Another Great Bar Mitzvah (In A Very Cool Temple)

This is the first time that I have photographed at Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills, CA. The Temple is surrounded by windows which lets in a fair bit of ambient light, but what really makes this place special is the colors behind the bihma.

They have many Torahs and each is covered in beautiful tapestry pieces with colors that just pop in camera.
As a photographer, there is nothing better than photographing a really nice kid (and J.B. was awesome) in this type of setting.

I was able to capture images from the service from the back of the Temple using a Canon 100-400mm L Series lens. The Canon 5D Mark II can grab these frames at ISO 2500 with almost no digital noise. I love that!

Tis The Season...For Family Pictures

Last year I took most of my family portraits at the park near my home, but decided that this year I would switch locations and use the winery up in the hills. It have proven to be a great place to capture photos. This is an image I captured last weekend of my friend Ken and his family.

My Friend The Peacock

I was killing some time up at my favorite nearby winery, waiting for some friends to arrive for their family pictures, and I came across one of the peacocks that lives in the area. Since I had my camera gear and some time to spare, I shot some images of my friend.

Engagement Pictures For My Niece

What do you say when your own relatives ask you if you can shoot their engagement pictures? I say, heck yeah! So Caitlin and Adam drove down from Sacramento and we took a couple of hours to shoot some images for them.

I had just returned from the Photo Plus show in New York and acquired the LensBaby. For those of you who are not familiar with this little contraption, it is a plastic lens that lets you selectively pick your focal point and then create directional blur in the remainder of the image. I felt that this would be a perfect time to try it out, and I really like the effect that it provided.

I also shot a lot of the images with standard lenses to give them the traditional photos to use in their invitations. Ahhhh...the innocence of young kids in love. :)

Portraits in New York

On my previous visit to NY about a month ago, I met up with Danielle, my cousin's daughter who lives in the city. She brought along her boyfriend, Scott. We were talking about photography and he told me that he wanted to do some modeling. So...a month later, on my next trip to the East coast, we went out to shoot some images in the meet packing district in Manhattan.

The cool thing about the meet packing district is that there is such a variety of scenery in which to shoot. The first shot was taken next to an office building. We really liked the reflection off of the wall. And then we took a walk (after being held up by the President's motorcade) and came across these tables and chairs that were bathed in in direct sunlight from an opening in above. I like the way that the hair light draws the attention to Scott's face.

This last shot is my favorite. Why? Because I like the harsh contrast of the shadows and highlights. For this image, I put the camera into manual mode and spot metered off of the brightest spot on his face. I also underexposed the image by half a stop to accentuate the shadows. All of these images were shot with the Canon 5D Mark II, 24-105 L Series lens and Lexar 16GB 600 Compact Flash card.

A New Spot (for me) in New York

I have been to New York so many times that I can not count, but in all those trips I have never been to Lincoln Center. I was lucky enough to make the trip uptown just in time to catch my favorite blue skies just after sunset.

Once again, I encountered the "no tripod" rule. I am always dumbfounded by this restriction. It is so frustrating to have everyone around you shooting pictures (the wrong way) and yet I can not set up a tripod and get the photo taken the right way. The police came up to me and told me that I could not shoot images on a tripod, with basically no explanation as to why. I had already captured most of what I wanted (and then captured a couple of more with the fish eye lens before I packed up).

I will have to visit here again on my next trip and hope that the fountain is turned on for the next photo shoot.

Two more firsts (Shooting at "The Opera House" AND posting this from 38,000 feet)

First of all - I need to tell you all that this is the first time that I have experienced WiFi while flying across the country. I am heading to NY on United Airlines right now and loving the fact that I can access the Internet and update my blog at 38,000 feet. Way too cool!

Now...back to this weekend. I was lucky to be part of another great Bar Mitzvah. Jeremy did a great job throughout the service and showed that he is one cool guy, impressing his parents and everyone else who was there.

This is a fun shot of Jeremy, his sister and cousins. What do you do when one of the cousins complains that she is always feeling short, you have her climb up on the ledge and tower above the others. :)
The party was at "The Opera House" in Los Gatos, CA. There were two things which made it special for me to photograph here, they have a second floor balcony that runs the perimeter of the room so that I could shoot overhead shots. And, the family decorated the place with tons of balloons which made for some cool shots looking up.

I always like trying something new and different when I shoot the reception. This time, I set the flash on rear curtain mode and dragged the shutter to get some cool motion shots of Jeremy. I like the way that the colored lights highlight him in action.

