on tuesday i had the opportunity to shoot all the new publicity photos for the awesome folks over at christian city church san diego. if the fact that a church would hire photographers like us for some cool publicity photos doesn't tell you how hip this church is, i don't know what will! the staff of CCC are some of the nicest, passionate, cheerful, and not to mention fashionable people we've met. to top it all off, almost all the staff is from australia or new zealand!
i've got to give a big shout out to jay reilly for coming through in a pinch and helping me out with the shoot! jaclyn and i were supposed to tag team shoot to help move everyone through quickly but the morning of the shoot jaclyn woke up TERRIBLY sick :( one call later super jay sprung to action to help out...thanks buddy!
first up, the whole shabang!
the head pastors, jurgen and leanne.
the musicians, andrew and rachael.
the beautiful mikala and audrey. shot by jay.
two more pastors, summer and mark. shot by jay.
the amazingly bubbly reena, shot by nate. the super-fun kids pastor, natalie. shot by jay.
and last but not least, roy and dawn...the lucky couple in charge of building the new church :)
so this morning i headed into the disaster zone we call grace's playroom....and found the following setup. if any of you creative folk out there would like to invent a backstory as to how cinderella ended up on top of a fairy in front of her castle with a gigantic pink dog standing gaurd...we would love to hear it :)
oh the wonderful things you can do when you don't have a wedding to shoot on the weekend! our good friends tina and brendan's daughter chaelie turned one over the weekend and we actually got to go to the party! of course we had to snap at least a few photos while we were there :)
we recently entered a number of images in the wedding photojournalist association winter contest and we ended up placing five images!!! we feel so incredibly honored to have placed among the best photojournalists from around the world. check out the five winning images...
first up...the "creative portrait" winner:
JUDGES COMMENTS: Very good use of negative space and composition to enhance the moment and make the character's silliness come out even more. Good use of side light as well. Well conceived and well executed.
secondly, the "reception" winner...still makes me laugh :)
JUDGES COMMENTS: The face is everything, a very funny and special moment. Desperation and hope all in one.
we cleaned house in the "engagement" category...THREE WINNERS!!!
first up, sheryl and jon's image won second place!
JUDGES COMMENTS: Made me smile immediately. A fun/unusual way to shoot a portrait. Great smiles. Happy couple!
JUDGES COMMENTS: Just cool and different. Great perspective and framing with the truck. Well done.
we also placed four images in the fall contest a few months ago, you can check it out on our old blog.
we can't believe it. in just under a month of our new blog being live, we have had over 30,000 visitors stop by to see what's going on here! from those 30,000 visits, we have also received over ONE THOUSAND COMMENTS!!!
words cannot express our gratitude to everyone who takes the time to stop by and check in with us, leave comments, link to us on their blogs, or share our blog with family and friends. THANK YOU!!!
on our old blog we could never check our stats so we always just assumed a few poeple stopped by now and then, but with this new blog we've had the chance to realize just how many of you are peeking in :) in light of that, we thought we would post a little poll to find out who all you fun people are...
today also happens to be another mini-milestone! this post marks a full month of blogging every day! when this new blog went live we made a resolution to blog something every day (excluding weekends), and surprisingly this could be the only resolution we've stuck with for so long :) we plan to keep on posting daily and we've got lots of fun ideas and projects up our sleeves that will debut here on the blog, so stop by often and see what's going on!
whew...what a day. yesterday, doug boutwell, jay reilly, and i headed out to the salton sea for a little photo trip. for those of you that aren't familiar with the salton sea, here's the skinny:
the salton sea is basically a 376 square mile lake created by accident. back in 1905, heavy rainfall and snowmelt swelled the colorado river to the point that it breached a dike and began spilling out of control. this spill continued for 2 years leaving all the water in the lowest point, which happend to be a huge salt flat in the middle of the desert. the salton sea is the largest lake in california. the really fascinating part of it's history is that in the 20's it became a huge tourist destination and hot spot for big names like bob hope and frank sinatra. as time went on, the salinity of the water in the lake (which is now much saltier than the ocean) mixed with chemical runoff from neighboring agriculture areas began to make the water too toxic. by the 70's salton sea's prime had past and it began to fall into disrepair and ruin.
ah ruin, a photographer's best friend :) trying to document the salton sea is almost a exercise in futility....pictures cannot truly capture the sheer grandness, weirdness, and smelliness of it all. but it sure is fun to try...
here are a few from the day....you can also check out the whole slideshow by CLICKING HERE!
