LOCAL PHOTOGRAPHER RECEIVES NATIONAL CERTIFICATION

I had a pretty "kuhl" thing happen.
I had an article published about me in a local newspaper.  The title of the story is "Local Photographer Receives National Certification." The article is even on the front page!

Thanks to Nancy and The Bugle for publishing this story about me.

Please take a look at the article by clicking on the link below.  The print copy of this paper will distributed on January 7, 2011.

WWW.thebugle.net/images/stories/webcbjan2011.pdf

Marian Homes - Caring for Others!

Last Saturday, December 11, I had the privilege of photographing an event for Marian Homes.
Marian Homes is a non-profit corporation that provides a supportive Christian, family style environment for adults with developmental disabilities.
While these adults may have developmental disabilities, they more than make up for that with their positive attitude, joy for life, and love for those around them!

Here are just a few pictures from their Bowling event.  Have I mentioned that they are great bowlers too!

THE ENTIRE GANG

STRIKE!

ANOTHER STRIKE!

AND THE STRIKES KEEP COMING!

LUNCH WITH FRIENDS & FAMILY

If you, or someone you know is looking for care for a physically or developmentally disabled adult take a look at Marian Homes.
Click on this link for their web site marianhomes.net

Marian Homes also relies on financial support from individuals, foundations, and corporations.  So if you are looking for a great charity, please consider Marian Homes.

To the Staff & Clients at Marian Homes, I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Why Professional Photographers ARE Worth the Money!

Here is a GREAT article that answers the question of why department store studios really do NOT offer a good value!
Anyone considering going to a department/mall store store studio needs to read this, especially if you expect a great final product!

Understanding what people truly get at the department store studio is the key to explaining the advantages of giving YOU their business.

1. TIME

The mall schedules people on 5-20 minute increments depending on the season, day of the week and even which part of the country you’re in.

How much time do YOU spend with your clients? When dealing with toddlers, elementary school kids and blubbery, hungry babies 5-20 minutes isn’t really time that allows anything special to happen. The expression ‘quality time’ can’t even be applied when you’re sitting in a tiny hot airless room, your children crawling the walls after waiting too long because the customer before you is in the camera room on your scheduled moment and then you have to be done in 30 frames or less? If something causes you to be late on a busy shooting day, the mall will not take you because they are overbooked.

Mall and discount store photographers cannot give customers the time needed for “true” custom portrait photography.

2. EXPERIENCE

The mall studios pay only $8-10 an hour to their shooters. These are typically very inexperienced people in a transitional period of their lives. Who will be in the camera room when you arrive at the mall? Will it be Kevin, the 19 year old whose sole training is through the mall? Or Brenda-who had to go back to work after being stay at home mom for 6 years-maybe photography’s a hobby for her. These aren’t people who are committed to being great photographers in control of the final product. These folks don’t own any of their photos so you can’t see what they can do before choosing a day or photographer at the mall.

Conversely, your photography can be viewed by clients via your website,, studio, sample book and on social networking pages. Portrait work is what you want to do, you spend time learning about your equipment and light and how to command the environment you’re in.

Passion describes what you do. Mall and discount store photographers cannot compete with that.

3. CREATIVITY

Not to say that all mall shooters are devoid of true creative and artistic skills; but sales are priority. More time is spent training the ‘photographers’ to sell prints & packages or how to use the cash register and process coupons than they are trained to understand photography.

At the mall, once you step out of the camera room, they have to ‘sell’ you. Often the person ‘enhancing’ and selling your photo session is not the original photographer. I can tell you that perfectly awesome shots I got in the room were horribly cropped or fully deleted or ignored by a clueless $8 an hour shooter who was trained for years by the corporation’s ‘photography academy.’

When I worked at A.See Lennies, I was relieved to have SOME creative say in the sales/‘enhancements’ process, even though it was restricted to adding vignettes, limited cropping, and ‘multi-image’ presets. Even then, creativity was shut-down. I was told to reel it in, because the client wouldn’t order tons of expensive prints with ‘too many’ choices. Then I was told that the computer system in the store would crash if I kept making ‘enhancements’ for every photo. (My husband is an IT professional and I knew that pat-answer was rubbish).

Finally I was taking too long by being so ‘creative’. Move the line along. Sales, remember? Consider how and why you work. Can you even describe the creative touches you give each client? A mall store can’t even erase a pimple or scratch. These are big deals when you’re talking baby or teen photos.

For me it starts with trying to conceptualize portrait ideas with the client. People choosing me & my Canon get 2-3 hours to create something wonderful. Detailing what I do in post production is so lengthy that I only say that I am as excited about that part of the deal as I am about working with people to begin with. I still live to yank magic out of my camera and learn more about what I do.

