Guilty as charged

Okay, okay, so I've been so delinquent. I know.  I am a bad blogger.  I really do have good, er, great excuses for not posting though....I've been lazy.  And extremely busy.  Those two things combined produce a force that repels blogging progress like a strong force that repels a thing strongly.  Sometimes I'm impressed by my own imagery, it's so vivid.  Anyway, since I have so many things to catch up on, I'll start a while back and hit some of the highlights.  Just so there's a big picture of what's coming up, we have to cover friend's birthday parties, weddings, El Salvador and other randomness.

My friends Peter and Sarah Connell had a birthday party for Emily, their 1 year old daughter.  Sarah knocked the ball out of the park with a lady-bug theme that included a fabulous game of "pin the spot on the lady-bug" and sidewalk, table, and cake decorations that were all perfectly red, black and cute.  If cute were a color, this event was monochromatic from top to bottom.  Here is Emily and Sarah's brother, Michael.

Emily and the first Cake

Oh yeah

During our "pin the spot on the ladybug" 

game, Michael, one of my neighbors and 

friend of the Connells decided to have a little fun.

I caught the expression on Pete's face which was priceless.

He's normally a really happy guy, but there was something

ominous about this look. =)

At 6.5 fps, it's like shooting fish in a bucket.  

Only, there's no refraction to deal with.

A slight change of subject.  I played with the American Victory Orchestra for the Daniel Pearl World Music Days this past October and November, and the rehearsals took place up in woodland hills.  Afterwards I headed down Topanga Canyon (A fantastic drive!) to PCH, and this picture is from the stoplight at that intersection.

I drove down PCH and ended up in Santa Monica with some time to kill.  These shots are all from the beach path.

This family had tabled the conversation.

Gotta love beach sunsets, ever if there aren't that many clouds.

Going...

...going...

goooo...

...ne

I liked the reflection of the ferris wheel in the water.

Fast forward to haloween, and my awesome neighbors came to visit.  Rob pulled this scarecrow costume together in about 10 minutes.  Pretty impressive.

Ella was completely Dorothy, right down to the 

ruby red slippers and Todo, although, 

I think the dog was dead. Either dead or sleeping.

the trio

Okay, I will try and blog semi-consistently from now on, or until I have a relapse of my strong force problem.

Party in Pasadena

This past weekend I had the great pleasure of shooting with Bree from Brienne Michelle Photography in the beautiful wedding of Lisa and Dali.  They were married in the beautiful city of Pasadena and held their reception at the Athanaeum on the campus of Cal Tech.  Most of the wedding party met at harvard, so I was around very smart people all day, but they let me take their pictures anyway.  They had a very interesting and engaging "east-coast-ness" to them which I liked a lot.  I haven't had a lot to blog lately, so I'm putting up a few more images to make up for it.  Here are some of the images.  

Arghrrrrrrrrrr....

Loved this dress shot

Love in an elevator, livin' it up as I'm goin' dooowowown

Who doesn't like an elevator?

Mod Squad

thanks Becker!

Dali, the groom is in the middle of the seven.  

She and my camera had a staring contest.  She won.

Brother and sister

The handsome groom.  Bree sent me over to get the guys

while she worked with the girls.

They had a fabulous candle lighting part of the ceremony 

where the dad's lit their candles from the big church candle

and then walked to the back of the church, where they sent

the flame up through the congregation sitting in the pews.  

Then the mothers lit their flames from their sides, and 

placed their candles next to the unity candle, which the 

bride and groom lit together. Kind of cool imagery.

I thought this balcony of the church looked straight out

of Indiana Jones, complete with spider webs and a silhouette 

shadow of a statue through the window.  I started to look for

numbers on the floor, or a secret passageway, but then Bree

told me I had to take pictures. Oh well.

A Grandpa.

This picture was taken in 1952, thanks to Kevin Kubota.

What a happy couple

I caught these two in the act just after the ceremony.

The getaway car was incredible.  

I'll let the picture speak for itself.

It is common in Pasadena culture to give high-5's to brides

passing you in the hallway of really nice hotels.

We wanted City Hall, but another group got the permit before us.

So, we walked in the street in front of city hall, technically not on

the sidewalk so we were safe, and still got some fun pictures there.

Cal Tech had a gorgeous campus...truly beautiful!

On the way to the reception...

The father's speech was hilarious!

Here's to you, kid.

The details were quite exquisite.

The band was really good, and tons of fun.

Father Paul was the officiating clergy for the day.

He was so laid back and relaxed it was wonderful.