my poor shoes :( my john varvatos converse were an unfortunate sacrifice to the sludge of the lake. i was walking over what looked to be crusty salt flats when the ground gave way sinking me up to my knees in the nastiest oily, tar, muck you could imagine. to make matters worse, i then had to wash off in the foaming lake with fish carcasses everywhere. yummy :)
the sea has fluctuated many times over it's life so there are many places like this where whole areas are underwater. telephone poles leading out to sea...where else can you see that?!!?
this shot below is a stitched panorama of 12 different images giving a 180 degree view of bombay beach. it is pretty small here but you can CLICK HERE FOR A BIG ONE! be sure to scroll your browser bar to the right to take it all in :)
this is basically what the entire shoreline looks like on the lake. millions of floating, rotting, or crispy fish carcasses line the shore like sand. it is absolutely surreal...and the smell...oh the smell.
the shoreline also gets this wonderful foam lining it. so foaming water + fish carcasses = not the best place to wash your feet.
the one glimmer of hope surrounding the salton sea juts out from the desert like a sore technicolor thumb. leonard knight's 24 year folk art project salvation mountain is an astonishing site to behold. leonard has been building, painting and repainting his mountain for 24 years with nearly 100,000 gallons of paint! everything for his mountain has either been donated or found in the surrounding desert. the inside and outside of the mountain is all covered in biblical verses, messages of God's love, symbols, paths, patterns, and lots and lots of color. the sight of it is truly awe-inspiring...an amazing testament to one man's conviction.
leonard's cat.
God loves me...this i know :)
right outside salvation mountain are these ammunition bunkers that were used by the military.
an old silo.
while we were at salvation mountain, doug set up a bunch of his new schnazzy studio lights to take some fun portraits of us :) you should check out his blog for some amazing images of the chaos lit entirely by strobes.
i am not going to edit photos. i am not going to email. i am not going to devlop marketing plans. i am not going to answer the cell phone. i am not going to design a wedding album. i am not going to tech support a million random office problems. i am not going to surf the web. i am not going to stress.
today, i am going to be a photographer.
today i am heading out on a mini mancation with doug b and jay reilly to the salton sea for a day of fun, exploration, and picture taking. as our photo business continues to flourish it becomes harder and harder to find the time to do photography for photography's sake. the kind the made me fall in love with this wonderful medium....that kind that was only for me. so today i head out to try to rekindle a bit of that flame. wish me luck...
here is a picture i took back in 2002 at salton sea...on film! stay tuned for some more current images tomorrow!
we don't get too many rainy days here in san diego...so when it starts pouring we take the opportunity to hang in the house and be lazy :) on the agenda this time...making cupcakes with grace! hmmmm....what was going through her head at this moment...
terra pass . help save the planet...be carbon neutral!
let's face it, we all know the planet is going to hell in a handbasket faster than we could imagine. the problem of global warming is so big that it seems so daunting to everyone...including our government. well every journey starts with a step....here is a small one we can all take :)
we all contribute to global warming. we all have a "carbon footprint," the total carbon dioxide emissions we create when we drive or fly or use electricity. the first step we can take to fight global warming is to reduce our carbon footprint through conservation. drive less. turn down the thermostat. buy locally produced goods. then use TerraPass to reduce your carbon footprint all the way to zero. when you buy a TerraPass, your money funds renewable energy projects such as wind farms. these projects result in verified reductions in greenhouse gas pollution that counterbalance your own emissions.
what a fantastic idea! to couterbalance the carbon footprint from our two cars, home and studio cost us about $250 per year....a small price to pay for the good of this beautiful planet! another cool thing terra pass has done is partner with expedia so when you purchase a flight, you can simultaneously purchase credits to offset the carbon emissions! oh, and another cool thing...if you're anything like us, you have an old cell phone or two laying around the house right? well you can turn your old cell phone into a free terra pass! by sending in your old cell phone for recycling you get a treehugger double whammy! the cell phone is recycled so it doesn't end up in some landfill and you get a terra pass to help promote renewable energy and fight global warming.
for any of you long time blog fans, you might remember the actual proposal of kiko to susan we were honored to capture back in april. well it was finally time for us to shoot kiko and susan's "normal" engagement session on saturday! we took them to our new fun shooting spot (the middle school down the street) for a very fun casual session. it's always fun to go to a place we've been before and try to come up with something new! we're SOOOOO looking forward to thier wedding in solvang later this year!!!
at the end of the session we finally let their new dog coconut out of the car for some pictures...she was so excited she was giving kiko and susan lots of kisses!
more portraits
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