Before I get into the meat of what I want to say in this post, I want to start by saying that the new blog will be going live on Tuesday night at midnight. So, if you check in on Wednesday morning, it’ll be up and running. It’ll be on a different domain, so check here for a link to the new location. There will most likely be a couple of things that won’t be finished, but they’ll be small, and most people won’t even notice. I’m just tired of putting it off. So, Tuesday at midnight it is…

Now, on to the main reason for this post. WHY DID IT TAKE SO LONG FOR ME TO LAUNCH THIS DAMN BLOG?!!? Everyone has been so sweet and supportive since I announced that I was going to have a new blog several months ago. It’s taken far longer than I ever expected, and there’s only one real reason for that. I DID IT MYSELF. Well, that’s not entirely true. My good friend Tom did all of the technical coding (and without whose help this thing would have NEVER been finished). But I did the design, and all the little aesthetic tweaks to make it look just like I wanted. If I had hired a professional blog designer to do everything at the start, I’d be 6 months into posting on a new blog. But, I decided to do it myself, and I paid the price for it. I will NEVER do it again!

When I first decided to do this, I wanted to make a blog that would be the coolest, most advanced, most innovative thing out there. I wanted to set a trend for all future photo blogs. It’s just in my nature to want to do that. After plotting out all the things I wanted to do, and then trying to implement them all in one blog, everything became too overwhelming, and just too plain complicated and unnecessary. And that was several months into it! I thought Tom was going to kill me with all of my questions. At that point, I decided to go in the complete opposite direction. Simple and clean. NO crazy photo loading banners. No complicated graphics. Just a simple, clean design that implemented my brand.

What does this mean? It means that everyone who has been waiting all this time for an amazing, innovative blog will probably be disappointed. It has ended up being a fairly tame, simple blog that will work well for me for a while.

The reason I’m going this far into explaining this, is that I’ve been getting TONS of e-mails from people saying, “I can’t wait for the new blog. I’ll bet it’s going to be AMAZING!!”. I think the fact that it’s taken this long to finish has given everyone the idea that it’s going to be HUGE. And that’s just not true. I’ll be hiring a professional to design my next blog sometime down the line, and that one will be the BIG ONE. For now, this blog will have to do.

Thanks for putting up with the delay, and please check back for the link!

As you may have noticed, I haven’t been posting much of anything on this blog lately. It’s somewhat intentional, as I’ve been holding back on posting images and shoots in order to feature them on my new blog, which will be going live next week!

This thing has had many twists and turns along the way, and has become something completely different than I had originally planed. I’ll be making one more post on this blog before launching the new one, and I’ll explain why it took so long, when it will go live, and why it is what it is…

I’m expecting it to go live in the second half of the week. Check back here periodically for a post on the launch date, and some more info. Thanks for being cool while I make the transition!

I’m constantly amazed at the technology inside my awesome little iPhone. I never feel too far away from my office on a work day when it’s in my bag. I’m still in love with the Visual Voicemail, web browser, photo browser, and on and on. But one of favorite things is the camera. Now, being a photographer means that I have a camera on me most all of the time. But when I forget my point and shoot camera, my trusty iPhone is always there to fill in.

When it comes to cellphone cameras in general, no one’s gonna blow up an image for an 8 X 10 framed print in their house. But the quality of the iPhone’s camera is impressive, and is certainly good enough to post images online, that could sometimes be confused with point-and-shoot images.

So, here are some fun, random, casual photos taken with my iPhone over the last couple of weeks.

Having fun with ridiculously large glasses at the store:

A few photos from the Padre game from last week:

I’m a little obsessed with self portraits. It’s cool. I’m ok with it.

We had sweet seats thanks to my friend Cort:

And a couple of random images from a hike from this past weekend:

A buddy of mine told me that new iPhones are going to be released in the next couple of months that will fix my only major issue with the phone. The new generation iPhones will be on a completely new network with new technology allowing them to browse the internet at super-fast speeds! (Sorry I don’t know the technical info). Let’s hope they allow simple upgrades!

After searching around forever, I was finally able to find this machine on Amazon that will convert all of my old BetaMax tapes to HD DVD. It’s about time!

It’s amazing how much better the quality is after is up-converted to HD. If you want to see a video of the machine in action, and some before ad after comparisons, just click here.

This past Sunday I shot a beautiful, fun, intimate wedding for Morgan and Cathy. Morgan is the brother of Chad, a frequent comment poster on this blog, and dear friend of mine. When I first talked to Chad about the wedding, I was honored that he asked me to be the photographer. And after meeting the bride and groom, I was even more excited, as they’re an amazingly warm and kind couple. Here are just a couple shots from the beautiful day:

Shoes!

The ceremony took place at the house of a dear friend:

I have a firm belief that there’s at least one cute kid at every wedding:

The groom:

And the beautiful bride:

The ceremony on the 2nd balcony overlooking the canyon:

The happy couple:

There was no traditional reception, only a relaxed gathering of friends in the house. It was nice to sit back and relax after the ceremony and formal photographs, and talk to the guests and enjoy the wonderful food.

