Art

*** EDIT : ANSWER BELOW ***

"Here art teacher, here is my art project" is all I could think about today. For some reason I was thinking back when I was younger and we had art class with our weekly projects.

So today I decided to take a few minutes out of my day, for myself. I really felt the need to reach back into what was a big part of my life and i'm sure i'm not alone out there. Art is all around us and i'm sure if you looked around, you can pretty much make anything into art. Art is what you make of it. With that being said, I grabbed my 5D and a Lensbaby equipped with the macro attachments and began my search for art right at home. With the macro attachments, you can really get some trippy images. I might be doing this more often, but we'll see. I guess it depends on my mood and just to let you know out there.. NO.. i'm not going crazy. Feel free also to guess what it is.

Great guesses everyone. So the 1st one was pretty easy, but here is the answer to the 2nd one. It's the center part of my fan. Thanks for playing!

What's on my mind

I guess today is another one of those random days. I just have a few things on my mind right now.

I just watched Boston take down Detroit in game 1 of the NBA playoffs.. go Boston!!

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Ok iPhone people, I haven't joined the club yet, but it's interesting how other companies are creating their own iPhone. The only reason I brought this up is because, I have a super good deal right now with Sprint and I was seriously thinking of getting the new 3G iPhone when it comes out, but Samsung is coming out with the Instinct that is supposed to be the "iPhone killer". Check out the video below. It has a lot of cool features including TV and GPS. Both things that I need of course. Now I need to do some deep thinking on what to get.



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My exercise routine has officially begun. Not really much of a strong start as I thought. Yesterday I went to the basketball courts to shoot around. I used to do this all the time when I was a kid and shot for many hours without fatigue. You probably see where this is going. I literally shot around for 20 minutes and I couldn't breath. That's when I knew, this is bad. I still walk when I can, like today to run some errands, but what I think I need is weights and some treadmill. Oh well, at least I know where I stand right now.

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Movies I am looking forward to seeing, Batman and Hancock (Just curious, you know me and my super hero movies). One movie that didn't live up to the hype for me was "The Chronicles of Narnia : Prince Caspian. The first one by far was the best. I would recommend this to my friends as a movie to rent vs. going to the theater to see. It was just ok.

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I could probably go on and on, but just 1 more thought today. The Tesla. How many of you saw this thing? If not, check out the link. Tesla Motors. So this super electric car does 0-60 in under 4 seconds? That is fast! And did I mention it's 100% electric? I guess this is what most of us have been waiting for. I cool looking electric car. Be sporty and save the environment. Does this car look familiar to any of you? Well it should, if you read my blog. The Tesla is pretty much a redesigned Lotus Elise. At a sticker price of over 100k, I think i'll pass right now. Checkout Jay Leno testing out the Tesla.

Wedding in Down Town Fullerton

Yesterday I shot a very intimate wedding in down town Fullerton, CA. It was another picturesque day in California, but the temperature hit in the upper 90's. And of course it just so happened to be an outdoor ceremony and outdoor reception. The temperature certainly didn't slow anyone down. We all had such a great time and the couple was able to share their wedding with not only their friends and family, but also their son. You'll probably see lots of photos of him below, because he couldn't stop getting compliments on how cute he was by everyone. The ceremony took place at The Plaza in downtown Fullerton and the reception was at the Villa Del Sol fully catered by Brownstone Catering. Doug totally rock the mic all night long and Candace Vigil did the make up for the ladies and apparently she had 100+ degree weather makeup that worked like a charm. Last but not least, Leota Rex provided the florals for the day. Ok that was a mouth full. Anyways, here are a few of my favorites from the day. A special thanks to Mieng Saetia who came out to shoot with me.

Flip flops are the way to go when it's 100 degrees out.

Amazing eyes.

The couples son getting his hair did.

Does James Bond come pint sized?

The groom and his son.

The grooms family were originally from Hawaii.

More of the brides amazing eyes and she was workin' it too.

Pre celebration cigars.

Holding back the tears and the bride was actually taken to the ceremony in a horse drawn carriage.

From tears.

To joy.

The view of the reception and the cake was actually made by the best mans mom.

Details and the cake was delicious thank you.

First dance.

A sweet moment with the mother son dance.

MNP House Party

Last night Helen and I attended Michael Norwood's house party. We couldn't believe that Mr. Norwood pulled out all the stops and had catered sushi chefs there. That was a nice treat. It definitely is always fun to get together with my peers and chat. There were a few people there that I didn't get a chance to chat with, but maybe next time. The night ended with poker of course. And might I add not a bad finish for me, especially when I don't really consider myself a poker player. I ended up finishing 3rd overall and I can say that I barely hung on to dear life all game. I was lucky to make a small run at the end.

Here is a short video put together by Lan Bui. Of course Lan didn't tell me he was recording and I ended up doing some stupid face on camera. Nice Lan. Oh and also keep an eye out for my fingers that made a cameo walking across the poker table.

Happy Friday!

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Smart or Not So Smart?

Ok officially I have begun to take walks at night. I think it's a good start to begin working out again. Last night was my first day of walking and I am going to take my point and shoot with me just incase I find something interesting.

