Happy Valentine’s Day to all . . . maybe so happy you land yourself with one of these in nine months! I’ve been looking through the archives and finding all these squishy little cheeks were hiding where no one could find them, so what better day than the Day o’ Love to highlight some of my favorite newborn shots?
A few from my first wedding of 2012 with the fantastic Colleen of Color Me Rad, seen doing her signature move in image #1.
One of the most awesome moments of this engagement session (aside from when I made Dave and Anna unknowingly act like the Brady Bunch) happened toward the end when the sun was just about to tuck itself in for the night. I was trying to get a cool backlit shot under the Dr. Seuss-like trees and a (I’m assuming) tourist runs up behind me and says, “Hey! You’ve got to get that shot from this angle over here!” (urging me to move so I could get the obviously “better” shot). I politely made an “um-hum” sound, so as to acknowledge that I heard him, but also an unspoken, “Hey buddy, get out of my way, I’m losing light here.” And again he says, “NO, really! Check out the shot I just got of them on my iPhone! This light is so awesome! You have to come over here to get that shot!”
1. If you’re a stranger, don’t take creepy photos of couples and then show them.
2. Instagr.am + iPhone does not a photographer make.
3. [sun setting quickly]
4. GET OUT OF THE WAY!
The best part was when Anna followed up with, “At least he can’t tag us on Facebook.”
Right before Christmas I donated a photo shoot for a fundraiser benefitting Kia, a former City Beat writer battling Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma. I strongly recommend going here and reading her story. If anything, it will give you more courage to live more courageously, more time to appreciate those you love . . .
Now, due to the fact that the fundraiser was being held at the new local hipster hot spot, Tiger! Tiger!, and that Kevin had the happy luck of getting a craft beer and a winning raffle ticket the same night, he ended up winning the shoot. What follows is an overflow of my own personal luck: getting to shoot such beautious, funtastic people FOR A LIVING.
When I get to shoot with friends, I almost feel like I’m cheating at the game of life; it’s not fair that I should have so much fun working. I had the opportunity to shoot this wedding with the fabulous Colleen of Color Me Rad (seen making art in pic #1 – Michaelangelo + Jillian Michaels, anyone?). Let me just say that if you’re looking to hire me as a second shooter, Colleen started my day with a paid breakfast + mimosa. I’m just saying, she may have created expectations. If you want to see her art from this day, you can go here. If you want to see mine, here are just a handful I liked (any shots with both bride+groom were really just piggybacked on Colleen’s shot arrangement genius) . . .
Last Christmas I was lucky enough to be gifted this little gem, a World War II era, Univex Mercury II. The weight alone of this 35mm film camera leaves little doubt that not even a bomb could destroy the outer metal casing. One of my favorite details is actually the page in the manual claiming that this camera is so perfect, if you’re not getting amazing images, it’s your own [damn] fault.
Right around the new year (yes, it took me a year to get this one roll developed), Jen and I perused San Diego, cameras in hand, hoping to catch said amazing images. As you can see below, the images are only perfect and/or amazing insomuch as film from a 70 year old, fixed focus, manual winding, dusty rangefinder lens camera is “artistic” or “perfect” in it own unique way. The other tricky part about this beast is that it takes two pictures for every one normal frame on a 35mm role, making for twice the chance of either screwing up when winding the film, or, if you’re a glass is half full-er, twice the chance of coming up with amazing images. These are all straight scans, the only edits coming from the lab during developing (the first image(s) Canon 5D mkII).