Remember a mall or discount store studio will not be as creative in the shooting, editing, or retouching process as you can.  They cannot complete!

4.PRICE

The potential and very excited client gets quiet when you mention your price. Even if I customize a price for a client, it’s still going to seem pricier than what the mall charges. Seem being the operative word. A true examination of pricing at a mall studio reveals that you get very little for a lot of cash. The coupons tend not to apply to large expenditures. The mall packages always include options you can’t alter or meaningfully substitute out-of, and you won’t be getting very many photos because the maximum number of frames a department store can shoot is an average of 30.

Even if every photo survives the camera room and each one gets an enhancement that’s only 60 photos. To get them on disc is typically an additional fee (in the area of $100 in American dollars). If you create and order a collage, those can’t be burned to disc, even though the ‘multi-images/collages’ cost an average of $40 to print through the mall store’s printing system. Your photos are deleted from the mall store’s system after 30 days. You pay extra to see your images on an online album via the mall store (also disappears after 30 days).

The mall stores, like A.See Mennies, they depend on the coupon to get you in the door and push you hard to buy lots of prints or a CD of your photos. That’s the priority. Pricing and product are strictly obeyed and narrowly defined at the mall and the two can never be disengaged at places like A.See Tennies.

Do you brow beat your clients after they sit down for you and your camera? What does your pricing include and foster for the future? If people select the mall for their family portraits because it’s cheap, tell your clients just how relative the term ‘cheap’ actually is. You get what you pay for and you won’t get something special if you’re holding a coupon designed to draw you into a store where the photographer makes $8 an hour.

So remember, even when it comes to price, you provide a value that they cannot complete with.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

It seems as though merchants really don't know what to do with Thanksgiving. They market Halloween and Christmas and make a lot of money off these holidays. But they don't really know what to do with Thanksgiving, which is really very spiritual in its origins. It was designated by President George Washington in 1789 as a national day for giving thanks to God.

In the midst of all our feasting, it is very easy to forget about the one we are celebrating. Sometimes we even forget to give thanks altogether. You might be thinking, Well, I don't have a lot to give thanks for. Maybe you are having financial troubles or health problems. Maybe there is conflict in your family. But we need to put things into perspective. As someone wrote,

If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million who won't survive the week. If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 20 million people around the world. If you attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death, you are more blessed than almost three billion people in the world. If you have food in your refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof over your head, and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75 percent of this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace, you are among the top 8 percent of the world's wealthy.

There is a lot to give thanks for. And the primary reason we were put on this earth as human beings is to glorify God and to give Him thanks.

As written by Pastor Greg Laurie

Master of the Pit Bulls

Oliver de la Cruz is in fact the "master of the Pits!"
Before I met Oliver, I had a negative attitude towards pit bulls like many people do.  Oliver changed my attitude towards this breed completely.

Oliver is one of the top Pit Bull breeders in California.  These are NOT fighting dogs but show dogs!  Have you ever seen a Pit Bull pull over 1000 pounds uphill?  I have!  These dogs are incredibly strong especially when they are trained by someone like Oliver.  In fact, pulling weights is one of the contests these dogs participate in.

Oliver spends a lot of time with his dogs.  In Oliver's words "take time with your dog!"  In order to get World Class results you must spend time with your dogs.
In addition to being a top breeder, Oliver is also one of the coolest people you'll ever meet.  Which is a good thing because he is also my brother-in-law!

Scenes from a Catholic Baptism

Last week, my wife and I photographed a Catholic Baptism in Riverside.

It's no secret that Catholic churches are among the most beautiful of any denomination.

The ceremony was equally beautiful and wonderful!

Here are just few photos I wanted to share with you:

Handsome Shawn and his Mommy

Baby Jack

Church members that passed away in 2010.  Our dear friend Amber is shown in the very center.

Catholic Church in Riverside Ca.

Think for the camera

Last week-end we photographed a wonderful Catholic Baptism in a beautiful Church in Riverside California.

The interior of this Church was quite dark with most of the light coming from the stained glass windows and a few small lights hanging from the ceiling.

The first picture shown here was shot at f5.6, 1/60 @ ISO 5600 on my D3.  It's a decent image that shows lots of details about the interior of the Church.  But with all that detail, the exposure completely missed the true mood and feeling that was present.  The camera did exactly what it was designed to do, give an average exposure.  The camera did not know that the interior of this church needed to be underexposed to give the correct mood.

In this photo, I underexposed the ambient light by two stops and used a touch of fill light to properly expose the priest.  There was an amber warming filter on my flash to keep the color temperature close to that of the warm ambient light.  To me, this image is much more interesting to look at.  Sometimes less is more!

