Window Light

We went up to Monica's house yesterday. Jordan stayed with us for the night Friday to hang out and play with Jake for a bit. We were just sitting around and Jayden was walking around. It was a pretty cool moment because as I was thinking it, Jess said, "Look at the way the light is hitting her." I quickly grabbed the camera and then the fun began. Anyone who has worked with kids knows that as soon as you want them to do something, that becomes the farthest thing from their little mind. It took about 7 shots before I finally got this one. There was a stick in the plant that she wanted to play with. I tried to get her attention by showing her how to pet the plant like she does with the cats but she wasn't having anything to do with it. She started swinging at the fences towards the plant (Jayden does have quite the attitude). For whatever reason, she just kind of chilled out for a split second and I was able to grab the shot.
The image was shot at ISO 1600 so I ran some noise reduction on the image and then went to town on the processing. Luckily, I have found quite a few filters that I tend to always play with and it makes it easier on my time. I still play around with some other filters but I am digging the Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 filters.
I love capturing these moments. Once again, I can't reiterate enough why having a camera with you at all times is a wonderful thing. I have mine in my bag with the 24-70mm f/2.8 mounted at all times. For whatever reason, I tend to use this lens anywhere from 50-70mm. I am still working on getting wide-angle shots that I like. I might like them more once I get the 5D so I can use the full lens view.
In the meantime, enjoy the photo and leave some comments if you have the time.

Chris

Pano's

After going to the Sallee's seminar last month and seeing some of their amazing panoramic shots, I decided to get outta my box and try some. The Sallee's have some great work. I went with the intention of getting some marketing ideas but learned so much more. The 5 hours seemed to fly and the Sallee's are really cool. A few of us hung out with them afterwards which was really fun. We had a chance to talk about various things and I was able to pick their brain a little more. Mainly I just listened. They had so much information to pass on. I have been really contemplating going back to school this last year to further my electronics career but I have passed that up so I can invest more time and energy into my photography. Going to seminars is one of my investments and it has paid off tremendously. I feel so much more comfortable on shoots than before and my photography is taking on a higher level.

I am in the process of designing an album of the kids and will be posting various images that are going to be in the book. This is one of the images. I have a spread that contains this image processed 3 different ways and it looks really cool. That was another thing that was reinforced at the Sallee seminar: shooting for the album. That's the 3rd seminar I have heard that phrase and you wouldn't believe how much it helps with "What should I shoot next?" I am learning more about going in with a page spread in mind so I can get the shots I need. Not every shot is thought of in that way. There are some moments, especially with kids, where you don't have the time to visualize the page. I'm just capturing the moments as they happen and sometimes the images will present themselves as I am going through the selection phase.

I hope you enjoy the photo and thanks for checking in.

Until next time...

Look at the Pretty Colors

We went to dinner tonight with my brother and stopped off at the local Acapulco's. Not like I don't eat enough mexican food throughout the week but what's one more stop (I had a carne asada burrito for lunch today as well)? Anyway, we had just finished eating and Jayden wanted to go for a walk around the outside dining area. We stopped by the flowers and I whipped out the camera once I saw that she was interested in the flowers. This is a key reason I keep my camera with me at all times. I get a lot of crap from people because I am always lugging this bad dog around but this shows why I don't mind carrying an extra 25lbs of gear with me...ALL THE TIME. I might go days without taking a picture but I always have my gear with me. Jake calls my backpack my baby which is quite true. Photos like this though show why I love carrying around my babies.

Tomorrow will have another flower photo post from tonight's after dinner walk.

Jayden's First Birthday

Look at that face. What an adorable little boo. Considering she was pretty darn sick about a week before this, the smile was extra special. Jayden caught some bug that was going around and she was pretty mellow through the Mother's Day weekend. For Mother's Day, I sent Jess and Jake to a Padres game. It was good for them because they don't get to spend much time together like they used to. For one, Jayden takes up a lot of Jess' time. Secondly, Jake is kinda going through a phase where hanging out with Mom & Dad ain't what it used to be. Anyway, that Sunday was probably the most quietest day in our house for a long time. Jayden literally slept most of the day and when she did get up, all she wanted to do was lay her little head down on mommy or daddy. She definitely wasn't our normal little fireball. She felt pretty crappy up until Tuesday and then my little firecracker came back to life.

