Photography showing

As some may know a small collection of my photography has been hanging on the walls at Coffee Mia in Marina (250 Reservation Rd. cross of Seacrest)(map). Horace, the owner, will be hosting me for a meet & greet on Halloween day from 9-12. If you are in the area, or like me enough to go a little out of your way, stop by, say hi and grab some great breakfast and check out a bit of my work. I'll be offering discounted bookings while I am there.

Hope to see you there!!

Practice?

So after spending a little change going to L.A. to be belittled and yelled at by one of L.A.'s best photogs, I thought I'd better get out there and practice what I think I learned...I think. God, I hope Mark Robert Halper doesn't see these, I have to face him again in a couple weeks, albeit with out my camera. Mark, don't hate me...

So I went next door and bribed my neighbor with lunch, and made him sit there for a while (Way longer than I should admit) while I tried to hear Mark denigrate me while I worked. I guess in the photography world, you pay for this.

Thanks Philip for your patience.

Mark Robert Halper Workshop

This past weekend I was down in L.A. for a portrait workshop with Mark Robert Halper. There were 12 photographers in the class, and it went from Friday to Sunday. The workshop was way more intense than I would have imagined. We worked our asses off for three days straight from around 8am to 11pm. It was a great group of people and it was neat to see how much everyone developed in such a very short time. The workshop opened my eyes to so much. The brain is a bit overwhelmed actually at this point, but I look forward to putting into practice what I have learned and see where it takes me. Two of the days we had models come in and be our subjects. This is Susanna from Finland. Enjoy.

L.A. Road Trip

This weekend I'm down in L.A. for a Mark Robert Halper workshop. I found Mark through the Camera Dojo Podcast. So far it's been great and the learning curve is steep, but more on that later.

Used to be all I shot really was landscape photography. Since starting my portraiture business I haven't really taken the time to go out and shoot for "me" much. I decided that on the way down to the workshop I'd toss the Canon on the front seat and see if anything strikes me. I love driving Hwy 198 between roughly King City on the 101 side over to Colinga on the Hwy 5 side. It's a great drive with winding roads and a multitude of textures along the way and also some pretty hair raising encounters with big rigs on the little tiny road. I snapped of a few shots along the way and ended up with these. I was kicking myself that I forgot the Hoga.

Holga

A while back, before my website spent a month out of commission (thank you BluDomain, not), I purchased my first Holga camera. If you're not familiar with a Holga, it is basically a plastic toy camera which uses medium format film. Yes, film. Medium format is much larger than the old 35mm format you perhaps used back before digital. It makes for a nice big negative which results in much better enlargements, because you start with a larger negative. The Holga is a big clunky plastic camera with a plastic lens, manual focus, and that's about it. You really have no control of anything other than what film speed (ISO/ASA) you use and the amount of light you shoot in. It makes for some interesting images and a lot of wasted film learning how to use it.

Here are the shots that came out from my first couple rolls. These are digital scans of the film prints, with very little editing, just a bump of contrast and exposure adjustment for the most part.

The shots on the farm are from my friend Mike Steelman's property, shot with the assistance of his little boy Judah.

Edit: I should be sure to not take credit for all of these. They're all from my camera but the one of the pickup and the one of me walking down the street, I did not take. The others I did (with a little help from the tiny but mighty Judah as mentioned above).

Monterey Farmer's Market

Monterey Farmer's Market

Monterey Farmer's Market

Monterey

Steelman

Unknown location

Renzo, Guitar Virtuoso

Renzo, who I was in school with from about 7th grade, has been a phenomenal musician as long as I can remember. It runs in the family. His brother Gianni is a very talented keyboard player.

When we were in high school Renzo won a guitar solo competition sponsored by the big local guitar shop. After high school he went on to a formal music education at both the Musician's Institute of Technology and later the renowned Berklee College of Music in Boston, Mass. As if that weren't enough he went on to get his Master's in Latin American ethnomusicology at UC Santa Cruz.

If you've visited my portfolio website, you've heard Renzo's "El Ocho Vol. 1." The site selling his CD states, "Eclectic acoustic guitar music, jazz, South American styles, and some blues, all on an Eight-String acoustic guitar."

It had been many years since I had heard Renzo's music when I was looking for music for my site. I was very impressed with his talent. I had a brief stint in High School as a bass player, and because I sucked sooooo bad, I have even more appreciation for someone who can tear up twice as many strings as I could ever, not handle.

You can find renzo here:

MySpace

Amazon

His Site

Buy "El Ocho Vol 1"

Read the full bio here

Renzo gave me a couple CD's to give away. I was thinking that since I always love to find new and interesting music, why not have a little giveaway contest. So...

Go check out my portfolio site, take in a sample of Renzo's music, and leave some comments below for him. If you enjoy his music and would be interested in listening to the whole album, leave me some recommendations for new music in the comments below. I'm always on the prowl for new music and I'm open to just about anything. Whoever can turn me onto the best new music (in my opinion of course, and someone I've never heard of), I'll send you out a free CD of Renzo's "El Ocho Vol.1. I hope you enjoy his music as much as I do and if you are on the California Central Coast, go see one of his shows with Frequency Jones or Le Vice

Renzo and I did a session a few weeks ago (right before my site went down for over a month!!!). Here are a few samples. Enjoy, and give him a listen.

Lake McClure 2009

This past week my friends Greg and Steph Zelei were up at Lake McClure with their sweet Air Nautique boat. I joined them for a couple days which were also the last of ten days off. What a great way to end a vacation. As always my camera was in tow, so what a great opportunity to get on the boat and practice a bit of high speed water sports. The lake was as calm as could be at times and being the middle of the week it was pretty much just us and a couple other boats on the whole lake. It was a perfect couple days. Enjoy the Pics.

The lake was near perfection. Like butter

Steve

Greg was going pretty big, but you know, it's his boat.

The lighting was amazing out there.

Good times!

The water can't get much more silky than that.

Steph cuttin it up

I was having a little fun

A little mini air

Oh ya, that is hair on my head. Enjoy, it wont be there long.

Go Steph!

I remember thinking what a perfect day it was while I lay there.

Since Greg got so many great shots, I had to throw this in too.

My favorite series of the day. CANNONBALL!!!