The first thing I spotted in an empty parking lot was this "Smart Car". This makes me think back at the first time I spotted one on US roads, was on the freeway. I was thinking, "Man this thing is really small, if you got into an accident, would you make it? I mean the guy that was driving one on the freeway was doing about 80 mph. Don't get me wrong, I am all for saving the environment and saving fuel, but if it could mean your life, that makes you think. Before I make my opinion, please checkout the video below and let me know your thoughts.

I am a car guy, so I am going to highlight some stats. I thought the 0-60 mph is pretty funny.

Performance

Maximum speed 90 mph
Acceleration 0–60 mph 12.8 sec

Fuel consumption*
City/highway (mpg) 40/45 (EPA 2007); 33/41 (EPA 2008)

Bigger Images on Blogger

Happy "Hump Day" everyone! Today's post will be around how to get bigger images on blogger. I have received many emails about how I get my images so big, to show up on my blog. I am not the ends all of blogger nor do I claim myself an expert. Maybe I just happened to stumble upon the secret, but anyways here is how I am doing it.

***** NOTE: Please save your template to your computer before you adjust anything, just incase something happens and you can go back to the original. VERY IMPORTANT!

1. You want to resize your images to the size you want. I resized mine in photoshop to be 900x600 or 600x900.

2. Next you want to host the image on your server or at a separate hosting source other than blogger.

3. Here are the things you need to change on your bloggers html. Outer wrapper = Main wrapper + Sidebar wrapper. Well kind of. The outer wrapper is the total width of the page. The main wrapper is how big it will allow your images to be and side bar wrapper is all that other good stuff, such as about you, your links etc. Keep adjusting these 3 settings to make sure it works. As you can see the Main wrapper + Sidebar wrapper are less than the Outer wrapper to make it work.

Outer-Wrapper
-----------------------------------------------
outer-wrapper {
width: 1150px;
margin:0 auto;
padding:10px;
text-align:left;
font: $bodyfont;


main-wrapper
width: 915px;
float: left;
word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */
overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */


sidebar-wrapper {
width: 200px;
float: right;
word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */
overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */

4. When you get that all done and you post a new post, you will just need to input this code into the body of the post for your image to show up.

As you can see, you want to put the location of your image in this code and it should when you post your post, show up.

I hope that helps everyone out. If not, that's all I got. So happy blogging people.

Special thanks to my buddies, Justin and Mary Marantz for helping me get bigger images on my blog.

Scott & Kim : Day After Session

This past Sunday, I meet up with one of my favorite couples, Scott and Kim for a day after session at the EBM Japanese Garden. They were married back in March and you can checkout their wedding photos here. Technically I know this is not an official day after session, but when they wanted more photos, I was game.

Unlike their wedding day which was a blazing 98 degrees that day, the weather faired much better on Sunday, although it was still overcast. The lighting wasn't the best, but we worked it out either way.

Here are a few of my favorites from the day.

This bridge was where they first said "I do"

Inside the mini japanese garden house.

Kim looking radiant that day.

A brisk walk around the garden.

We actually headed back to the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach to grab some more photos too.

Wedding in Hollywood

Yesterday I headed up to Hollywood for a wedding with [B]ecker at the Roosevelt Hotel.

The Roosevelt Hotel is such a beautiful place to have a wedding. It's a very dark and intimate place to get married. Special thanks to The Party Goddess that did an awesome job with coordinating and taking good care of us.

As an added note, I heard that the Roosevelt Hotel is actually haunted. The bride told me that the floor that is haunted is the 12th floor, which is where she happened to get ready. I tried to look back at my photos for some glowing orbs, but I didn't find anything.

You probably will notice that I increased the size of my images on my blog, so I apologize to your bandwidth for putting it through that stress. Here are a few of my favorites from the day.

Detail of the dress.

The first look.

Workin' it, showin' off the blue shoes.

Isn't this a cool wall?

The ceremony was dark, but it gave it a very romantic feel.

Details of the decor.

The lights in the room actually changed color, just in case you are wondering.

First dance.

A moment after the first dance.

The reaction during toast.

Drinking and dancing is allowed.

Before & After Part 2

I received an email recently about a wedding I shot with [B]ecker. Someone asked if I could post a before and after shot of the bride from that wedding. That made me think that maybe I am long overdue for a before & after. So here we go. Before I begin, I do use some actions from The Boutwells and some from Kevin Kubota. And if you're wondering if I get paid for advertising for them, the answer is no.. but that would be nice.

Please see below on what was done to the photo. We like to get the image straight out of the camera perfect or close to as far as exposure and use photoshop to enhance the photo to make it even better.

Before:
- Nothing was done here except resizing the image. It's straight out of the camera. Additional note this was shot with my Canon 5D with a 50 1.4 lens, manual mode and stepped jpeg quality.