Right now is so cool because she finally started walking. She's only taken a few spills but we keep a really close eye on her because of all the tile in our house. Now she feels like an independent woman and she is off and going. Now if I could just get her to give me some shoogies. She shakes her head no when I ask her to give me some shoogies. It is pretty darn cute.

Well, I hope you all enjoy the photos. Until next time....

Haircut For the Birthday Girl

Here's Jayden during her haircut for her birthday party. Her hair was a freaking rat's nest and we had to do something about it. Little milestones like this are such an eye opener for how fast time goes by. Her 1st birthday was last month and we took her to the same place we took Jake for his first haircut. Jess went all out for this birthday. She spent countless hours on the invitations and all the other little trinkets for the big day. Jake had a baseball game that day so I was busy watching him while the ladies got the decorations set up. All in all, I think the day went great. We appreciate all the attendance and wish others could have been there.

Jake's baseball season is over so hopefully I will have some more time to post. It has been crazy around here for the past few months. Jayden is finally walking and she is about to become a model for daddy. More seminars are coming up and I have been doing a lot of studying and not doing. It's time to play around some more.

We hope everyone is doing well and we will talk to you soon.

Little Girl's Getting Big

Here's baby Jayden crawling around in the park after I got done with some baseball practice with Jake. I've been working with some new devices that are totally changing the way I photograph now. That was part of the reason for the lack of posts this last two months. I have been going to seminars and learning new tools along with Jake's baseball practices and games. It's taken a while to get myself accustomed to the new tools and workflow but the return on investment is paying off. Now I just need to get some more clients to try out my new stuff. In the meantime, I will be using my two main models. They're a tough duo to beat.

I hope you enjoy the photo. I will have more sometime this week with Jayden standing on her own. My little girl is about to make her third milestone!

It's About Time...

...that I finally posted an image and that my boy is playing sports. Tonight's image is of the big J-dawg booking it to third base! This was during the first game of the season and it is great to see him enjoying baseball so much. I have been helping out at the practices and it's pretty cool to see how far some of the kids have come in such a short time. We're really happy with the coaches and it's so cool to see Jake enjoying sports.

His batting has been improving and this weekend he hit a triple! The ball soared over the second baseman and then right between center and right field. He has been rotated through various positions and enjoys all of them. He's great in the outfield due to his throwing ability. The kid can throw a ball. It's just great that he finally came to me wanting to play a sport. I didn't want to push him into something. I think it's better for them to let you know they're ready. On top of that, he is also kicking booty in school. We couldn't be more proud of our little dude!

There will be plenty more photos as the season goes on. I processed a few other photos tonight so I should have some more to post this week. I finally got Adobe's Lightroom software and it is pretty cool what this software is capable of. The last week has been spent getting familiar with the program and implementing it into my workflow. More like a workflow overhaul but it's a good thing.

Back Again

It's been a while since my last post. I've been staying busy with the kids. Jake is starting baseball soon. He's already signed up and we are just waiting for the fields to dry out so he can have a practice. Jayden is getting big and is going to be walking soon. She is a fireball. I will be posting some pix of the kids in the next few weeks.

I took Jake to Super Cross at Qualcomm a couple weeks ago. We had a blast and it was great hanging out with the dude and getting some father/son time. Here is a link to the slideshow I put together today.

Click here to get to Super Cross link and click on the play icon. Let me know what you think.

That's it for now. I just wanted to say hi and let you know I hadn't fallen off the map.

Until next time.

More Ben & Cindy

Tonight's image is another from the session with Ben & Cindy. These chairs were set up for some play that was either taking place later on or had already taken place and they made for a nice patterned background. It was starting to get dark at this point but I was still able to pull off some shots with the 70-200mm f/2.8 lens.

