The Sullivan Family 11/12/12

The Sullivan family just moved down here from Oregon and were in need of new family photos for the upcoming holiday season. One of my trusty locations to shoot around here is Goldsmith's Seed Farm which is on 152 before Gilroy Gardens. It's a good location with nice flowers and grass fields to shoot on. When we met up, they had an idea of doing a "brother for sale" picture and had cardboard signs already made up! They came prepared which always makes things go smooth! It's a little tricky shooting with little kids because they become squirmy and moody, but they held out and we were still able to get some awesome shots! Check them out!

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The Lopez Family 11/11/12

For this shoot that I did with the Lopez family, I decided to try a new technique that I haven't tried yet but have been wanting to. I wanted to shoot at a low f-stop number while using strobes. I have seen people do that before in the middle of the day and have a very shallow depth of field but never really knew how they did that. After a little research, I found that they achieved this by using a neutral density filter to darken the exposure to be able to shoot at f/1.8 in the day time with strobes. I used an ND8 filter and my 50mm f/1.8 lens for these shots. My goal was to make them look clear but the background blurry with some nice bokeh. Since I only used a 50mm lens, there wasn't too much blur or bokeh, a longer lens like an 85mm or a 70-200mm would have been a better choice but I don't have that kind of money haha. The Lopez family were really chill people and knew what they wanted which made the shoot go easy. We got some great shots at a park in Saratoga at around sunset. Check out some shots below!

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Sarah and Brian Engagement 10/18/12

I met Sarah and Brian through my friend Brent and Brian's car detailing shop. They contacted me about shooting their engagement pictures for their save the dates for their wedding next August. All of us live in Morgan Hill, CA and figured shooting out by Lake Anderson would be simple and we would get some great shots. Check out some of the shots below and see for your self!

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Here is the set up shot:

Otilia 11/23/12

Otilia plays is the vocalist in the rock/blues band, Against Leo. She found my work online and had me shoot her promo pictures. The band is from all around the bay area but for her solo pictures we shot at The Hotel Utah Saloon in San Francisco. We had the whole bar to ourselves, it was nice. We set up on the stage they had in there and did a few different looks then did some shots on the seats in the bar. I like the feel of the bar, though we didn't capture much of the atmosphere do to the limited space. Check out some of the shots below!

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Allison 11/21/12

I've shot with Allison twice before and she contacted me about wanting to do a guitar shoot. This was great for me because I just got my self a backdrop stand and have been wanting to test it out with a white seamless backdrop. It was more of an extensive set up than I usually do, but we got some great results out of it. Here is the set up for our shoot in her living room:

For this shoot, we used my Washburn Flying V guitar. It's a unique guitar that I currently play with in my band. Turns out that her family has some musicians so we also used one of her guitars and a guitar amp as a prop. The outfit she chose for this shoot was inspired by a Rolling Stone Magazine cover of Megan Fox:

I was pretty happy with how these turned out and happy to use my white seamless again! Here are some of the shots we got!

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Flesh Weapon 9/11/12

The singer in my band is in another band called Flesh Weapon, an industrial hip-hop band. They have been wanting to get promo pictures and we finally set up a shoot. They wanted to do a shoot in a creep, super dark abandoned egg farm in Gilroy, CA. Though we couldn't see what we were doing, we still managed to get some good shots. We also took advantage of the darkness by adding some light painting in the mix! Check it out!

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Wall-E at the beach 9/2/12

As part of my "Adventures of Wall-E" series, I took Wall-E to the beach! Posed him on the sand and with his new starfish friend!

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Dimidium 8/26/12

When I'm not working or taking pictures, I play in a melodic metal band called Dimidium. We got a new a bassist and were in need of new promo pictures for our web pages and future album art. So of course I set up my own photoshoot haha. All of this was made possible by timed shutter and a tripod. Though it was tricky at times to hit the shutter and run to stand in place and try to look cool but we got some good shots, check them out!

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Set up shot:

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Laura Garcia-Cannon 8/19/12

I have worked with Laura at NBC Bay Area for 4 1/2 years now and I have done a couple shoots with her in the past. She asked me to take some new pictures of her for her facebook page and other promotional material. These pictures were shot in the stations green room with a simple white wall and furniture. We took some regular shots then I told her how I have been wanting to do a 1940's style portrait so we gave that a shot. We had a good time shooting and had some good laughs, shes super cool and down to earth. Check these out:

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Set up shot for the black and white picture:

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Jennifer and Philip Engagement Shoot 7/12/12

Jennifer contacted me about shooting her wedding coming up in November and she was sent by my friend and coworker, Michelle. Me and my photo partner, Neal Allen, took them out to this nice location in the Los Altos Hills to shoot their engagement pictures. The location was super last minute that I actually found by looking at google maps haha but it worked out great. Here are some of the shots!

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Mayhem Festival 7/1/12

My friend Tom is the digital media guy for a clothing company based in LA called Sullen, and they send him out to cover a lot of concerts and he shoots video to post videos on their video blog. They sent him out to the Mayhem Festival and he got me a press pass to shoot photos of the concert at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, CA! I had a great time out there shooting many bands that I listen to myself. Though my focus was on taking pictures of them and not listening to them. There were a lot of photographers covering this event, so much where we had to go into the photo pit in groups of 10 on the main stage and only got one song when Slayer came on. One thing I was disappointed about was that no one was allowed to take pictures of Slipknot. They had their own photographers that were allowed to shoot them, everyone else had to put their camera away after Slayer was done playing. Other than that, it was an awesome show to shoot and watch! Thanks to Tom for making this happen!! Here are some of the shots I got:

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Re's Maternity Shoot 6/23/12

My good friend, Re, was pregnant with her 2nd child and had me shoot her maternity photos. This was actually my first maternity shoot! We decided to go shoot in a field that have shot a few times before in Morgan Hill. She brought her son out there with her to include him in some of the pictures. We had a great time during the shoot and had some good laughs. Check out some of the shots below!

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Set up shot:

Jace - 6 months 6/19/12

My friend and fellow guitarist, Ryan, had his wife had their first child and asked me to take his 6 months pictures. Jace is such a ham! He did a great job in front of the camera and wasn't fussy or anything. He gave me big smiles and some good poses. When taking pictures of infants, it's best to keep the flash at minimal power because of their sensitive eyes. I shot this one by pointing a flash at the white wall behind me and shot at f/1.8 to allow a lot of ambient light in to make it look natural. Here is a couple shots from the shoot:

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