My Halloween Costume

For the first time in a long time, I wore a costume for Halloween. I even won a Scariest Costume contest I entered in the afternoon.

During the evening, I was a JJ's Blues and had my friend Felix take some pictures of me.



I added some glow in the dark makeup for the blacklight shots.



One of the members of the band Night Shift dressed up as Ozzy, so I made sure to have photos taken with him also. I think he has a really authentic look costume.

The M8 about town

A few images from stores around town. I found a lot of interesting colors and textures.

You could count the beads just from this frame.



Though I usually put pictures in black frames, this rainbow of options reminds me of my website where the background frame changes to match the photos.



Two more playing with a more shallow depth of field:


This zebra ride is reminiscent of a carousel animal.

Riki and Nick's Wedding

Today I went to Tiburon to photograph the wedding of Riki and Nick who chose this city as it was where they first met and fell in love.

A closeup of the detail's on Riki's custom sash:


Here was the gorgeous view outside the Corinthian Yacht club that was the setting for both their ceremony and reception.


During this solemn moment of prayer one of the flower girls, Kennedy, at the left, was instead peeking out into the audience.


Enjoying their first dances as husband and wife, in both serious and fun moments.

Pangea Day

Today is Pangea Day, where films made all over the world were shown at the same time all over the planet. I was at JJ's Blues to watch the show locally, which for us in California was from 11:00 a.m. to 3 p.m. My favorite films included "One Thousand Words" (fiction: a man follows clues to try to return a lost camera), "Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars" (documentary: people at a refugee camp improve lives by singing), "Elevator Music" (fiction: people use cell phones to play their own music, with a great twist at the end), "Walleyball" (documentary: volleyball games on a beach divided by a slat wall between Americans and Mexicans, and "I Remember Lebanon" (documentary: a woman who left her country explains what she remembered there during times of peace, and why the world should care as much during peacetime as during war).

The films were funny and sad, the music was great. I really felt part of the one world concept. For me visually, the best time to take photos was during the Laughter Yoga segment, where they had everyone get up and laugh as one, some favorite moments:






To find out more about Pangea Day, and to watch the films go to:

http://www.pangeaday.org

A New Way of Being

So I've been working on a new series of changes in my life and wanted to get the habits going for a while before writing about them, and so far so good so here goes:

I've been eating a lot healthier, whole foods in non-processed or low processed state and exercising. First, I bought some barbells, a jump rope and a stretch ball, but kept finding it hard to get a full workout. So yesterday I joined a gym, 24-Hour Fitness, and yesterday tried the elliptical (legs still feeling the burn in part) and took my first pilates class (not able to do all the moves in the advanced positions, but I think I did well for the first time).

My aunt, Carol, who keeps herself fit with tennis definitely approves, and a dear friend stationed in Japan suggested taking photos of myself at different stages to see the difference. I think I will, but not post them here, sorry.

Any words of wisdom or encouragement welcomed.

First engagement photo collage

While visiting Gary Fong's blog I noticed he had a new collage action set out with a special running until Wednesday. I haven't tried to make a collage of anything since grade school, but I'd liked the concept as one I'd try someday.

Within minutes of downloading it I made my first engagement collage. I really like how it came out (though it probably would have been faster if I hadn't been trying to figure out as I made it what steps exactly Gary put into it to make it run). In any case, here is my first collage, I think it came out great (especially for a first effort) and will soon be posting one from another session:

Facebook

So after reading a bunch of photographers are using Facebook to network and promote their business, I decided to give it a try. Though I'm still learning (just have up a personal page and will have a separate one for my wedding business soon), I did put up some photos from my engagement shoot at Stanford last month.

In terms of networking sites, I haven't used Myspace in a while, and may just do Facebook and perhaps try Linkedin as well. Any suggestions?