Monthly Archives: February 2009


WHO AM I?

After rolling out of bed everyday, I usually begin my day drinking Starbucks and answering emails as many of you already know. But today, I found myself sitting and staring at a blank Photoshop page for hours, thinking about things to put on my collage that say me. Why do you ask am I making a collage? Well, there is going to be an addition to my site coming soon and the person who is designing it for me, wanted to know more about who I am and what I’m about. Geez that could go in so many directions. Do you remember in school when they made us all do this? A bunch of pictures on a page, cut out from magazines that gives an overall impression of what we are trying to relay to our viewers. I really felt at times that I want to not include the obvious, like how much I love my iPhone or that I love Canon. Although some of that was clearly snuck in there as you can see.

 

I think if anything this was a great exercise to define myself and to share a little more about me with my readers. If any of you out there have blogs and have already done this, leave a link below. I would definitely love to see other peoples collages and see what you’re all about. Happy Friday!

 

TUAN OF TWO 1 STUDIO

I can probably vouch for many, that most photographers don’t get to spend enough time in front of the lens, as they do behind the lens. I’m talking about headshots of course. I think getting fresh photos of yourself every once and awhile is a good idea and I’m happy that Tuan agrees with me too. Tuan is a photographer here in California also and when he contacted me to shoot some headshots for him, I was more than honored to.

 

Instead of posting just headshot photos of Tuan, I am going to post the stuff you wouldn’t see, like photos that say who Tuan is. We roamed the streets of Pasadena and just went crazy! Thanks Tuan for the mini tour of Pasadena, one of my new favorite places to shoot.

 








 Here’s a bonus photo from my drive home. Please don’t drive and shoot, I’m a trained professional.

SUNDAY

Sundays, for us it’s always a time to kick back and relax after a long week. We’ll always find something useful to do with our time, but yesterday was different. We found our selfs finally returning 10 bags of bottles to the recycle center, which has neatly taken 1/4 space in our garage for over 6 months. Plus Helen likes to remind me every Sunday we need to go! It’s good to recycle and we should all do our part. Sorry, I had to squeeze my PSA in there.

 

So getting back to Sunday, it’s funny that most people which include Helen’s friends, always say to her, you’re so fortunate to have a photographer as your fiance, oh wait I wasn’t supposed to say that yet, but yes we’re engaged. Date has not been set yet, so don’t ask. Trust me when I say this, that I would love to take Helen’s photo everyday if I could. I could go on and on about how amazing she is, but I don’t think you can take the sappy talk on Monday, so i’ll spare you. But this past Sunday after much debate, I convinced her to take some photos. I really wanted to try out some 1 light or 1 strobe on the shoot also. More on that later. So here are some quick photos I took of Helen, because it got dark really quickly yesterday.

 

This photo is out of focus, but I love it.

This is some she wants to share with you. Helen love Chinese Calligraphy. This is the symbol for “Love”.

I always told her she looks better in my hats than I do.

1 light or 1 strobe. I always had the gear, but just never really used it for this. Back in the days of “Car Photography” we’d use this technique often for our shoots. It helps in getting really dramatic skies. I decided that I was going to try it out.

SALTON SEA : PEOPLE

When I say people of the Salton Sea, I don’t actually mean the people that live there, but the other fellow [b] schoolers that came along on the field trip. Although I kept say the whole trip “Really? People live here? Really?” because we sure saw a lot of mobile homes there, but no people. At one point, a bunch of us wanted to venture into town, but saw a bunch of wild dogs and that quickly changed our minds.

 

Anyhow, this was the last part of the day and I knew that it would be the perfect light to shoot anyone that wanted photos of them selfs. michelle yam volunteered to be our model for the day to do some headshot type stuff, so you’ll notice just a bunch of photos of her below. I had the best time shooting with everyone and I’m looking forward to the next field trip!

 

michelle yam working it!


hanssie trainor and alfred bertulfo
the [b]ecker
kate noelle and tracy dee in some awesome afternoon light.

from the left (me, heidi ryder, kevin wynn, russ duchene, hanssie trainor, michelle yam, tracy dee, Jenny Alders Smith, kate noelle, [b]ecker, meg perotti, paige green, regis chen, jack ratana, alfred bertulfo, jen berry, matthew saville, john mireles) sorry if I missed anyone, but just leave a comment and i’ll add you.

why am I sitting on a broken down trailer asking for a tetanus shot? head to meg’s blog to see why.

SALTON SEA : LANDSCAPES

Besides all of the dirt, grime and just plain nastiness about the Salton Sea, there’s actually a lot of beautiful landscapes that seems to change every minute of the day. Of course I mean sunrise to sunset. It’s just so amazing to look at the scenic backdrops and in an hour time, the colors there change so much.

 

In this installment of landscapes, we’ll be taking a closer look at, well.. landscapes. I’ll be keeping this blog post a bit shorter on the words this time, so you can sit back and enjoy the view! At times like this, I need some sounds of the ocean and seagulls flying overhead, minus all the bad stuff that comes with it.