Recognize this couple? This is part 2 of a great engagement session with Mike and Amanda, this time from around San Francisco. Last time we shot at the Fair in San Luis Obispo county but this time we shot near their home.

For those of you that are super observant, you might actually see one of my previous grooms in the background of 2 of the images!

I love it when UPS shows up with wedding albums! I’m meeting Andrew and Sara for lunch today to give them their album, they are going to love it! Their wedding was last year at Robert Hall Winery in Paso Robles (not too far from San Luis Obispo). Their album has a very classic and elegant design, just like their wedding day!

How adorable is Henry? Seriously, this is a cute kid!
We were doing family portraits at Atascadero Lake Park (which is north of San Luis Obispo) and I just had a blast with the Ivie’s! If you’ve been following my blog for awhile, you might remember Brian and Angies San Luis Obispo wedding from back in 2007. So cool to see them and their growing family!

Last week Jonathan and I drove out from San Luis Obispo to Sedona for a few days of mountain biking and celebrating the end of the wedding season. It’s a long 11 or so hour drive from here so we met at 5am and headed out so we might be able to stop somewhere along the way with enough light left to get a short ride in before dark. We found a trail right in Williams just a hundred miles before Sedona that fit perfectly. As you can see from the picture of the trail map below, when we decided to take trail “21″ we were in for some serious climbing! The trail started at about 7,000 feet so it only took about a mile before we were riding in snow. It was a very tough climb but welcome after all that driving and the way down was cold but a lot of fun.
The next day Jonathan and I headed out for about a 4 hour ride on some of Sedona’s famous red sand trails, it was a blast! Twisty with lots of short ups and downs, we had even more fun than we could have hoped for. A mechanical issue had us stopped for a bit but there are bike shops on pretty much every corner of town so it hardly slowed us at all.
That evening Riley drove up from Phoenix to join us. A few adult beverages were enjoyed and a bit of altitude sickness ensued. No matter as the trails were waiting so I worked through it and got in a pretty adventurous ride that involved lots of exploring and becoming acquainted with the neighborhoods of Sedona. Yup, we were lost most of the day lol! Being lost on a mountain bike ride is almost a requirement for an epic day IMO!
It was an awesome trip and really helped recharge my creativity, I definitely would love to go back to Sedona again. So if you are planning on getting married in Sedona give me a call, what a stunning place!

Yes, that does say 2200 feet of climbing in 3 miles… didn’t mention the snow though!

Our hotel was right by the Sedona Airport which has a lookout that many tourists come to for sunset. We placed bets on how many Nikon and Canon camera’s were there. It was really funny to see so many people with $2k+ TRIPODS taking the same pictures that countless others have already taken! Riley is enjoying the use of a Fuji instant camera, Jonathan scarfs down some aprés ride health food and I have a big smile after an epic 5+ hour ride.

What a place! Riley sits on top of one of the hundreds of technical sections that are a real challenge to climb up and a lot of fun to go down.

Kyla was really excited to see me when I got home!

I really do love living in San Luis Obispo county! Snapped this shot with my camera phone on the way out of my office in Paso Robles the other night, what a beautiful place to live!

I just returned from 4 days of bike riding and goofing off out in Sedona Arizona with fellow San Luis Obispo wedding photographer Jonathan from Bluephoto.biz and Arizona photographer Riley of AplusRphoto. We had a great time and you can expect to see a bunch of fun photos sometime next week. I only brought my old Canon Rangefinder film camera so you all have to wait for the film to be processed and scanned…weird right!?
I’d love to be a Sedona wedding photographer so if you plan on getting married out there please give me a call as I’d love to spend more time in such a beautiful place!

This is kind of fun, I’m published in the #1 cycling magazine this month! It’s a pretty small shot but still pretty cool. No, it’s not the cover, it’s the tiny shot below!
Mostly I only talk about my work as a wedding photographer but I also do commercial work for wineries, custom bicycle builders and some other manufacturers, I even do family photos occasionally! This shot was originally do for Kish Custom Bikes and Bicycling Magazine used it for an article about custom builders.

Oh my!

What a great time I had at Ashley and Brandt’s wedding! One of my favorite couples of all time and their friends and family were awesome! Such a great connection between them and their friends and family are all so close, I was just glad that I was invited!

The wedding was at the gorgeous Robert Hall Winery in Paso Robles (just North of San Luis Obispo) and the cake (which was delicious!) was done by my neighbors at Two Little Birds Bakery. Did I mention the after party at Level 4?

And a huge thanks to my friend Chris Stewart of Jen Stewart Photography who got awesome shots like the very last one below!
Now bring on the pics!

Tamara and Joe’s wedding at Fort Mason was such a blast! It was the day before the Fleet Week airshow happened so not only did I get to shoot to amazing people but got to watch the airshow practice session at the same time! Right when we ran out of the Argonaut Hotel to shoot, the Blue Angels made their first pass directly over our heads at about 100 feet! It was absolutely incredible and also incredibly LOUD! The entire session we all had to read lips as we could pretty much not hear at all! They were great and we got some awesome images where you would never know all that was going on!
We then headed over to 1 Fort Mason for the wedding ceremony and reception. The decor was great and the weather was perfect! Gotta love October weddings in San Francisco!
The ceremony was beautiful and very personal to Tamara and Joe. I started seeing the crowd get a bit anxious at one point and looked to see a skunk trying to crash the ceremony! The staff had warned us and had mentioned the skunk is quite friendly. Hmm, friendly or not, I was not going to risk it spraying so I left it alone. Thankfully a guest took charge and gently used a chair to block it’s path from getting any closer (it got about 10 feet from the guests!). Joe was so funny; he just says something like “Just a skunk, no worries” and goes right back to his vows… now that’s cool under pressure!
A huge thanks to Tamara and Joe for having me and I can’t wait to hang out with you soon!

Joe pulls all the stops and gets the Blue Angels out for the wedding!

I heard someone say “at least he’s wearing a tux.” Hmm….

Did I mention Joe is about 1 foot taller than Tamara?

What a great couple Thilani and Darren are! Here are a few shots from their wedding in Clovis a couple weeks ago. Harlan Ranch was a very nicely laid out planned community near the Sierra Foothills to the East of Clovis. The venue was beautiful, Darren and Thilani were great and the timing was perfect for the sunset! Seriously, they were the most laid back couple ever and just so completely in love, it was a blessing to be able to photograph them! I really love being a wedding photographer!

Before walking down the aisle Darren and Thilani had to post “We’re married!” on Twitter! lol!

Last summer I took Caiden (my son, then 3 years old) to the fair to see the animals (and some livestock too! lol) and I was thinking what a great spot it would be for an engagement session. So this year I was headed home from a Carmel wedding and saw the fair was getting setup and immediately knew that I had to get Mike and Amanda to do this! They are a super fun couple who live in San Francisco but are having their wedding at the Santa Margarita Ranch next summer. With their style I knew they would be perfect for all the fun and colors of the fair.
This is part one of two as we also shot last weekend around San Franciso in the rain! Having had this much fun at the engagement sessions, I can’t wait to see what a blast we have at their wedding!