Headshots, Jordan, Saliva – OH MY!

UPDATED – Montage shoot for the 7 Workshop with Mike Colon

Yesterday was a pretty cool day for me!  I was attended on the 7 Workshop hosted by Mike Colon (www.mikecolon.com) and if you are not aware – it is a small 1-day workshop with only 8 total people (including Mike).  We are all wedding photographers from around Southern California – We had folks from Oceanside, Palos Verdes, Riverside, Orange, Pasadena, Ladera Ranch (me ) and Santa Clarita.

We started at around 10AM and continued well into the night, I arrived at home at 1AM and was still so stoked from the day that I began culling my images  Mike did a great job sharing as much information as possible in the time we had, even if we had another day, I am sure he would have been able to fill our noggins with knowledge!

We spent the morning going over classroom-style instruction on subjects like equipment, composition and shooting in full manual.  The afternoon had us out on a shoot at the Montage Resort in Laguna Beach.  Although it was a bit gloomy  (VERY ODD!), we had a lot of fun and even found some good light.  We were treated to the Presidential Suite (thank you Jaime!!!) and we even took a walk around the Montage in search of good light.  Our models were troopers though, even when we started feeling freezing rain pelt us!  If you live in Southern California and can get to Laguna Beach, I recommend stopping into the Montage Resort for a peek, it is beautiful, even when the weather is crummy!

A portion of the day was spent on products – things like albums, prints, and the like.  Mike shared his albums from Leather Craftsmen and La-Vie.  A shout-out goes to Ari at Leather Craftsmen (www.leathercraftsmen.com)- he sure was generous  Lunch was provided by Pixel 2 Canvas (www.pixel2canvas.com) and dinner was provided by Pictage (www.pictage.com) – Thanks Roxanne and Jim!  The fuel for our day was tasty.  It was great to touch all the products because a picture does not do an 11×14 full-leather album justice!

I always THOUGHT I wanted to shoot there but after being in the suite and on the grounds, I would LOVE to photograph a wedding at the Montage Resort.  There are so many great locations from the room, to the pool and down to the beach.  There is even a GINORMOUS fire pit with a stellar view of the Pacific!  So if you are considering the Montage Resort, DO IT!  If you are looking for a wedding photographer, look no more, I’m your guy!

Here is a sneek peek of my images from the day, I promise there will be more to come soon.

Our models for the shoot are Jessica Seeley and Brian Ames, you guys were so fun, thanks for braving the weather!

UPDATE – Julia of julialovan.com designed and provided the dress for this shoot – check her out, she has some great stuff – and I’m a guy – imagine what you ladies would think!

Some time at the Park

2010 Pan Jiu Jitsu Championships

When considering a wedding photographer

I am often asked for some things to consider when a friend of mine is looking for a photographer.This happened recently and I figured it might not be a bad I dea to just get them all on paper – err, blog.

I am trying to categorize them

THE PEOPLE:

First of all, take some time to get to know your photographer, after all, you will be spending your day WITH them and it is no fun with someone that is no fun! If a photographer was not interested in being confortable with me and my bride-to-be, that would raise a flag for me. Think about it, the more comfortable you are with your photographer, the better the images will be.

I love getting things like this – pesh wedding photography

I got a nice thank you from a wedding couple last year. Richard and Laura invited me into their day and we had a great time. We began with a tea ceremony in the AM, moved to a “western” wedding outdoors during the early afternoon and rocked out into the evening. It is not often that I get a thank you card so when I do, I admit that I beam a little

It reads:

Hi Pesh!
Thank you for being our photographer. The pictures are great and we love them a lot! The day turned out GREAT. You made it very comfortable for us, as if you weren’t even there! We always love looking at your blog too! Great photos! Stay in touch!
Thanks again, Richard & Laura

Mom still loves me

My birthday is not until the 6th but mom was on top of it this year! She made sure to make a big impact this year, not that this year is a milestone or anything. I got a kick out of the card. It was so “grown-up”… I halfway expected to see some candy and a balloon! Love you Mom!

OK, so I will end up using an iPad after all

I am a gadget guy / early adopter / tech geek – whatever you want to call me along those lines, I am it. I did not wait inline for the iPhone. I did not wait in line for the Halo 3 XBOX system. As a matter of fact, the only thing I don’t like about being an early adopter is waiting in lines with other early adopters! I am patient enough to wait a day or two in order to breeze in and grab my items and stroll out.

So even though I will not rid myself of the kindle in favor of the iPad, I WILL however be adding them to my wedding packages. I will include one with a special package that is geared to the gadget inclined

It will come jam packed with the select form the wedding, and maybe a few cool apps so that we can stay in touch – like facebook, tweetdeck and the like.

What do you think? Do you think people will opt for this over a traditional album? Do you have clients that might like this option? Leave me a comment, let’s talk!

Grace’s Last day at Music Class

For the past several weeks, Heather has had Grace in a music class provided at one of our community clubhouses. they have had so much fun and I had missed all the previous classes so I thought I would go tot he LAST. It was a lot of fun seeing her sing and participate, I was a gushing dad for sure.

Another step toward manhood

This weekend Jordan took another important step in his life. I took him out to the desert to shoot some real guns. He was able to handle everything we gave him including the higher powered .45 pistols and the longer rifles. I was pretty surprised with him and his ability to “step up” to the big guns and fire away. He really impressed me with the shotgun, we tossed out a couple boxes of clay targets and he was hitting them IN THE AIR! Way to go son!