Money Rocks

Here are a couple of photos I took while on assignment in San Diego.
I came across this man at Seaport Village, who has found a very creative way to make money.  He balances rocks!  That's it.  Using rocks that are already there, he balances rocks using in "his words",  "NO glue, magnets, gimmicks or gum!"

I took a look in that DONATIONS bucket and there was quite a bit of cash in here!  

This guy could care less whether  a Republican, Democrat, independent, or whatever is in office!  He'll keep stacking his rocks and making money.  If the rocks suddenly disappear, I'm sure he would quickly find another creative way to make it!
I think most of us could learn something from this man who stacks rocks for money!

Candid Portrait

When we think of a portrait, we normally think of picture that is static by nature.  Posed, and choreographed from start to finish.

Here is a portrait I took of a mom and her son.  This image was captured without the mom being aware of my intentions.

I feel that the genuine emotion and love she has for her son shines through.  Getting the same emotion from a completely posed portrait would be very difficult to capture.
Next time you are taking pictures, look for that special moment in between what's expected.  Quite often that is where the magic lies!

Tahquiz Rock

Here are two photos of Tahquiz Rock also known as "Lily Rock".
This rock sits above the town of Idyllwild at an elevation of 8000 feet.  It's a very popular rock climbing spot, but don't even think about it unless you are advanced.

The two pictures I took shown here were taken from the exact same vantage point at different times of the day.

The image shown here was take around mid day.  The colors here are accurate but flat.

Here is the same image as it catches the golden rays of the setting sun!  Now this simple photograph start to show interest.

This is the GOLDEN HOUR!  The last hour or so before the sun sets into the horizon.  This is a wonderful time to take pictures!  No harsh shadows to deal with, and the light from the sun is soft and warm (as in color temperature).

This is my favorite time of day to shoot!  

The early morning hours just after sunrise are also very nice.  The difference is that shadows cast tend to take on a cooler (bluer) tone.

Next time you're out with your camera, keep the "golden hour" in mind.  I think you'll like the results!

2011 Leukemia Cup Regatta

A few days ago I posted pictures we took of Kellie for her profile photo honoring her as the 2011 honored Skipper!
Please read Kellie's amazing story below and visit this link and join the fight against blood cancers.
leukemiacup.org/ocie


2011 Honored Skipper: Kellie Canaday

As a participant in the Leukemia Cup Regatta, you will be raising funds in honor of Kellie Canaday, our 2011 Honored Skipper. In addition to Kellie, you are encouraged to raise funds in honor of your personal honorees. Your time and efforts will help Kellie and thousands of children and adults in their fight against blood cancers.

My name is Kellie; I am a college student at Crafton Hills College in Yucaipa, California and I hope to transfer to Loma Linda University sometime next year. I have always heard stories about people with cancer and I have always thought "Oh, how sad for them and their family" but I never thought that it would happen to me and my family. Then in 2005, on the day after Thanksgiving, I went into urgent care, covered in bruises and very weak. After several blood tests and a few long hours that felt like days I was told I had Leukemia; Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia (APL) to be exact. I knew in that moment that my life would change forever. I was no longer able to go to school, go out with friends or even go out of my room without a facemask and an i.v pole.

No longer worried about what was happening on Friday night I was more concerned with when my next round of chemo would start and how I was going to ask my sisters to help me shave my head. I convinced my doctors to let me go home on Christmas Eve so that I could spend, what might possibly have been my last, Christmas with my family. Fortunately, I had great doctors and lots of support from my family and friends to keep fighting. My family constantly referred to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s website for information and answers to their questions which helped them maintain a positive outlook, even on the worst days.

Again, trying to convince my sister to come to the hospital and shave my head was one of the hardest conversations I have ever had; that is something that just shouldn’t have to happen. The only thing harder than that was watching my mom try not to cry the first time she saw me with no hair at all. I could see it was breaking her heart and yet she still tried to be strong. She made sure to tell me that even though I was bald she still thought I was beautiful.

There was only one day while I was in the hospital when my white blood cell counts were high enough to be able to see my niece and nephew. When my then 8-year-old nephew said to me "Wow, Auntie Kellie you look like Stone Cold Steve Austin!" I knew then that I needed to get better. I did not want him growing up remembering me like that.

I am now 25 years old and only a few months from my 5th year in remission, which marks a cure! I love getting to spend time with my family and my nephew even wrote an essay for school on how curing cancer can make the world a better place because he doesn’t want anyone to go through what he saw with me. Now I am focusing my energy on going back to school and becoming an Oncology RN so that I can help other people during their fight with cancer. In my spare time I volunteer with LLS so that we can fund new research and hopefully find a cure for blood cancers!

