Saturday, January 28, 2012

Baby Clark {sonoma county maternity photographer, maternity photos, maternity photos with other children}

Melinda's Mom Kathy is awesome! She is a scrapbooker. If you knew me "back in the day" you know that I was ALL ABOUT scrapbooking! It's really what got me into photography. I started taking photos so I had something to tell a story with in a scrapbook. Melinda's Mom is awesome at it! and I love it because I know that all of her Grand kids (that I photograph) will all get a really great amazing use out of all the photos I've taken through the years and the ones I will take in the future! Kathy e mailed me the other day with a request... Will you take photos of Melinda's belly with a bow, with some blocks and with the kids .... I think that list is a mixture of the e mail I got from Kathy and Melinda's ideas but whatever you get the point! Regardless, I was on a mission this evening! I had a checklist! and then I got the great idea to go pinterest hunting and find a few other cute ideas to add to the list! Pair my checklist of creative ideas with the most amazing weather we've ever seen in JANUARY!!!! and WOW you have an amazing shoot!!
In addition to these I also took some super cute photos of just the kids but I didn't have time to pull those out as well so more of those photos to come...

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Wednesday, January 11, 2012

The Best of 2011 Photo Contest {Sonoma County Photographer, Sonoma County Wedding Photographer}

I went back and forth on wanting to do a "Year in Review" and just put up a slide show of my favorite images from the year or if I wanted to do another "Best of" photo contest. I ended up going with a contest. I love to give things away and for those that know me best I LOVE a little friendly competition and even more than that I love when I get to help bring out the competitive nature in others! So I pulled out all my favorite images from the year, trying to include at least one for every session or event. Then I took a look at what I had and created categories that would best split up the images as evenly as I could. I ended up with 8 categories: Kids, Family, Candid Wedding Photos, Romantic Wedding Photos, Bridal, engagement, Bridal Party, and Other. I really didn't like the name "other" but I didn't have another name for it... there was photos from a birth, a senior session, maternity shoot, fashion, and a personal set of photos I took of my Hero as everyone took turns shaving her head after her 2nd chemo treatment... so other was really the only word to sum up that category =) I posted the photos on Facebook and let everyone spread the word and begin their voting process. The contest ended today and I thought I'd post the winners here on my blog!
I really want to say thank you to everyone who participated and really rallied around the contest. I had a lot of fun and I hope you all did as well! It seemed like you did! The photo that had the highest overall votes had 89 votes! 2nd highest was just behind that with 81 and 3rd highest had 72!
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Thursday, January 5, 2012

Nikki and Joe's amazing Carmel Wedding {sonoma county wedding photographer, mision ranch wedding photos}

If you didn't read the post just before this one, you should! =) This is the second part to that post!

Here are the rest of the images from Nikki and Joe's AMAZING wedding that I second shot with Jihan Cerda.

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Hello cutie patootie! Hey adorable kid in the vest, how about in 25 years when I let my adorable daughter start thinking about dating you have your people call her people??? You'd be a dangerously good looking couple!
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I love the shot of Joe on the right. He was just staring into the very long church looking at what was soon to be the best moment of his life. I walked outside and around the corner was my first vision of Nikki looking drop dead gorgeous in her beautiful dress and veil! (Jihan had been photographing her all morning and I was with the guys so I had only seen the dress on the hanger and Nikki but not the two together) I honestly was taken back by how gorgeous she was! She oh so casually asked if I'd take a picture of her waiting to go in the church with her Maid of Honor... I might have looked like Jihan's dopey assistant cuz I was in shock at how gorgeous she looked that I stumbled for a second..."umm uh ya ya of course, say cheese (you crazy idiot Wedding Day Barbie doesn't say cheese!-idiot!)
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I'm serious someone needs to call up Matel and tell them to look no further the new Modern Wedding Day Barbie Inspiration has arrived!
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the one on the right is my very favorite!
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At the Mission Ranch in Carmel there is a place for dinner and a separate place for drinks and dancing with a gorgeous patio and open field. So after dinner all of the guests headed back into the room for dancing and drinks. As they entered they were greated with halloween buckets of candy and fun toys for the kids and candy apples for the big kids ;)... yes please, I'll take one for me, one for Jihan, and one for her Mom please! I love how she incorporated the time of year (it was 3 days before Halloween) with out turning her entire wedding into a Halloween themed wedding. And I especially love how they included the kids in such a special way and at just the right time. Kids get so restless late at night. It was just what they needed, they were entertained the rest of the night with those buckets!
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and oh yeah how can I forget, my personal favorite THE ESPRESSO GUY!!!!! They had a guy come in with his espresso cart armed with a custom menu packed with cheesy lovey dovey names for each of the drinks just for this special occassion! and if you know me you know that the key to my heart is GOOD COFFEE! Jihan learned that quickly because on our drive out to Carmel I was frantically searching on my Starbucks ap for the nearest Starbucks like a 7 year old who is trying to get a glimpse of Justin Beiber at a concert! It's crazy and desperate, not pretty!
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....I heart you coffee guy and your wonderful cart of goodness!!!!!

