Chinatown Toys
Whenever I get free weekend mornings, I like taking my camera into Chinatown. With 40,000 members of the local community, some kids grow up never having to leave the 20 block area. There’s really no reason to venture out when there are more toys in Chinatown than all of San Francisco combined.
Petting Alligators
One of the many cool things about being a photographer is the access you have to events you may not otherwise have attended. This morning despite an early morning shoot time, I had the chance to play with a snapping turtle and alligator. This is “Al” the alligator at the California Academy of Sciences.
SFis Orange
If you pick up the latest issue of SFiS throughout San Francisco you’ll see Orange photographers Jack Huynh, Vasna Wilson and Gene X Hwang’s work featured in a variety of spreads. The cover was shot by John Lee who does some really nice work, but pop it open and check out some of the Orange crews work!
Nordstrom gives back
We shot a nice event at Nordstrom recently which was the Nordstrom Scholarship Awards. The company gives scholarships to high school seniors to go to college with and this year they even gave them laptops to go to school with. In addition to that, they donate money to an organization that the high schooler chooses. It’s a nice way to round out giving, and it gives the kids a taste of how it feels to not only [...]
One Market
This morning we shot some interiors at One Market downtown. This was an accidental test shot while the room was being reconfigured. I had a slave flash unit in my hand that fired off since I forgot that I had set the self timer. Although it was gloomy, cold and wet outside this morning, I think we got some nice shots…
Contests and such
We’re making a more concerted effort to enter a number of contests this year and WPJA is a great organization that a number of our wedding photographers are a part of. I like the fact that they don’t take anyone that is willing to pay them money and there are photo journalistic standards that they up hold. I shoot this engagement session at the couple’s home and i really like the intimacy that they were about to [...]
Team Effort
This week we were shooting in San Diego for a large corporate gig. We’ve worked with Mark Ross a lot as he’s one of our primary shooters for San Diego for portraits. We had eight people shooting on one day and this is one of the shots of the 400+ headshots we powered through. It’s always nice to work with teams as you can share ideas, techniques, etc. We set up the lights slightly differently that I [...]
antique greyscale
My post production style has evolved over the years and the past several months have been heavy on this particular look. As much as I love black and white, sometimes i like to throw in some shades of metallic greyscale.
Living out of a hotel room…
Shooting in different cities is something that usually ends up sounding much more glamorous than it really is. Most of the time you end up in hotel rooms, eating hotel food, and of course you are away from home. I enjoy travel a lot though and there’s always something interesting if you force yourself to look around. Here in San Diego it’s not hard – this hotel is perched right at the marina and has great views [...]
Anna and the Elephant
The weather in Las Vegas was a bit cooler than we anticipated so we had to adjust but it’s always about flexibility when you shoot on location. We had planned shooting out in the desert and did for a little bit but on the way back to the Strip we passed this elephant on the side of the road, and had to take a shot… (model: Anna Tomasiello)