Hopefully everyone's Christmas was as good as ours. Jacob got hooked up with a bunch of goodies and Jayden enjoyed her first Christmas. We started off the day hanging out at my mom's house. My sister is in from Arizona and we had a nice time visiting with her. My brother hooked me up with some bowling items so I can eventually join his team. I never thought I would enjoy bowling so much but it is actually quite fun. It also gives me time to hang out with my bro which is always an adventure. Jess got most of the items she was wanting as well. It's so tough to get in the Christmas spirit when the weather is as beautiful as it was today. The rest of the country is in heavy snow storms and I wore shorts and a T-shirt all day! We also hung out with Jess' family which was nice as we don't hang out as often as we should. We finished off the day with a prime rib dinner and a call to my dad. Maybe I can get him out here sometime for the holidays. Overall, the day was great and it was really nice hanging out with family. I will be posting some pix from the day as soon as I get them processed.

Stay tuned for more images with Ben & Cindy. I need to go as my little girl is getting ready for the 2:00-3:00 am feeding. I am going to deviate from this session tomorrow night so I can post some pix of Jayden's first Christmas along with her brother. I was also playing videographer today so I don't have too many shots. I do have enough though for a few posts.

Once again, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and enjoyed time with your families.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! I can't believe how fast this year has gone. My baby girl is almost 8 months and my son is almost 9 years old. It's crazy how time flies once you have kids.

Posted tonight is an image of our friends Ben & Cindy. We always have a nice time hanging out with these two. This image was taken in Old Town after we stopped off to get some Mexican food last weekend. I thought the session was going to be tough considering Ben's height. One thing I should have noticed at the time of capture is the placement of Ben's right hand. He really is grabbing the wall! So many things to consider when posing people. Besides that, I really like this image. I dig the relaxed pose and I like how the door's darkness separates Ben from the background. Cindy's dark hair separates her from the white building. The sun was going down really fast but we were able to bounce around to about 5 different places to capture some shots. I will be posting more from this session as I process them. Thanks again you two for helping me out with my "multiple people" portraits. I really appreciate it.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas. Enjoy the time off and enjoy the time spent with family.

Back to the Ally

Here is to make up for the post with Rob yesterday. I have a few more to post from this session and that should take place over the next few days. This is going to be a short post today because I need to get some last minute Christmas stuff done. In the meantime, enjoy the image. With an image like this, who needs my rants anyway.

Blog has been updated

Well, no new images for this post. It's more of a "I got off my duff and finally moved everything to this blog" post. I should have some images in the archives that I should be able to post tonight or tomorrow. In the meantime, you will have to read my rants.

I am going to be trying to expand my stock portfolio while I am on vacation for a week and a half. I plan on doing some lighting with LED's. I know what I have in my mind so let's see if I can actually reproduce the images I want. I need to get the lights first and I plan on bringing in Rob for the shoot so we can collaborate. Speaking of Rob, I do have a post for tonight. Here is big bad Roberto striking a pose during the shoot with Ally. I don't know about you, but I would rather look at Ally posing for the camera!

A simple post turns lengthy

I love black & white images. B&W photos in magazines always catch my attention and this was the first thing I thought of when converting this. I wanted the image to have the feel of something you would see in Vogue or something similar. There's so much I like about this image. This is one of my favorites from the shoot. The pose was all Ally (I didnt' direct her at all in this shot) and everything just came together. The way her left leg runs parallel with the shape of the rock on the left. The gentle S-Curve with her left hand adds another dimension. And then there's the angle of her head which runs parallel with her right leg. The more I study this photo, it IS my favorite from the session.

I have been doing a lot more reading & studying lately to take my photography to the next level. A few months ago, I started getting bogged down and getting frustrated with my images. I felt like I was at a stand-still with my images and my post-processing. I would sit at the computer for hours on one image playing with different settings and get nowhere. I ended up having a 3 month break from photo sessions and I feel like the break I took was the best thing I could do. I started critiquing the crap out of my images and making a real assessment of where I was going with an image before I even touched a tool in Photoshop. There are a lot of great photographers out there and I can become frustrated easily when comparing my work to theirs. That's part of what drives me to outperform my last shoot. Take the good and the bad from a shoot and learn from it. More of my reading lately has to deal with the actual shoot and the posing. I feel really good about my latest post techniques but you need a great starting image. A lot of my late nights are spent looking at ads, watching movies, and I find myself watching more commercials on TV lately. It usually takes me a while to get through a movie because I am looking at the lighting or the camera angle and trying to dissect the shot so I can improve my abilities and give the client images that they are truly happy with.