An American Indian Wedding

Another first for me - this time a chance to photograph a wedding of two native American Indians at City Beach in Fremont. The wedding itself was fairly traditional with some really unique twists.

I met Crystal and Marcos earlier in the year and was excited to share this day with them. I photographed their engagement pictures in their native costumes (featured in an earlier blog), but remembered them telling me that they were going to wear traditional outfits for the wedding. I was very excited yesterday when I showed up and saw the native American themes incorporated in the men's tuxedos. I love the added colors!

The kids were too darned cute! I just can't help but shoot a lot of pictures of the kids. One of these days I am going to have to make a book of all my favorite kid shots.

During the reception, the family brought out a traditional tribal drum and their relatives played and chanted some amazing songs. During this time, all of the guests could come and greet the bride and groom.

Towards the end of the evening, I noticed that Crystal and Marcos' champagne glasses had the American Indian motif. I used the Canon 85mm 1.2 lens to grab this shot even though the lighting was very low.Captured light in the evening, I took the bride and groom back outside and captured this shot. I knew that the venue had these hanging lights, and I have been thinking about this shot for the last 6 months. I dragged the shutter (at an ISO of 2500) on the Canon 5D Mark II and hand held this. Even with the low light, I was able to capture this at 1/250 using the 85mm 1.2 lens wide open. This lens make the impossible possible!

A B'not Mitzvah and Party At "The Beach"

I have shot so many Bar Mitzvahs, Bat Mitzvahs, B'nai Mitzvahs but this was my first B'not Mitzvah (two girls). These twins were both great subjects and lots of fun to photograph. I shot this image with the Sigma fish eye lens getting close to the girls (but not so close that I would distort them) and aiming upwards.


This was also the first time that I had photographed at this Temple. Cool lighting to work with! I stood in the back with a Canon 100-400mm lens and a Canon 70-200 2.8 lens both mounted on Canon 5D Mark II bodies.

Then after the service it was time to have some fun. The family picked City Beach in Fremont, CA for their party. This was a great choice. The kids had a great time running around and playing all the games. They shot pool, played in the jump houses, had some ping pong tournaments and even did some rock climbing. This was fun to shoot, since it was not your typical dance reception.Who had more upper body strength, the kids climbing the rock walls or me running all over the building carrying the cameras and L series lenses? :) OK - the kids win.

The kids had a blast, but the parents didn't just sit around and watch. They jumped into the fun as well. I took this image with the Canon 85mm 1.2 lens wide open. This lens rocks for low light and creative shooting!

Did I mention that they had dodge ball games? Here is the father of the twins and he is getting competitive in the game. I think this the shot where he was aiming to take out his mother-in-law. He will pay for that later! :)

Towards the end of the evening, City Beach broke out the surfing machine. I had never seen this before. The kids had a great time trying to outlast each other on this thing and I had fun shooting images of this activity. If you look on the wall (to the right of the image) you will see that we projected some huge images from the service and the party. I swear the images were at least 20 feet high and crystal clear. Gotta love that!
This was one of my favorite shots form the evening. I was shooting images of the kids getting their food and thought that it would be cool to get a picture from behind the cook with the burners at the bottom of the frame. He said "oh - do you want real flames?" and I said "heck yeah!". So...he requested a glass of Bacardi 151 and voila. Note: No 13 year-olds were harmed in the photographing of these images. :)

Photography at Sophia's Bat Mitzvah Rehearsal

This is the first time that I have photographed at Congregation Etz Chayim in Palo Alto, CA. Not only did I have a great time shooting pictures of Sophia and her family, but the Temple had some great colors to work with.

Since this was a rehearsal and not the real service, I was allowed to move around and get real close. This was fun for a change! I was able to capture my "classic yad shot" without even setting it up.

Sophia loves her cruiser bike, so her dad and I planned to bring it to the rehearsal and get some pictures of her with her favorite thing.

They wanted an "action shot" so we waited for the end of the day and captured this about 30 min before sunset. Slow shutter speed and panning action really worked here.

We were having a good time capturing images and Sophia asked if we had enough light for a shot of her on the swing. So...off we went to the play area and got this last shot of the evening.

Mother and Daughter - It's All In The Eyes

And people wonder why I love photographing kids. Look at the innocence and emotion in these eyes! I was taking photos at my friend Michele's parents 35th anniversary party and took a little time with her daughter to grab this shot. The best way to photograph kids is to let them be themselves and just hang back with a long lens. She was playing with this little fountain (in the restaurant courtyard) and I waited for just the right moment to capture this photo.

