Early E-Session

7:45am isn't early for an engagement session, unless you're from San Francisco (Pacific Time) and the photo shoot is at Nike's flag ship store in New York City (Eastern Time). But if anything was worth waking up for, Monica and Simon would be near the top of the list (going neck and neck with one of my screaming kids).

Monica and Simon - thanks for the opportunity to capture your tender moments at the location of your engagement. I gotta tell you though, when I asked you to kiss, I felt like I needed a crowbar to separate you guys :).

The Big Apple

Michelle and I often toy with the idea of raising our family in the City. ... and by the City, we don't mean San Francisco, but New York where we spent our early years together. Cities are the epicenter for the arts, a place to have your ideas challenged and home to diversity. And few cities rival New York in any of the above. I mean you cram 8.3 million people onto Manhattan island and a bunch of things are bound to happen. From a photography perspective, you get some of the best photographers in the world practicing their trade here. It's almost impossible to not take great photos as every corner has a historic building, a wonderful brownstone or a scenic vista.

After a trip to the flagship Toys"R"Us store, we needed to take a break. Zoe picked up an Apple at Walgreens (yeah, Walgreens has fruit in New York) and just started munching away. We had a ton of cool pictures, but this photo stood out as representing our day and where we're at.



Technical Photography Note: 1/500 sec at f/2.8, ISO 100, 35mm. The camera was pretty much on the ground, tilted up. You can't see the viewfinder in this position, but if you know the field of view of the lens, you get a pretty good feel for what you're going to get. I manually set the auto focus point to the left most point so the camera wouldn't accidently focus on the many people walking by. Post processing was done using one of my Phat Baby signature presets that are discussed previously.

Road Trip!!!

What to do this weekend? Do something spontaneous and go on a road trip. There are plenty of weekend destinations in the Bay Area: Napa, Santa Cruz, Monterey or if you live on the peninsula make a trip into the City. This is an especially good time since:

• It's a 3-day weekend
• Gas prices seem to be going up again
• The WSJ indicates that many states are closing the pit stops along the interstate highways. Apparently, it's expensive to maintain those bathrooms in the middle of no where even if they're invaluable for the traveling parent.

Technical Photograph Note: 1/5 sec at f/5.0, ISO 400, 24mm. Dragging the shutter, or taking a long exposure, was used to get the streaked lights. The shot was taken wide to minimize the perceived camera shake and to make it a bit more dramatic. Post processing consisted of over sharpening and adding some punch in the color and contrast department. Obviously, I wasn't driving and would highly recommend against taking photos while driving. It's difficult enough concentrating with the kids screaming in the back, kicking your seat and throwing their snacks on the floor. Bonus points to anyone who knows which tunnel this is.

Wednesday Wedding Lighting Low Down

So let's keep with the wedding theme because:

1. Vicky & Stanley are fun and worth talking about.
2. I'm staring at all their pictures on my desktop and it's easy to export a few to this blog.
3. Well, let's face it. Weddings lead to babies and babies lead to baby photography - my specialty.

So the question is how do you get a picture like this:

First you find one beautiful bride and her equally attractive bride's maids. Then you add a bit of lighting, preferably from a really high vantage point so it looks like the sun is illuminating them. Hmmm... my light stands are only 8 feet tall so what to do. I know, let's clamp a flash to the poor tree when the hotel staff isn't looking. Finally, you add an umbrella for good measure to soften it up a bit (see right side of the picture below). Oh and best to set this all up when everyone is eating lunch, since the bridal party doesn't really have time to dilly dally.

Voila! Secret sauce revealed. Now, don't tell anyone, otherwise you'll be out of the "circle of trust". Bonus points to anyone who knows what movie that's from.

Wednesday Wedding Post on Monday

Right when you thought I was falling behind on my blog posts, I come out swinging (in a sleepy stupor). The past few nights have been all nighters to get the teaser photos for Vicky and Stanley, but you can be the judge on whether it was worthwhile (wedding guests can click on the link at the end of the video to see a high resolution photo gallery):

Technical Photography Notes: About 90% of the photos in the slideshow were done with one or more flashes. I selectively used my prime lens... who am I kidding, you pretty much had to be an ape to take bad photos of these two.

Trains and Tunnel Vision

The kids have trains on the brain. Caltrain station visits are conducted twice a week before they get dropped off for school. Trains come and go (usually about half a dozen, pictures are taken (by A and Z) and best of all we talk about what's on their mind. For me, we could be sitting around watching the grass grow and I'd be just as happy shooting the breeze about mathematics, physics and more mundane topics (yeah, I'm pretty geeky).

On the weekends, errands are performed using the train to visit Burlingame, Palo Alto and everything in between. This weekend some retail therapy was required by yours truly. Work is exceeding 70 hours, to the point where I plan my potty breaks at work to coincide with needing food and meeting up with someone. Potty breaks at home already have to coincide with when the kids are sleeping or otherwise occupied. So there, we've talked about trains, my personal bio routine and we'll get to the usual photography below.

Technical Photography Note: 1/400 sec at f/2, ISO 400. 35mm. I knew this would be an interesting shot as we ran down the tunnel to dinner at Miyakes (we only had an hour between trains). After eating, I just let Zoe run up the tunnel and waited till her head was where the light was beaming and released the shutter. The image is excessively over sharpened for a gritty feel and has a duo tone applied in post processing.

San Mateo Farmer's Market

Yeah, this was supposed to go out on Friday (maybe fewer posts are in order moving forward), but it's something you can do any weekend. The farmer's market in San Mateo up near CSM is one of the best around and getting better all the time. The number of vendors has increased to the point where you can get stone fired pizzas, kettle corn popcorn and snow cones in addition to the fresh (and organic) produce you'd come to expect. We stopped going a few months ago because our food budget was spiraling out of control (Aidan can eat 2000 calories in a sitting with Zoe not far behind), but if you can part with a few pesos it's worth an occasional visit to spice up your own diet and support the local farmers.

Technical Photography Note: 1/100 sec at f/4, ISO 200. 24mm. Yeah, I'm forcing myself to use that wide angle lens more. The weird green turf like substance was darkened, the strawberries made a bit redder and a bit of vignette was added for good measure. Shhh... Zoe sampled two strawberries.