capturing his angle of Penny, I was off to the side capturing my own. The biggest lesson I learned that day was to constantly keep my eye looking for light and textures. For me, this is the biggest reward with photography. You look at the world with a keener eye and it makes you slow down and really look at things in a whole new way.

Seeing first-hand how Scott worked the wedding that day gave me such a boost of confidence. Penny & Steel-O were great with the camera and really opened up which made for some great images. When I do get back into weddings next year, the biggest thing I want to convey to the bride is how being open to ideas can produce great photographs. A big THANKS goes out to Scott for providing me with this experience. I will be posting more from this wedding as I process the images so stay tuned.

*All the images from this wedding were taken by me for Scott Robert Photography*