Brownie

This is Brownie. He’s a beautiful, friendly, and healthy 1 year old Brindle Boxer. 2 months ago this poor guy got a cast placed on his leg after breaking it from a freak accident with a metal gate. But finally, after all that time watching him hobble agonizingly from one place to another, the cast will be coming off this week. Yay!!!

He’s not my dog though. To be honest, our last pet was a Black Moor goldfish with the big puffy eyes that we affectionately called Freddie. He lived a pretty tough 4 years. And during those years, short of mouth-to-mouth, I had to resuscitate him a number of times from the brink of death for more reasons than I want to list here.

Sadly, after our last move, he became very sick. He stopped eating and began listing on his side. I tried in vain to revive him by hand feeding him and lifting him up when he started drooping. I even tried carrying him through the water so it could pass through his gills. But nothing worked and he eventually died.

So… we gave him the traditional salute and sent him through the shortcut to the sea via the porcelain doorway. Time for another goldfish!

... and for the camera geekdom:
Shot with a Canon EOS 5D MkIII with a Canon 50 f1.4 @ f1.4, Manual exposure 1/125 sec @ ISO 800.

Sweet 16

Getting ready to photograph Stephanie's Sweet 16 tomorrow. Whether its a wedding, quince, debut, or portraits, it's never the same and they each have their own adventure. Capturing these wonderful moments really makes me appreciate life even more. I never get tired of it!

Have I mentioned before that I love my job?

Now for the camera geekery:
Shot with a Canon EOS 5D MkIII with a 70 - 200 f2.8L IS and Singh Ray Vari-ND filter attached.
Settings: Manual exposure 1/60 sec, 200mm @ f2.8, ISO 100.
Lighting: 1 580EXII with 1/4 CTO gel set manually @ 1/8 power inside medium softbox and set just out of frame and to the left. Sun was slightly behind and to the right of Stephanie. Triggered with PWIIs.

E & N

What an incredible weekend! I had such an amazing time photographing Emily and Neseem’s big day.

This wedding had it all! From a beautiful wedding at the equally beautiful Holy Family Catholic Church, to an amazing ravealicious (is that a word?) reception held at the Royal Palace. The reception had everything from food and booze, to an eclectic variety of music. And they even had a belly dancer!

Did I mention the food and booze! Once you walked in, the food and booze was already on all the tables. And it was non-stop!

But during all the festivities I was lucky enough to be able to steal a few minutes of this beautiful couple’s time and took this photo. These two are awesome and so complement each other! May they live together in peace, love and happiness forever.

… and for all the camera geeks out there, here’s the info:
Shot with a Canon EOS 5D MkIII with a 24-105 4L IS.
Settings: Manual exposure 1/15 sec @ ISO 12800, f4 47mm.
Lighting: 1 580EXII with ¼ CTO gel set manually @ 1/128 power set behind couple and triggered with PWIIs.

Roses

Cameras, lenses, batteries, memory cards, lighting gear, me, Checked, double checked, and triple checked. Are we ready for a wedding tomorrow? Yes we are!!!

Stephanie

We had a Sweet 16 portrait session with the lovely Miss Stephanie over the weekend in Pasadena. After all the rain, it turned out to be a beautiful day! But since it was such a beautiful day there were plenty of people on the hiking trail with us. Did it faze her? Not one bit! She was awesome!!!

For anyone interested, here’s the camera geek info:
Shot with a Canon EOS 5D MkIII with a 70-200 f2.8L IS and a Singh Ray Vari-ND filter attached.

Settings: Exposure 1/160 @ ISO 640, f2.8 130mm. Singh Ray set @ approx. 3 stops (just enough to darken the background a bit).

Lighting: 1 580EXII with ¼ CTO gel set manually @ 1/8 power in a medium softbox just out of frame and to the right of camera and triggered with PWIIs.

Kakutogi Men

Sooo… I went for a test drive yesterday to try out my new camera gear at the dojo. While I was there, I asked Manuel (don’t know his last name) if I could take a quick shot of him. He was sweaty and tired after a two hour workout but was still nice enough to pose for me. This guy’s phenomenal! He’s in his mid 50’s and competes in quite a few marathons a year (including the LA Marathon)!

For all the non-martial artists out there, this headgear is called a Toshu Kakutogi Men. I grabbed this description of the Men from www.e-bogu.com:

TOSHU Kakutogi is translated as a Martial Arts that do not use weapons in their combat. Judo, Karate, Boxing, Sumo are some of the examples o TOSHU Kakutogi. In Japan the Jeitai (Self Defence Force) trains this techniques. This TOSHU Kakutogi Bogu is widely used in various Martial Arts that fights without weapons such as Kenpo.

For all the camera geeks out there, I used the new Canon EOS 5D Mark III with a 24-105 f4L attached. Exposure details were: 1/60 @ f4, 105mm, ISO 6400