Balboa Park Wedding Photography

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This afternoon I met with CJ Anderson and Tricia Smith at Balboa Park for their elopement wedding. My kind of wedding - six people including the Officiant and Photographer (me of course). Quick ceremony and then ample time for some amazing wedding portraits around the park.

Weather was perfect - a moderate layer of clouds to even out the lighting, and slightly cool. I'm so happy with the photos that we got, I'm going to share more than the usual number of previews. Plus you just can't do Balboa Park justice with 3-4 pictures. ;)

First a couple of quick ceremony photos, from Alcazar's Garden:



First kiss:



CJ had to run to the car, perfect time for a few sexy bridal portraits like this one:



Then we were off to the rest of Balboa Park, starting with some shots near the Organ Pavillion:



Then over to a beautiful area behind The Prado Restaurant:



Some nice family portraits by the lily pond:



CJ & Tricia were so much fun and easy to work with, this one almost came naturally:



Classic shot with the bell tower in the background:



Final photo of the afternoon:




San Diego Wedding Photography

Balboa Park Family Portraits

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Saturday morning I met with the Earl family at Balboa Park. Nothing beats a beautiful, calm morning at Balboa Park. We met at 8:30am and the park was nearly empty. It's so nice to be there in the morning before the crowds get there. Balboa Park is such a perfect backdrop for portrait photography.

Here are a few favorite photos from this family portrait session at Balboa Park:











San Diego Family Portrait Photography.

Ocean Beach Pier - Long and Short Shutter Speeds

Early this morning I made the trek over to Ocean Beach Pier...No particular reason, no huge waves or anything. But I shot some pretty cool photos of the waves breaking on the rocks, and the pier. Just playing around I used the fastest and slowest shutter speeds that were possible. I also tossed in a graduated ND filter, because the sky was getting blown out on me without it.

Series 1 - fast shutter speeds....I wanted very sharp photos, so I went with Fstops of about F8 - F11. Kicked the ISO all the way up to 1000, and that gave me a shutter speed of about 1/1000 to freeze the flying water.







Here's a close in crop of the water in one of the photos:



Series 2 - tack on a pair of two stop ND filters and you can turn day into night....ISO all the way down to 50, Aperture all the way up to F22...Shutter speeds as slow as 2.5 seconds in direct sun!





And finally for fun a surfer was getting in the water right in front of me....why not?

Two Springer Spaniels Join the Family

Pamela's family has always had Springer Spaniels over the years. Recently both her Mom's family and Sister's family lost a long time family member (Springer Spaniels) and this weekend both adopted new family members!

Douglas (yes, named after Dug from the movie "Up") and Burton were born September 18th, so they are about 15 weeks old. What a couple of cuties!

Never to miss an opportunity, I grabbed the camera and fired off some quick photos of both of them. Many more where these came from, but here are a few early favorites...

First, introducing Burton:





Pamela's Dad, bonding with Burton:





Brothers Burton and Douglas:



And finally, introducing Douglas:

Final shoot of 2009 - Family Photos at Coronado Beach

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Tonight I met with the Draughorne Family at Coronado Beach for some chilly, yet fun family beach photography. It was beautifully overcast tonight, with rain in the area. Luckily we didn't have a drop.

Here are a few early favorites from the Draughorne family beach photo shoot:









San Diego Family & Beach Photography.

San Diego Maternity Photography

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Tonight I met with Eric, Angela and Jacob for some maternity photos at our studio. In 2007 I also photographed their maternity and Jacob's newborn photos. It was great seeing everyone again, especially Jacob who is just a bit bigger than he was the last time we saw him. ;)

Here are a few favorites from tonight's maternity session:







A quick solo shot of Jacob (the hat may look familiar):



And finally to end our photo shoot, Jacob got to paint mommy's belly.



San Diego Maternity PhotographyLabels: San Diego Maternity Photogapher Photography Photos

San Diego Family Beach Photos at the Hotel Del Coronado

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Tonight I met with the Dall family at Coronado beach on what was one of the coldest and windiest afternoons that I can remember. Wind gusts around the county were measuring at nearly 50mph - certainly not ideal weather for outdoor portraits.

But, the Dall family was more than up to the task, and even got their feet wet (the next time I have a family complain about getting wet in July, I'm going to bring up the Dall family who did it on a cold day in December). Of course I myself was knee deep in salt water at times but hey, that's my job. ;)

Here are a few favorites from tonight's family beach session.

My personal favorite:









San Diego Family Beach Photography

San Diego Family Beach Photos at the Hotel Del Coronado

Click here to view a slideshow of our San Diego Family and Beach Photography.

Saturday evening I had the pleasure of photographing the Cooker family at Coronado Beach. We had an amazingly warm weekend here in San Diego, a beautiful sunset and the tide was way out - you couldn't ask for better conditions for beach photos.

To mix things up, the family brought white shirts and Chargers jerseys! Very cool, I loved the Chargers jerseys.

Here are a few favorites from the Cooker family beach photo shoot..

The ladies:



Mom & Dad share a romantic moment:



The whole family (in Chargers gear) on the beach:



And finally the whole family in Chargers gear with the illuminated Hotel Del Coronado in the background:



San Diego Family and Beach Photography.

How to get a great Christmas tree photo

Since this article was so popular last year I am reposting for 2009.....


Here we have two beautiful christmas tree photos of our Son:





Now, here is how it is done....

First, you need to have the tree lit, and all of the other lights off in the room. Because light falls off over distance, and these lights aren't very bright, the light falls off pretty quickly. The further the tree is from the walls, the darker the walls are and the more the tree stands out from the background.

Because the room is so dark, you'll need to push your camera settings - high ISO (800 here), wide aperture (F1.4, 50mm lens) and slow shutter speed (1/20). With a slow shutter speed, you'll want your camera on a tripod for sure. In trying to maximize your light, you should also be wary of DOF. Here I focused on my Son and changed to M focus to make sure I didn't drift off of him.

This is really nothing more than a tripod mounted photo of a kid in a dark room, with one exception - the starburst on the lights. Photoshopped in? Nope.

When your aperture is set really narrow (F22 here) it creates a starburst on lights (I learned this trick shooting night time landscape photos). Try this - look at a light in your room and squint your eyes real narrow - same idea.

So the trick here is that I took two photos - a second one was taken at F22 with a six second shutter speed. I had my Son out of the picture for this shot (he'd be blurred all over the place at six seconds. So I had one photo of my Son in front of the tree with no starburst, and a second photo without him but with the starburst.

Then I layered the two photos and used a layer mask to combine them (see How To #10 here for a tutorial on using layer masks). By combining the images I get the best of both worlds.

Here is a trick to get this right...In this case I wanted to go from my widest aperture to my most narrow aperture. After I got the shot of Gavin, I switched from 1.4 to 22, but I counted the number of clicks that it took me to get there (16 I think). Then when I changed my shutter speed to compensate, all I had to do is turn it 16 clicks in the opposite direction and wa la, I have the same exposure. Only difference being the starburst and of course DOF.

Enjoy!

San Diego Family Beach Photography at the Hotel Del Coronado

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Tonight I met with the Kosier family, vacationing in San Diego from Phoenix, AZ. This is our fourth photo shoot with the Kosiers, two in San Diego and two at their home in Phoenix.

We shot an extended session, starting at the hotel and moving out to the beach. Here are a few sneak peeks from their photo shoot:













San Diego Family Beach PhotographyLabels: San Diego Family Beach Photography at Coronado Beach