Beautiful Fall Colors

Fall is one of our favorite seasons in California!
Perfect weather as the leaves start to fall from trees in beautiful colors that say Thanksgiving is just around the corner!

Take a look at this beautiful photo my wife took while visiting Idyllwild.

This image is straight out of the camera with no edits.  

f 5.3 @ 1/320 sec.  ISO 1600 

Fall is the perfect time to get out there and take pictures!  So grab your cameras and find those incredible fall colors before they disappear again.

Kellie

Here are a few shots of a beautiful young lady.  Her name is Kellie. We shot these in between rain showers on Tuesday Oct. 5.
Kellie has a very interesting story to tell.  I'll be sharing this with you soon, but for now, here's a look at Kellie!

Karl Grobl: Humanitarian Photojournalist

Have you ever wanted to see some of the most exotic places on Earth? Go to these far off lands to experience the people, their culture, their world,  and take some great photos along the way?
Absolutely!  you say.  But where to go?  Where to stay?  How and where to shoot?
The answer to all these questions is Karl Grobl!
Karl Grobl is an award winning humanitarian photojournalist.  He has worked in over 50 countries in the past ten years.  His work has appeared in numerous publications including Newsweek, CNN, and Town and Country.
Karl specializes in photographic documentation of relief efforts and development work of NGO's (non governmental organizations) worldwide.  There's a good chance that when you see an image of the 2004 indian ocean tsunami, or photos of peace-building efforts in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and East Timor, that you are looking at a Karl Grobl image!
In addition to working with NGO's, Karl teaches photography workshops and leads international photography tours.  Take a look at Karl's amazing body of work @ www.karlgrobl.com.

I have been following Karl's work for about two years now.  I don't think I need to tell you that I am a fan of his work.  I recently got the chance to meet Karl.  Here is a photo of us.

 Karl is the good looking guy on the right :) !

After meeting Karl, I knew right away why he is so successful at what he does.  He has a true passion and deep understanding of the many people and cultures of the world.  Combine this passion with his strong artistic ability as a photographer, and you begin to understand who he is and why his images are able to tell such compelling stories. 

To say that I had a great time talking with Karl would be an understatement!

Take a look at Karl's work.  Better yet, sign up for one of his workshops or tours!  www.karlgrobl.com

Off Camera Flash

The great thing about SLR cameras is the flexibility to do so many different things in terms of lighting, interchangeable lenses, etc.
Beautiful natural light is the best.  But, as we all know, often the light outdoors is just not the light you were hoping for.  It's either too bright, too many shadows, not bright enough, the list goes on.  The cool thing about getting the flash off camera is that you can simulate exactly the lighting scenario you want.
In this family portrait below, the sun was still pretty high in the sky casting shadows and causing the background to be too bright.  I under exposed the overall scene by 1.3 stops to darken the background and bring in detail.  Then I increased the output of the flash by about 1 stop to get back the light I lost by under exposing the whole scene.  The result is an image that looks more like it was shot at sunset, not mid day.

            

In this example I used Nikon's CLS system with a SU800 commander mounted on my D3.  Only one SB900 flash was used camera right.  I used a 1/2 CTO (color temperature orange) filter on the flash to warm up the image as bit.
If you have never tried off camera flash, give it a try.

The Power of Black & White

We all see the world in color.  But there are times when B&W better captures your subjects feeling and mood.

Master Guitarist

David Jerome

David Jerome is an amazing Guitar player!  I had the good fortune to meet David last week.

Here I am talking with David.  Not only is is a great musician, he's a real nice guy too!  You can see that I have two CD's in my hand.  I bought both for only $10 each!  My wife and I have listened to both CD's a few times already.   Wonderful and refreshing music!

If you like great Guitar music, or just good music in general, check out David's website:

Jeromeguitar.com 

Yes, Music Allowed!

We went to see the "Dennis Jones Band" last night at Dos Lagos. While, as you can see from the picture below, there are a few things you can't do at Dos Lagos, music is definitely allowed!

This band was great!  Awesome blues and Jazz.  Dennis Jones can really play that guitar!

Dos Lagos is having free concerts on Friday and Saturday nights form 7 pm - 9 pm.  Located just off of the 15 fwy about 7 miles south of the 91.  It's worth the drive.

Had to get a B & W in here.  The sound man checks "the sound"

South Coast Winery

We are members of SCW.  A few days ago we went to pick-up our membership wine.
South Coast Winery is located in Temecula California.  SCW was voted best overall winery in California for 2008 & 2009.
The vines are full with grapes right now.  Grapes will soon be harvested to make wine.  If you get the chance, Temecula wine country is worth the drive!
Here are a few photos of the grapes:

We also did some wine tasting.  A must when you go to a winery.