I know I have said this what seems like a thousand times this week, but working with Ally was what I needed to get inspired again. I'm just giving credit where credit's due so thanks again Ally. And a huge thanks to Rob for setting up the shoot. Everything just came together at a perfect time for me.

I was just going to post the B&W image tonight but I wanted to see what people's opinions of the color shot were as well. For those that made it through the text of my post tonight, thanks for hanging in there while I aired some thoughts.


Oh yeah, I finally got around to updating my website to take out the wedding section considering I am concentrating on my portraiture and commercial-type work. I also changed the image on the home page to the B&W image posted tonight.

I will be posting a few more images over the weekend so check back in. Enjoy the weekend.

Ally continued

Considering I haven't posted any photos of Ally since Sunday, I decided to post 3 tonight! I have some more that I will be posting this weekend. Thanks again Ally for giving me such a great variety of photos to post. You rock. It's been another busy week with post-processing and trying to get some sleep. As you can see from the time of this post, sleep wasn't a priority tonight. Volleyball is going to be rough tomorrow at noon.

I would write some more but I need to get some sleep.

Just a reminder that I will also be updating this blog sometime over the next few days with all the archived posts from the old blog.

Let's Hear Your Opinions

I am curious to hear from my readers their opinions on the new blog. Hopefully what I am about to write doesn't bias your decision in any way. I just want to shed some light on my thoughts.

First off, let me cover the reasons for switching over to this blog. The ability for you all to leave comments was the major reason for moving my blog. I think it will be a lot easier for people to comment directly from the blog instead of writing an e-mail to let me know their thoughts. I also like the fact that you can subscribe to RSS feeds and get an update whenever I post. How this works right now, I have no idea. I know how it works for other people's blogs I have subscribed to but I still need to test this one out (I usually get an e-mail update from a few photographers and that is purdy sweeeeet). Hopefully this one works the same.

I'm also debating on whether to keep the white background with black text like the old blog or should I switch to a black background with the white text. Let's hear what you think.

Labels were another reason for switching over. If you look to the right side of the blog, underneath "blog archives", you will notice the element called "Labels". This blog allows me to add labels to a post so readers can sort the archived posts by these tags. For example, a reader wants to see the latest photos of my family (Jake & Jayden are the usual subjects). All the posts that have photos of my ninos will be labeled "Family". Once you click on this link, all the posts with that label will be displayed. It's a way for me to organize my posts to make it easier for whomever is viewing my blog. See that! I'm always thinking of you and how I can save your time in your busy schedules (my goal is to actually get you to spend more time looking at my photography which might not save you any time at all).

Now for the bad. First off, I can't stand the small photos that are linked to a bigger photo. I don't like unnecessary clicks and I wish I could upload a photo at the size I specify and it displays at that size. This was the main reason I created my old blog. I have yet to find out why blogger is like Microsoft Word in that it formats things in ways I don't want it to. That means more time for me to "play" with settings and still not get the results I am after. Secondly, I liked the way my old blog followed the design elements of my main website. It would be nice to have a seamless blog. A lot of time went into the design of my old site and I wish the blog matched.

So there you have my opinions on the new blog. Overall, I think the good far outweigh the bad. I still want to hear from you all though. Don't hold back. And if you do comment on this, thank you for taking the time to participate in my market research.

Now it's time to get back to processing some photos. By the way, I will be adding the previous posts from my old blog throughout the week.

Ally

In order to make up for my lack of posting last week, I will be posting images this week from today's photo shoot with Ally. She had contacted Rob a few weeks ago in regards to a photo session. I mentioned last month that Rob and I were working together more with our photography. Working with him pushes me even harder than I normally push myself. Rob is one of them dudes that is just naturally good at whatever he decides to pursue. About the only thing I can beat him at is Madden on XBOX360 (it probably helps that he usually chooses Detroit but hey, he's making that decision for himself). Anyway, not only does this make me push myself, it also gives us some time to hang out.