After:
- Boutwell action "Yin and yang". Yin on the flowers, dress and background to make it darker and bring back some detail. Yang a bit on her face to brighten her skin.
- Bumped the curves to give it more contrast.
- Boutwell action "Derelicte" at 20%
- Kevin Kubota "Magic sharpen"
- Boutwell action "Vignette + blur fast" at 20%

Random photo of the day

Tyler's Sweet 16x2

This past Saturday, my buddy Tyler turned 16x2. You can do the math on that. It was a themed birthday party where everyone came in their finest black and whites. We even got to roll in a stretched Hummer that night. It feels pretty nice to roll up to the club in one.. I'm not gonna lie.

Before heading to Opera Club, we actually had a really nice dinner at Bond St in Beverly Hills. If you go there, you have to get the Sea Bass, it's probably the best i've ever had.

I'm not much of a drinker anyways, but I had to play it super low key that night because I was shooting a wedding the following day. I didn't get home actually till 4am and I had to be ready to shoot a wedding by 11am the next day. Yeah talk about sacrifice to party huh? Anyways, here are a few images from the night. Be sure to check out the slide show also below. Oh and all of these images are from my Canon G7 point and shoot. I don't think the club would allow paparazzi style gear in there.

Click Here For The Slideshow!!

A few details, those bags are filled with "Black and White" themed stuff, bracelets for the girls and necklaces for the guys. Also party favors including my favorite, Advil.

The birthday boy Tyler and his wife Nancy.

Bond St. food.. the Sea Bass is the one on the bottom.

The birthday boy again and yes we know that crazy guy in the back.

Helen and I .. and of course a picture of our shoes.

This is what happens when you reserve a table with bottle service.

Click Here For The Slideshow!!

Wedding at Ponte Family Winery - Temecula, CA

Ok I am a bit behind on blogging. I went to a crazy sweet 16x2 party on Saturday and I will be blogging that in a few days.

Sunday, I did shoot another amazing and interesting wedding with [B]ecker at the beautiful Ponte Family Winery in Temecula, CA. I say interesting because the bride actually wasn't feeling well during the reception and had to rest awhile away from her wedding. We didn't get a chance to capture that amazing sunset light in the vineyards, but at least the bride eventually came back to her wedding in her casual clothes and danced the night away.

At the end of the night on the drive back, [B]ecker took us to a short cut through the mountains. 20 minutes driving through the mountains with only 15 minutes left before we got back, we ran into police half way through with a road closed sign. That pretty much summed up our night. We had to drive back 20 minutes to get to a highway. But thanks [B]ecker for showing me the scenic route.

Anyways, the wedding was coordinated by the ladies at Red Orchid Design and they also provided the florals.

Here are a few of my favorites from the day.

I loved the dress, it was very southern bell.

Isn't the bride beautiful?

The bride literally didn't have one bad picture.

Some details of the winery.

Wow!

Ok last one.

Focused! but he was actually tying the tie for a grooms man.

The groom cleaned up nicely.

One more of the groom.

This is such a great moment with the bride and her father.

We did it!

[B]ecker warned them.. licking is allowed, but it most likely will end up on the blog.

Details...

Details...

I love cupcakes.. don't you?

The grooms pimp Land Rover cake.

As you can see the bride is out of her dress at this point, but it's still a great moment.

This was probably my favorite moment from the day.

Outside the reception tent at night.

Sharing a final dance together.
(Photographers note: This was shot at 1600 ISO using a 50mm at 1.8 and only firing the external flash)

Birthday Wrap Up

It's now 12:50 am and my 29th birthday is officially over. Today Helen totally surprised me with a day of fun and for once, I really didn't try to figure out anything. I pretty much put my curiosity in the back seat and went with it today. The morning started out bright and early with Helen telling me to dress for the beach, so we can spend the day there and work on our tans, but instead she took me to Athena Day Spa in Laguna Beach, for a full body massage. I have to say that I was long over due for one. Believe it or not people, photographers get achy muscles too. After the hour session of getting rubbed down in oil, we headed over to The Beach House Restaurant and enjoyed the nice view of the beach while having lunch. After lunch we had a few hours to head back and relax at our place before going out to dinner. We did swing by my favorite mall, Irvine Spectrum to get some new kicks.

The evening rolled around and we headed out to another surprise location. Helen took me to the Caspian Restaurant, where they served really good Persian food and also they had entertainment, which was live music and belly dancers! I had a feeling that Helen was going to invite some people as a surprise, but I didn't know who. When I entered, I saw all of my close friends sitting together and It felt really great that they all made it out for my bday. I was really put on the spot after dinner to say a speech, which I totally couldn't do, but I do want to thank you all that came out. It means so much to Helen and I. You guys are all like our family out here in Cali. I didn't take to many photos today as I was having issues with my memory card.

* Edit - Thanks to everyone who left me comments on my blog, Facebook and Myspace and also texted me, I appreciate all the love.

* All photos below were taken with my Canon G7 point and shoot.

Me at lunch today in Laguna Beach. My hair was messed up after the massage.

I didn't know if you guys knew that I have a belly dancer growing out of my shoulder. I hide her away until there is a special occasion.

Thank you Charlene for the awesome carrot cake. I am enjoying it right now with my calm tea. I also got to make another bday wish!