I promised Chad I’d post a couple picture of him in this post. The first is him looking pretty with the bouquet:

And a much less goofy shot of him with his girlfriend Emily:

And Chad… when can I expect a phone call about shooting YOUR wedding?

Hallelujah! It’s been over five months, and the start of the 2008 Major League Baseball is here! I’m a huge baseball fan, and it’s the only thing that can get the nasty stank of NCAA March Madness out of the air! (I’m not much of college hoops fan). My beloved Padres, along with the rest of the league will begin their season this Monday. Both the Dodgers and Diamondbacks look string this year, but I have faith that my Padres can win the division.

On Friday I headed down to Petco Park to catch the last spring training game here in town before the start of the regular season. And since the Padres were playing the Angels, my buddy Becker came down to catch the game with me.

It was a perfect evening for a game:

And here’s a shot of Becker and I. Notice how perfectly he frames out the “SD” on my hat. Punk!

While the Padres did win, the game was a little boring. But hey, any night spent at the ballpark watching a game is a good night.

Check back tomorrow for images from a super fun wedding I shot earlier today!

This afternoon I met up with local singer/songwriter Charlie Imes to shoot some images for his soon to be released album, On an Island. Charlie is a very laid back, fun, easy going guy, and that made it very easy to photograph him. He describes his sound as a combination of Jack Johnson and Jimmy Buffet, so I wanted to capture that kind of vibe in the photographs.

A couple of portraits:

The title of the new record is “On an Island” so we decided to go with a tongue-in-cheek humorous approach by putting Charlie on a traffic island, playing his guitar, busking for cash. Here’s one of my favorites with the city bus cruising by in the background:

And one last portrait:

I also want to say thanks to Robert Garbowski for coming along today. He’s the album’s graphic designer, and it was great to have him along side me while I shot.

Well, I’m nearly back in action. It’s been a fantastically fun, yet rough week. It started with an awesome 4 days in Vegas at WPPI, only to return to San Diego with a massive head cold and sore throat. Oh, and I had the pleasure of spending some time in the Dentist’s chair on Thursday! I’m nearly over my cold, so I was looking forward to enjoying a beautiful Easter afternoon out in Harbison Canyon this afternoon. But, around 10:00am this morning I started having some major pain in the lower left portion of my abdomen. I wasn’t sure if it was something serious, or if it was simply a strained muscle, or even just gas. All I knew is that it HURT. I told Jen to go out and have some fun, as there’s no reason for her to sit around while I complain about my abdomen. After a few hours and a nap, the pain seems to have subsided. Now, if the rest of my head cold goes away, I’ll be set!

A couple weeks ago I had lunch with a good friend and fellow photographer Aaron Thompson. He asked my opinion on having a monthly gathering of SoCal photographers to hang out and chat about the industry. I thought it was a great idea, and I’m happy to say that the first gathering will be happening this Thursday evening at Aaron’s place in Lemon Grove. I think the first “official” meeting will be next month, but he will be having people over this week. If you’re a photographer and would like to attend (and why wouldn’t you?), send me an e-mail and I’ll give you the info.

Here’s Aaron and I from lunch a couple weeks back:

WPPI was again a total blast this year! It’s so much fun to meet up with good friends, friends I rarely get to see, and new friends I hope to see again soon! This year was a little strange for me, as I took VERY few photos. Normally I shoot everything. But this year, I spent all my time meeting, chatting, gambling, partying, and sleeping in. Here are just a couple shots:

Me along with David, Rowena, and Melissa at Becker’s party. I don’t know the girl who snuck into the left corner!

Candice Brooke, Carlie Ryan, and Melissa Koehler doin’ the old “crazy face” portrait.

Oh… I have a SUPER SAUCY shot of Candice, but she made me promise not to post it, so I won’t. Unless enough people ask me to. Just kidding Candice!

Here’s a shot I stole from Melissa’s blog of myself with Aaron Dieppa and Lan Bui. We all share the same barber.

I realize that most folks will be attending the photo get together at Aaron’s place on Thursday, but if anyone is interested in having lunch, I’ll be dining at my favorite little hole in the wall, Chopstix, at noon. Just let me know if you wanna join me.

One last picture… Jen and I were cruising through FAO Schwartz when I came across this jewel of a picture. It’s on the packaging of some random toy. I’m not sure why they chose this particular picture, all I know is that it’s HILARIOUS.

I hope I’m over this cold soon, as I have a CRAZY week coming up. Every day I have either a shoot, a meeting or a party! And, best of all, I’m going to the Padres vs. Angels pre-season game at Petco on Friday. The regular season is almost here!!!

HAPPY EASTER!

Earlier today I shot a wonderful couple near Cowles Mountain. It was a great shoot for me to continue testing out the 1Ds MkIII. I’ll be posting a bunch of images from today in the future, but right now I wanted to post just one photo for Pete and Jena, the super-cool kids who came out for the shoot today.

It was raining in all the areas around the mountain, but not where we were shooting. It was perfectly clear, with gorgeous light!

Again, I’ll be posting more shots from this shoot down the road when I launch the new blog.

Also, if you want to meet up with me in Vegas, read the post below!