So Rob calls me the other day and says that the photo session is still on with Ally in spite of the weekend's rainy forecast. The weather was perfect today for some location shots. Working with Ally was a complete pleasure. I wish everyone I met was as nice as her and her dude, Joe. They were great to hang out with for the 4 hour session and Ally just worked the camera! It's a different ball game when you are working with someone who has experience modeling. She would tweak her pose in between shots which gave very subtle differences to ensure just the right look, which meant very little instruction from me on the posing. This allowed me to concentrate on the composition and get the shots I was looking for.

This image was taken in La Jolla and is one of many that will be posted this week as I work on the post-processing. I hope you enjoy (you can click on the photo to view it larger, which I highly recommend).

Ally was great to work with and I hope to arrange some more photo sessions with her in the near future.

Jayden's 1st Holiday Season

Sorry for the delay with last week's posts. I have been busy as ever. This is the first time I have been on the computer all week. I'm gonna start this week off with a photo of Jayden dressed up all pretty. We had "Breakfast with Santa" last weekend and the kids were dressed up. Of course I had to get some pix of my baby girl. Isn't she a doll? She's getting ready to crawl so I should have some new pix sometime soon of that. In the meantime, I will be posting some photos from a photo shoot today with Rob...more to follow soon!

Mason's 1st Birthday

I can't believe how fast time is going by. Christmas is just around the corner. We went to Vegas a while back to see some friends we haven't seen in a long time and also to celebrate their son's 1st birthday. It was a wonderful weekend and it was a chance to photograph the party so the parents could enjoy the event. Craig and Christie were so kind to let us stay in their sweet pad for the extended weekend. Craig and Christie went all out for this party. The Harley theme set the mood for a good time for everyone invited. Mason had a blast digging into his cake. I'm just wondering how much cake he took in for this look (I think I looked like this after Thanksgiving).

Here's Mason's cool little VANS. It's all about the details during these times. They grow up so fast.



Thanks again for a wonderful weekend. It was great seeing you all and we are looking forward to another trip.

For those keeping track, I set a record in November with the amount of posts! I hope you all are enjoying the photos and the write-ups as much as I enjoy posting them. 2008 is just around the corner and I can't wait to update the new offerings for clients!

Pete & Linda continued

Here's a family shot from Pete & Linda's shoot. Working with kids and dogs together is a total different dynamic. Patience plays a key role during these more formal sessions. This is why I block out a considerable amount of time when photographing families. It's all about having fun while getting the photographs. There's no need to induce stress by stacking appointments one on top of the other. The last time I photographed Pete & Linda's family, time was flying by and before I knew it, nap time was setting a precedence over the session. This time however, we alotted enough time to set up and get a bunch of shots.



I think Rachel was more excited about the lighting equipment than being photographed. Luckily, Pete set up a Dora DVD to get Rachel focused. I really want to do a location shoot with this family. Rachel has some great expressions that I think would come out if we were in a different setting.

I also want to thank Pete & Linda very much for becoming my first repeat customer! It's so cool when you leave a session and the client says, "We'll see you in May."

Post-Processing Techniques

It's time for another before/after segment. For tonight's images, I am using a photo of....you guessed it....Jake! This one was taken up at Dudley's Bakery a few weekends ago. The image was taken around 4:30 and the sun decided to move behind some clouds which diffused the light quite a bit. He was playing around this fence and peeped through at me when I told him to stop going onto the private property on which he is standing in this image. For those that are curious, I shot this with my 24-70mm f/2.8 lens set to ISO 100, 1/160 @ f3.2. The overall exposure is nice but the photo needs a bump in saturation & contrast.



I ran some actions but masked out the effect on the skin as I didn't like the saturation in the skin tones. I also ran an adjustment layer to get rid of the redness around the eyes. I finished off by darkening the edges of the frame to bring attention to the center of his face. Below is the final result.


I normally shoot with no color/tone/saturation adjustments in my camera as I like to have control over the final outcome in the image. I have tried different settings on my 20D but found I was having to do double the work on an image because I was trying to undo the adjustments so I would have a nice base image to work with.

I hope you all enjoyed tonight's post. The next couple days might not have any updates as I need to finish up some photos from recent photo shoots. It was nice having a 4 day weekend. I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving holiday. It's hard to believe that Christmas is just around the corner!