And where does the little girl get those great eyes? From her mom of course. So we walked just outside the courtyard by a nice wall and I shot this photo of Michele. I used a 50mm 1.4 lens to make the most of the depth of field and focus only on her eye. I wanted to show Michele and just a hint of the light fixture in the background, but also hide the fact that we were in a parking lot!

Kayla's Bat Mitzvah

Another Saturday and another Bat Mitzvah to shoot. Talk about a photogenic family! I especially love this shot of them blowing out the candles. I took this with the Canon 5D Mark II pushing the ISO to 3200 and handheld this shot using only the candlelight to light their faces.

Here, Craig (the father) gets lifted in the chair celebrating his daughter's big day. As you can tell, he was having a great time and showed lots of emotion. This is why I love photography, being able to capture people's personalities in one shot.

And...speaking of characters and personality, this little girl was hysterical. Not only did she continue dancing until 11:30pm, but she did so with a big smile on her face the entire time.

Shooting the Indy Grand Prix in Sonoma

Yeah, I know that there was a race this weekend, but hey, we were in Napa Valley, CA, so you have to have some wine tasting mixed in with the photography!

It's Sonoma in August and the grapes were ready for the picking and the wineries were staffing up for the big harvest. We went to an amazing winery called HALL Rutherford and the VIP tasting room was incredible, with the wines as tasty as the surroundings.

Oh yeah...back to the Indy race. I was there with the Target Race Team and they really made it a special day. This is the third year that I have had track photo credentials and I decided to key in on Dario Franchitti. Was it because he was in pole position? Was it the fact that he is married to Ashley Judd? Was it those dreamy eyes (according to my wife and every other woman at the race)? Maybe all of the above.

All I know is, I wish I had that hair!

I really like this shot because of the reflection of the race car in his glasses. It might be a little hard to see at this size, but trust me, at 21 Megapixels this rocks!

I love the intensity of this shot. Dario is getting settled into his car before the race and there I am, standing with a 100-400mm lens, in front of his car waiting for this shot. I have shot Danica Patrick and Scott Dixon in the past, so it was time to capture Dario's preparation for the race.

Then at 2:50pm the checkered flag came out and they took off, screaming around the first turn. As it turned out Dario took the lead and never let it go. From start to finish, he led the race. Pretty impressive. Please note that I have shot the Target drivers twice now and both times that I keyed in on them before the race they have taken the checkered flag. Lucky charm? Maybe so!

Flying upside down in Sonoma!

As part of corporate event for Target, I had a chance to photograph some friends (and newly made friends) flying in vintage airplanes in Sonoma, CA yesterday. There were two biplanes and one P7 which made for a lot of fun rides.

Of course, I can't just shoot pictures from the ground. No way! So I made my way up in one of the biplanes, equipped with my Canon 5D Mark II and a Sigma fish eye lens (so that the pictures would include part of the plane). The hard part was raising the camera over the windshield and holding on to the darned thing. With the wind blowing at over a 100mph, this was not easy!

...and even harder to hold on when we were doing aerobatics. For the last couple of weeks, this was the shot that I envisioned.

Then it was time to try taking some shots from inside a closed canopy in the P7. I did not have high hopes for this one, but the images actually came out better than I expected.

Once again, flying inverted to get my shot. After doing this maneuver 4 or 5 times to get the shot, my stomach was saying "You got the shot! Really, you got the shot! Enough!"

And once in a while (but not very often) I will turn the camera and take a picture of me. I had to capture this one to prove that I really did this. :)

Albino alligator poses for me - Thanks!

I took this yesterday in San Francisco at the Academy of Sciences. This is a shot of their special albino alligator. After shooting some of the standard shots from up above the water, I decided to head downstairs where you can see under or above the water line. I got lucky! The alligator was perfectly positioned for me to capture him just above water with his reflection right at the tooth line. The lighting was pretty good too. I darkened the background by adding black to the image but that was about it for the editing. I did a Google search to see if others had captured any images like this (since thousands of people photograph this guy every week), but I couldn't find any view like this one. The photo doesn't really look real, but trust me, it is. A money shot in my book!
Here is a shot of the inside of the Academy of Sciences (showing the new architecture). They have done a great job with this space.

My daughter, Ali, found this cool shot. The walls of the aquarium were lit really well, with blue lights projected onto the contoured walls. Again, no editing, this was straight out of the camera. Good find Ali!