Busy month! Funny how every season in this line of work is so different. In the Winter I meet with potential clients, Spring is engagement sessions, Summer and Fall are all about wedding photography. But there’s always these transition times when I’m doing a lot of each! In the past 2 weeks I’ve shot 3 engagement sessions and 4 weddings everywhere from Dolphin Bay Resort in Shell Beach to Mayacama Resort in Santa Rosa (and a lot in between).
This engagement session was with Sean and Sandy, a wonderful couple who’s gorgeous Vintner’s Inn wedding will be later this fall. We decided to mix things up and do a morning shoot so if the light looks like it’s coming from the wrong direction that’s why

James and Sarah pretty much have a great time at all times; I think they could be standing in line a the DMV and they would both have huge smiles on their faces and be laughing and getting others to have a great time. I love being around people who’s fun is so infectious!

I had a great time meeting up with Janet and Ryan up in Napa Valley last week for their engagement session. It had just finished up about 2 straight weeks of rain so everything was VERY muddy so we were a bit limited with where we could go but when you shoot in Napa you make it work! Helps that there are thousands of great locations so not being able to go into the vineyards isn’t as limiting as you might think.

I know, no posts in awhile; I’ve been busy! Seems everyone got engaged over New Years so I’ve been super busy meeting with some really fun brides, welcome to all my new couples!
We had a great time in Mexico over Christmas and now I’ve been working overtime on albums and adding a few weddings to my wedding photography site. 3 weddings are now featured and I’ll finish up by adding another one or two in the next couple weeks. 2009 had some really amazing weddings so it’s been tough to choose which make it!
I’ll update my blog as soon as I can with some pics from Mexico. Here’s a couple of my favorite pics that just went up plus a page from a sample wedding album (above).

What a year it’s been so far! Awesome weddings with beautiful people, what more could I ask for! Nettie and Leon were married at the beautiful Saint Patricks Cathedral with their reception at The Intercontinental Mark Hopkins in San Francisco. Nettie and Leon have been together for a long time and really wanted the day to reflect their personalities. If you remember from their engagement session, they are huge fans of the theatre so there was lot’s of little details from shows they have seen and even some super dramatic music from Phantom of the Opera!
The day started at the Mark Hopkins (you know, the hotel with “The Top of the Mark” up on Nob Hill). Everyone was having a great time and I knew it would be a great day when I saw that Taylor Pham and her team were doing hair and makeup. Great makeup not only makes everyone look their best but also makes my job easier!
Everything went totally smoothly and though the fog completely stopped us from getting a good shot of the Golden Gate bridge, we still managed to get some great shots downtown and at the Palace of Fine Arts. Wedding Photographers abound at The Palace of Fine Arts but that didn’t worry me as I always know that the couple’s love and my vision are what makes for memorable shots; the shot below with the red tree against the wall is one of my personal favorites! Not to mention that hot series of Nettie and Leon making out!
Nettie and Leon were awesome hosts and totally devoted to getting great images, thanks and congratulations!
I also want to put out a huge thanks to my friend John Griffin for helping out, thanks John!

A couple weeks ago I headed up to Canada to visit my good friends Chris+Lynn, shoot an amazing wedding (thanks Sonny and Sandy!) and ride my bike at Whistler. The wedding was enormous and a ton of fun, some of the most friendly people I have ever met! Here’s a couple highlights and some fun ones of me doing stupid stuff at Whistler

Here’s a couple from Whistler Mountain Bike Park. The first couple days there it was beautiful but we didn’t break out the camera until the weather got really nasty! lol Thanks for joining me Bill!

Jumping in the rain was pretty sketchy, especially as I had so much mud in my eyes that I could barely see!

See, I told you it was a bad idea! Thankfully I was wearing body armor, without this I would have had a broken knee for sure!

Bill going off the GLC drops (about 6 foot drop). A minute later I followed with about $5k of camera around my neck, probably not the best idea ever!

We had a day off in the middle of the 4 days of wedding shooting and it was a beautiful day so Chris, Lynn and I headed to the sea shore for lunch, it was a beautiful day!

And here a couple shots from a recent wedding with my friend Gene Higa. I have to also congratulate Gene on being named Top 10 Wedding Photographer of 2008!
It was a beautiful wedding out in the Livermore area with a very fun couple, Will and Andrea. I shot a ton (of course) but these are just a couple of my favorites from the film I shot. I find it really funny that I will take 1,000 digital images and yet my favorites are usually from the film though I only shoot maybe 100 frames of film! Part of what I love about film is the amazing and soft skin tones I get. The other part is that you can’t look at a LCD to see what you captured so you really have to concentrate and trust your skill as a photographer to get great images! Plus, at more than $1.75 for every time I push the shutter button, you want to be sure that every shot is a great shot!

It was really windy so we had a fun time trying to keep that long veil under control!

I love this shot of the Fathers talking. There is something so amazing about the look of a good and grainy black and white film when combined with a rangefinder camera! I love the mood and feel of this image.

LOL, yes, I even use my $12 Holga camera for ceremony shots!

About two weeks ago I headed up to Calistoga Ranch (which is in the Napa Valley) to shoot a wedding with my buddy John. John could easily have handled this small wedding himself but his wife was due the following day with their first child so I went up just in case he got “The Call.” Luckily that did not happen; John and Jody had their daughter several days later, congratulations guys!
Calistoga Ranch is a beautiful location and was a joy to shoot at. It was super windy but Jenny and Daniel braved the elements and still had an outdoor ceremony. I wanted to post a couple of B+W film shots I took with my new rangefinder 35mm camera. Both these images were shot in almost total darkness inside a wine cave with just a few candles for lighting. It was quite a difficult shoot, technically, but these two image really capture the feel for the wedding.
For anyone curious, I do shoot both film and digital. Both have their strengths and weaknesses but I believe that combining them to only use the strengths gives a much broader look than shooting all of one or the other.

OK, I couldn’t resist posting just one digital shot