Okay, so here is my real new best friend, my new bike! I got it today and took it for a ride on my trails and will get up real early tomorrow for a real ride. I will be traveling for some family vacation and then off to Whitney and Daniel’s amazing wedding at the Four Seasons Westlake Village over the next couple of weeks so I won’t have much time to ride. I’m going to have a ton of fun but I will be ready to get home and put in some miles on this guy!

I have to give photo credit to Stephanie for the above shot. We skipped the lesson on focusing and went straight to artistic flare usage! And please no comments about my cool outfit, it was first thing I could find, I just wanted to ride!

Meet my new best friend, the Samsung SCH-u740… catchy name right!? It is the same size at the Motorola Razr but can fold out sideways and has a complete QWERTY keyboard for quick typing of text and email. The keyboard looks really small but it is actually easy to use even with my big hands because the keys stick up pretty well. Ok, I admit I haven’t figured out the email bit yet but I’m getting there! Steph and I were both due for new phones and Verizon had a promotion going so we got both this one and a new LG 5300 for free, can’t beat that price! Now I just hope the weird hinge that allows the screen to fold out like it does can handle two years of my abuse!
I have been crazy busy lately. I had a super fun wedding up at Cline Cellars in Sonoma a week ago. Check out my portfolio for Bridgetta and Mike’s beautiful winery wedding. This past weekend I shot a wedding for another photographer who was unable to make it. Clients often ask what happens if I have an emergency and can’t make it to their wedding and I tell them that I have a great network of talented photographers I work with who all cover for each other. This was my turn to help out someone else, hopefully I never need the favor returned!
I also have another bit of very exciting (to me) news…my new Santa Cruz Nomad mountain bike will be here Friday!!! I have been waiting for almost a month and it looks like it will finally be delivered. I built a couple new jumps, berms and drops on my trails behind my house in preparation for this day! Too bad I will be gone so much in the next month that I will hardly get to ride it I will post up some video as soon as I have some, hopefully there won’t be any crash sequences!
I will be traveling all over the country over the next few weeks so I will try to get that phone email working in case some of the remote areas I am headed to don’t have WiFi!

In general, I can say what needs to be said without resorting to spelling it out for the viewer but this was just too funny! Check out those shoes too, how fun are those!?

The past few days have been really busy…I know, what else is new, right?
On Thursday Steph and Caiden joined me for a trip up to the San Francisco Bay Area for few shoots and a little time with Grandma and Pop’s. On Friday I shot the Sonoma County Roller Derby Girls for a cookbook they are making, Saturday I had a wedding at the beautiful Cline Cellars (keep an eye out for more from Brigetta and Mike’s wedding), then Sunday we finished up the Roller Derby shoot at a great dive bar in Sonoma County. Thank goodness for Red Bull!

Here are a couple of my favorites from the Roller Derby pics. The ladies were all a ton of fun and we got some great shots. I am looking forward to coming up in the fall to watch them in action. From what I understand it is pretty serious competition!

Last Saturday I shot Erin and Sam’s wedding at Palmdale Estates in Freemont, CA. We started out at a local hotel with what must have been every relative of Erin and Sam possible! I swear there were 30 people in the room at times, it was hilarious! Despite being a cheerleader and totally gorgeous, Erin is a bit camera shy so I had to be gentle It was actually pretty funny, especially given how outgoing all her bridesmaids were, we had a bunch of fun! Erin really warmed up to the camera and totally forgot I was there in no time, I was very pleased with out getting ready shots, I love the one above, what a moment!
Sam and his buddies were just down the hall in another suite and in typical guy fashion were totally late and in a huge rush after their golf game took longer than expected. They were so fast to get ready that we ended up having plenty of time to just hang out before the girls headed out. It was “rush, rush, rush, WAIT!” Sam took it all in stride and was super fun to work with. Did I mention that Sam was the star football player and Erin was the head cheerleader? Yeah, disgusting, I know, LOL!
The ceremony was beautiful and everyone was super excited to see a long time couple (7 years!) tie the knot. I have to say the reception was off the hook! Everyone was dancing and having a great time, it made for some great shots and even I got into the groove….no pictures; your welcome
There and tons more great images from this wedding that will soon be up on my website…whenever I get a chance to to an update that is!

Erin and Sam, I wish you many more years of bliss, you are great people and are an even stronger couple.

Erin’s dress was amazing!

But putting shoes on with a dress like that is a job for three!

Sam and his boys

Erin’s mother was awesome! Such a sweet lady and she had a great group of friends

Beautiful first dance

I just finished up yet another long weekend of travel and shoots; I love it but I need some more sleep! I drove up Friday to San Francisco for a engagement session with Jon and Gina at Baker Beach right near the Golden Gate Bridge. We had a ton of fun in the typical foggy evening and then I headed over to my old friend Jen and her husband Rodger’s house to stay. They were very gracious to have me at the last minute and even took me out to dinner with their friends, it was really fun!
The next morning I jumped on my bike, road road across the Golden Gate to the Marin headlands then had some breakfast in the beautiful town of Sausalito. I love my job though I have to admit that it would have been even more fun if Steph and Caiden could have been there. I can’t complain too much though as it is still 10,000 times better than a desk job!
I then headed down to shoot Erin and Sam’s wedding in Freemont. It was a beautiful event and everyone was really fun. Let me tell you, there was some serious dancing at the reception! I am a bit behind in my other work but stay tuned for some pictures of both the shoots and be ready for some crazy fun stuff in the next week! I have a fashion shoot with a rollerderby team who is doing a cook book, it ought to be wild! They really want to go all out and get some edgy shots, it is going to rock! I also have a wedding at Cline Cellars this coming weekend that is going to be amazing.
Lots of fun stuff!