Family Portrait Session in Irvine Park

More family portrait samples!  The latest round was with the Hatcher  family at Irvine park.  Irvine park is always a great place to shoot and as always I loved the images we came home with.  This session did include something that I have never seen before though.  Before every shoot I always arrive about an hour early to check out the area and plan out what I want to shoot to make the actual shoot as smooth as possible.  While I was planning out the shoot I walked around a corner to see 100+ people in mascot costumes.  They were sword fighting, climbing trees and chasing balls around.  Needless to say this was one of the oddest things I have witnessed on a shoot.  I am kicking myself for not figuring out a way to incorporate that into a shot with the kids but at the time I was so caught off guard by seeing that many adults in costume that I did not even approach them.  After the fact I found a video of their gathering and came to find out that it is an annual event.  I will most likely be shooting a family portrait session next year on the same day so I will have to plan on incorporating this into a family portrait somehow.

Jeff, Amber and Judah at Tanaka Farms

A couple of years back I shot one of my favorite engagement shoots for some good friends of mine at Tanaka Farms in Irvine.  We spent a few hours wandering the farm and we ended up with some fantastic images.  Fast forward a few years later and they have added a little one to the family and it is time to get some portraits done.  I though recreating the engagement session from before they were married would be a fun idea so we headed back to Tanaka Farms.  As soon I arrived at the farm I quickly realized that the Saturday afternoon before Halloween was probably not the best time to visit the area’s largest pumpkin patch.  We had to deal with some crazy crowds but we ended up having a great time and came home with some wonderful images.

A$AP FERG

Last night I made the trip out to Pomona to the Glass House to shoot A$AP FERG and the A$AP Mob on the Turnt x Burnt Tour.  It has been a while since I have got out to shoot a show so I was glad to get the call from a friend of mine who writes for several music outlets.  We met up at the venue around 8:00 and ended up spending an hour in the parking lot waiting for our press credentials.  Shortly before 9:00 we are met by A$AP FERG and his crew and get ushered down an alley into the back door of the venue.  There is something cool about entering the back door of a venue with the headliner of the show.  Once we are in we had about a half an hour to kill before he went on.  This show was a bit different than most shows I get to shoot in that we had complete access to backstage and could come and go as we please.  Moments before the show was about to start I take my place in the pit and wait.

Once the show starts I am met with the usual set of challenges of shooting a show.  Horrible lighting, unpredictable subject on stage and of course the constant contact from the fans behind you.  For you photographers out there try to imagine shooting someone running around only a few feet from you in almost pitch blackness with nothing but solid colored lights shining on your subject.  To make things worse you are battling with other photographers and constantly being hit with hands, feet and elbows from behind from the crowd.  With all of this going on you have only a few minutes to get your shots before you are booted out for the night.  Most venues will give you the first three songs to shoot.  Sometimes those three songs last 20 minutes some time they last only a few.  Last night was defiantly the latter.  After my few minutes were up I retreated backstage to check the back of my camera to see what I had got.  I was pretty confident that I got some good shots but until I see them on the led screen I always fear that something went wrong and I missed my shots.

I ended up getting the shots and had to get home as quickly as possible to get started on the editing and uploading.  When shooting a show I sometimes have a few days to get the images ready and sometime they need to be ready by the following morning in order to make it to print or to be posted online along with the story about the show.  Needing to have the images ready by this morning meant I would have a long drive home followed by a few hours of editing.  All in all it was a small price to pay to get to live like a rock photographer for the night

Baby Quinn

Back in July I had one of my favorite shoots of the summer with Liza and Dylan as we wandered the streets of Los Angeles during there maternity session.  Fast forward a few months and it is time for a newborn shoot with their adorable baby girl Quinn.  Shooting newborns is not necessarily in my wheel house as far as types of shoots but I think we ended up with some great images.  We shot at there home and Quinn was a perfect little model.

Family Portraits at Oso Trail

I think I have started out my last ten blog posts by making a comment about it has been a while or that I really need to update more often.  Here it goes again….  It has been a while since I have posted but I will have lots of stuff to add over the coming weeks.

This time a year everyone wants family portraits to use before the holidays.  Last weekend I shot at a new location for me at Oso trail in Mission Viejo.  It turned out to be a great little spot and we had the place basically to ourselves.  The backdrop I used for the posed family portraits reminds me of a fake studio backdrop it looks so perfect.  There is also a very cool tunnel just down the path from the park where we could not help but taking a few fun shots.  My favorite shot from the day is the one that has become known as the “Romance Novel Cover Shot.”  We ended up with some great shots and I will definitely be shooting there again.

Toni & Guy

I am in the process of editing the images from a shoot I had with the Toni & Guy academy about a week ago and I have a teaser pic I can share.I shot several models over the span of about 4 hours and so far I am loving the way the images are turning out. There will be more to come in a week or two once I have the time to wrap up sorting and editing on the over 800 images I took from the day.

Baby Bump In Hollywood

A few weekends back I had the pleasure of spending the day with some friends shooting some maternity portraits in Los Angeles.  We started at the LA library and then ended up in a few spots up in Hollywood.  The shoot went great and I loved shooting in a new location.  The mom to be was a trooper as we must have walked several miles that day but I think the final images were well worth it.  Here are a few of my favorites from the day.

Party Time!

I have been ignoring the blog for a bit but I have some new pics to post.  I recently shot a first birthday party in Chino Hills for some long time clients and friends.   This was one of my favorite birthday party’s I have attended recently because there was so much going on there was no shortage of things for me to shoot.  It also helps when the little man of the hour is always smiling and apparently loves having his picture taken.

 

 

Complete gallery

A Day at the Park

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been a bit busy (and lazy) so I have not posted in a while but I have lots of material to post in the coming weeks.  For my first post in a while I wanted to share some pics from a shoot a few weeks back with an adorable little girl named Chase.  We shot at Irvine Park and spent the morning roaming around and shooting all over the park.  We even got to sneak in a visit to the zoo during the shoot.  We got some great shots but the the final shot of her in the red dress with the basket is my favorite of the day.

The Rohr’s

The past couple of months have been a crazy whirlwind of portrait sessions.  Tis the season and everyone wants to get family portraits done for the holidays which has kept me busy.  I am a bit behind in posting the samples but here are a few from a shoot with Rohr Family.  I spent an afternoon with Stef, Karli and the kids at a local park here in Mission Viejo and we got some great shots.  I generally like to schedule my family shoots at a location with a playground for the kids to “unwind” in between shots but it usually works out that my favorite shots of the day come from the playground.  My favorite shots from this shoot have to be of the girls on the dirt path but the pic on the playground is a close second.