and I had to throw these shots in here. Mainly because I just love the feeling it represents. This reception was full of dancing, laughter, and high energy! Weddings are so hard to plan, there are so many little details and what not. I feel like sometimes people spend so much time on the small details themselves but forgetting what all the little details are suppose to add up to. It's this...
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.... great moments with your closest friends and family. Where you can't help but put your arm around each other and sing like crazy fools! That's what it's all about, your love for each other and sharing that love with your friends and family!

A special thanks to Jihan Cerda for letting me tag along and capture some amazing shots along side her. It was such a wonderful break from my crazy wedding schedule last year. I have so much fun shooting with her! I am looking forward to us shooting for each other a little bit next year! I can only imagine the adventures the two of us will get into in 2012!! Check out her blog post on this wedding here she got some amazing amazing shots as well!

Boys just want to have fun! {sonoma county wedding photographer, carmel mission ranch wedding photos}

It's almost a give in, most Grooms and especially their Groomsmen dread the part of the day where they have to have their pictures taken. It is my mission to try and change that! Your wedding day should be over the top AMAZING. Not just for the Bride but for the Groom as well. Photos are a HUGE part of the day so when a Groom has to dread a portion of the day that's just not good! Well these guys made it really easy for me! They laughed at my rediculous jokes and self mockery and they really just had no problems being themselves while I was around. I can't say how much I appreciate that. It made for a really fun time photographing them!

Nikki, I have to say though, I am sorry, you probably got way more funny photos of the guys than you ever wanted! Some of these I'm posting simply because they make me literally laugh out loud! You two are going to have a lifetime full of giant smiles and tons of laughter!

This wedding was at the Carmel Mission Ranch in Carmel, CA.... que ahhhhs and oooohs! I know, Carmel? GORGEOUS!! and Nikki should really get an award for her wedding planning skills, this was a swoon worthy wedding FOR SURE!! There were so many amazing shots that I am going to split this into two posts. The first one is of the guys and a few of the details and then the second post will be of the rest.

I shot over 25 weddings last year, 21 of which were mine and I was fortunate enough to 2nd shoot 4 weddings this year with Jihan Cerda Photography. 2nd shooting for me is a great way to get a chance to photograph with out the stress of being the "main" photographer. To assist another amazing photographer, watch them in action, watch their workflow on the big day, and to really try and see things from a different perspective. I am so lucky that Jihan of Jihan Cerda Photography brought me along to second shoot for this wedding! Nikki is a close friend of her sister's so Jihan's family was all there. It was so much fun to watch them all together! Her parents are as adorable as you'd imagine they would have to be to have such a gorgeous daughter! and her Mother doesn't leave her seat with out her little point and shoot camera, capturing all the little moments! I wonder where Jihan get's it from....???

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LOL this one makes me laugh! The were reinacting the sculpture behind them!
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This one cracks me up too! I turned to this one as I was culling through them all and laughed so hard! LOVE it! ... boys will always be boys, even on their wedding day!
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