April 29, 2008

The Fire Knife

Meet Talani the fire knife dancer from the Island of Samoa, and Island Inspirations. He came to perform his native ceremonial dance as part of my Dancers in Motion series. Here's a few teasers from our photo shoot (done in my backyard!)

Kids do not try this at home!






Tags: Polynesian Dancer, Samoa Fire Knife, Hawaiian, cultural portraiture, strobist, artistic photography

April 27, 2008

e-session All Over the Place

So I met up with Monica and Tony for their engagement photo session. I've been totally excited about this because they are such an awesome couple and they wanted multiple locations for their e-session. We began in New York City:




Then we traveled all the way to an old mining town in Hot Springs, South Dakota. We found one of the historic trains that passed through this ghost town over a hundred years ago...



And we even ended up doing a quick photo shoot in one of the old missionary towns in Mexico, called San Miguel. Every building had so much character. I love traveling!



HAHAHA ok so we didn't really travel all over the place. I'm such a big fat liar. We snuck around in the back lots of Universal Studio where we ended up using the set from War of the Worlds. I'll add a few more images later so stay tuned. Fun times!

Tags: Monica and Tony's engagement photo shoot in the Universal Studios back lot, War of the Worlds set, New York, Mexico, trains, props, sets, romantic portraiture, artistic photography

April 25, 2008

e-session Historic Los Angeles

Linda and Kevin, like I do, enjoy historic buildings with distinct architecture. We wanted to visit as many old structures in the Downtown Los Angeles as we could, but I knew that would have taken weeks exploring the old neighborhood. We did manage to get inside the majestic Million Dollar Theater, the Bradbury Building, and then Los Angeles City Hall. Here are just a tiny few of my favorite images from their Los Angeles engagement session:

I love that vintage dress!







Naturally I wanted to do most of these in grainy black and white, but I couldn't resist throwing in at least one brilliant color!

Tags: Kevin and Linda's engagement photo session in Downtown Los Angeles featuring pictures from the Million Dollar Theater, The Bradbury Building, and City Hall, Los Angeles wedding photography

April 12, 2008

"Impromptu"

As in last minute planning and wondering around for locations. Karey, John (her intern), and I set out to do an impromptu bridal photo shoot with one of my fabulous couples Corinna and Cris. The real purpose of this shoot was to practice some of the things we learned from the Anti-Workshop in Vegas. We ended up at one of my favorite places to shoot - Oldtown Pomona. As usual I had a blast exploring this area and found some new and different spots. Afterwards we ended up climbing a mountain just off the side of the freeway! Check out my favs:


Corinna and Cris are complete hams! They're fans of America's Next Top Model, so we teased them about that, and tried to get them competing against each other. And the pic below was so fun to do - the owner of the salon saw us shooting outside and invited us in to shoot inside! Awesome times.










I saw the colorful mustard fields dotting the mountains from the freeway so we looked for access - Corinna ended up climbing over a fence in her wedding dress and climbed up the hillside!






Tags: Shooting with Greg Bumatay, bridal photo session, romantic photography, Old Town Pomona, hills of Diamond Bar, artistic photographs

April 11, 2008

American Idol Rocks!

I can't believe I missed this last night (and forgot to record it)! It's amazing to me how this awesome Christian song "Shout to the Lord" made it to the one of the most widely watched network shows - American Idol!

Tags: Shout to the Lord on American Idol

April 10, 2008

I'm Always Learning

Back to playing around with Corel Painter X. This time I got a little guidance from Maura Dutra (her DVD tutorial is rad!). For some reason this image attracted me to paint it.
The 'before' picture is below in the previous post, sixth image down.

Belly Dance Disney Concert Hall

As if I didn't get enough of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, I had to go back for another photo shoot. This time it's with Belly Dancing duo Nancy and Margallet. I figured their dancing motion would look gorgeous against the spectacular architecture since the design of the entire building accentuated movement.

There were security cameras everywhere and I'm sure all the guys, err... security were watching the show.



And then the swords came out...

I'm guessing that's what made security a little nervous! They sent four different guards to talk to us before we were asked to leave.

This is one of the last shots I got before we were forced to leave the property...


Tags: Belly Dance at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, dancers in motion, cultural portraiture, artistic photography