Jordan & Ryan | SJC Mission

Jordan and Ryan are a fun and beautiful couple getting married in Santa Ynez this summer. I can hardly wait for their wedding, which I know for a fact is going to be absolutely awesome not to mention totally fun!

Erin's Sr Photos | Santa Barbara

Erin will be graduating from UCSB in June....and she's my cousin! She kind of looks like me, don't ya think? She wanted to take some photos for her parents for graduation - I'm sincerely hoping they don't read my blog, since this is a surprise....

Happy Graduation Erin, we can't wait to see you and the whole dam-fam in a few weeks!


Check back to see what's "on deck"...
jordan & ryan e-session
kandie & jason tie the knot! - slideshow
new prop - very cool
Ethan turns one

Heather + Sean | Morro Bay

Heather & Sean, live in the Los Angeles area, but love the Central Coast. Like many of my clients, they've decided to tie the knot in this special area. The wedding will take place in June at Heather's Grandparents ranch - certain to be a beautiful backdrop - and if you've been following this blog for a while, you know ranch weddings are my favorite!

While we were on our shoot, I learned that Sean does photography as one of his hobbies and is doing an ambitious project based on Piers in California...I'm not certain of the region. The twist is, he shoots them with a pinhole camera! For those of you familiar with this type of photography, you can imagine how difficult it must be to get just the right exposure with the water reflecting all that light!

Heather and Sean also have one of the most unique wedding stories - I have to share...
When I asked them how they met, they said "through mutual friends." Then they told me that wasn't exactly the complete story...they met once, and didn't see each other again for some time. Their mutual friend was in a production and they both were invited. The production had several shows and Sean went like 5 times until Heather was there - which was the last show! He just knew that Heather was the one, is that so cool?!

Here are a few from the session we shot in the Morro Bay area...I'm like nice cars, so when we have the opportunity, we use them!

The most talented...

The most talented ladies I know both happen to be jazz singers. Kellie Wenzel of NewjaZ and Dawn Lambeth and the Usonia Jazz Band are the most wonderfully talented musicians. Dawn and Kellie each have a unique and different Jazz style, Dawn being mostly old school - 20's-40's jazz and Kellie is more new school jazz. I'm no music major, but I know these ladies have what it takes! I do play the piano, but don't practice nearly enough!

I was honored recently by the opportunity of shooting each of these lovely ladies photos. Kellie's will be used for promo pieces and demo cd's and Dawn's will be used on her second album which will be out in the next few months!
Here they are.....

Kellie...Dawn...we went for a real classical portrait look - don't you think they look straight out of the 30's?! Special thanks to our friend Rhonda Johnson of Bridal Makeup and Hair - beautiful job!

Flying!!

Dan had a birthday last week, and I planned a surprise. On Sunday morning we went flying up and around SLO county. Our friend Tim, is a pilot and has a plane. We've never been up and I thought this would be a memorable time to do it. So we went up up and away into the sky. It was SOOO fun and really quite peaceful. Being up that high in a plane that small really makes you remember how little we really are! I shot some footage on my super 8 camera too, can't wait to see how it turned out!! Here are some photos....

This was a view from above the Cuesta Grade....you can see the some of the sister mountain range
The birthday boy...

Can you find out house? Probably not, because you can only see our driveway because we have so many trees!!!
I wouldn't mind Hearst Castle being my house...


your's truly self portrait

Dan getting his flight lesson...

| Sarah & Jay | SLO town

Sarah and Jay were an absolute joy to to work with from beginning to end. They booked me far-far in advance, so I've had the opportunity to really get to know them personally. Their wedding was pretty much perfect and we had absolutely perfect weather. Here are a few of my favorites of the two of them, but you should really check out the SLIDESHOW, to get the full scope and feel of their wedding.

Speaking of booking early - we're booking for 2008, so if you're sittin' on the fence, don't miss out, book early! Sarah was referred by her friend who happened to see my Mother's Day display at Mother's Tavern. For the past 4 years Jayne & Paul have been kind enough to let me put together their window display of mom's and kids in honor of Mother's Day. I've been meaning to blog about it, but haven't gotten back down there to take a photo of it to post! If you live in the area and you're in downtown SLO, check it out! If you don't know where Mother's is - YOUR MISSING OUT! They are on Higuera just north of Broad (I think : ).

Mexco #2

My mom met up with us at the border and came with her pretty little face!

Amalia is one of the missionaries, she and her husband, with the help of a lot of other people, built the Remenant Center.







We had several pretty tables set up with gifts for the women, complete with tea and crumpets and this stuff called lemon curd that looked kind-of gross!
Each of the women who came got a different tea cup to use and take home. Some of them were old, some where new, all were different - just like us!
This is the view from the Remenant Center - it's really quite beautiful, the town is in the far far distance off to the left a bit.

Our trip was blessed and fantastic! We went down with the women's ministry team from our church, called the Esther Project, to put on an outreach program to the women of the small town of San Vicente. The town is located a couple hours south of Ensenda. We (our church) supports a missionary family, Dan & Amalia, who have been down there for several years and have built a center call "the Remenant Center."

The center has some dorms, classrooms, a gym, kitchen & eating area. The long-term vision of the center is to have students from around Mexico come and be trained up to go out into the world and be missionaries. Currently the facility is used to minister to the town as somewhat of a community center and as an outreach to the local community in the name of the Jesus. Keep in mind, this is a very small town, which has dirt roads, one park and is pretty much rural, so a center like this is a huge asset to the town.

We went to Mexico, as Americans to put on an English tea to the Hispanic women of the town. As odd as that sounds, it was a cultural experience! We had a great response, 40 women showed up! We were told probably only 20 women would show up, so our double response was an answer to prayer!

It's always a blessing to serve others. If you ever have the opportunity to do so, I highly recommend it. Serving others less fortunate than ourselves puts life into perspective and makes me so very thankful for all I have and all the opportunities I've been given! Plus when life boils down, and I look back, I hope to have made a difference in the world.

Here are a few photos from the trip, enjoy!

These are some monkeys we found later in the afternoon...the bottom little boy, Bebe, is one of the missionary's kids.