This time I went down to photograph some new silverware, and add some new lounge furniture Julio also had some seasonal items he wanted to be included in the website. What he had set up was perfect for a Christmas themed wedding, or a high class get-together. Either way, If you happen to be getting married in December, which I think would be just magical, A Christmas themed wedding would be super.

Check out the images from the set-up.

Jen O’Sullivan will often put on a charity fundraiser photoshoot for a great cause. I always love donating my time for this. It gives me a chance to get some face-time with people I wouldn’t normally get a chance to meet, and it gives me a way to give to charity that I can truly enjoy. This time was in the beautiful Central Park of Santa Clarita.

Tim and Tara met in High-school and have been dating ever since then! Tara is a media planner for a very prominent media agency in Santa Monica, and Tim develops aircraft parts in Valencia. They’ll be tying the knot next May.

May God bless you in your marriage Tim and Tara!

I know Paul through a networking group to which belong called LeTip. He is an outstanding realtor, and I’m consistently impressed with his honesty, work ethic, and commitment to his clients. When Sarah and I are in the market for a new home, I have no doubt in my mind that I will be hiring Paul to get us into the best house possible.

Video production is a new venture for me.  I’ve been educating myself on all the ins and outs of it. My friend Matt and I decided to work on a few projects together. One of them being promotional videos for small businesses and entrepreneurs. What better way to promote a business than with a professionally produced video?

Matt and I had a ton of fun making this, and we’re looking forward to our next production.  Stay tuned, there are a lot of great things coming up.

When I met Steve and Rachel, I knew that Union Station would be the perfect location for our Engagement Session. They both collect vintage luggage. Steve’s Wedding present from Rachel is in fact the luggage in the images you see below. I don’t often get an engagement session where props are brought along, but I really enjoyed this. Not only did they bring the luggage, but Rachel’s florist made her a bouquet to match her dress, and Steve brought his classic Mercedes convertible as a prop. He called up a couple days before and said “Hey, what if I bring my classic Mercedes as a prop?” I was floored. I started picturing right then the shot you see above. I knew I had to get an amazing shot with the Benz. These are clients that truly appreciate what I do, and I’m enjoying every minute of it.

All in all we had a great evening. Sarah met us at Kings for some dinner after the shoot and they introduced us to some amazing champagne(sparkling wine?) called Sophia. I would highly recommend it to any champagne aficionado.

So here are my favorite images from the evening. Thanks Steve & Rachel for a wonderful evening!

I had this wedding planned for a couple weeks. I assisted/shot second for Kelly Segré of Ventura. It was a very relaxing wedding, and the couple was a lot of fun. The venue, Fess Parker’s Double Tree was absolutely gorgeous. Right next to the ocean in Santa Barbara, and within walking distance of the pier. I’d really suggest checking it out for a your wedding venue. The staff is also top notch, very professional, personable, and on top of everything.

Anyway, the timing couldn’t have been better. Doug came out on Friday, we all spent the evening talking, hanging out, drinking mudslides, having my famous grilled chicken with a family recipe sauce, until early in the morning. Doug had some friends he wanted to visit on Saturday, so it was perfect, I shot the wedding, he hung out with friends, and everyone was happy.

Enjoy!

I was shooting a couple engagement portrait sessions this last week for Jen O’Sullivan who puts on a charity fundraiser quite often. My first couple for the day was Ryan and Destiny. A super cute couple that have known each-other since they were ten.

Through our conversation, while we were shooting, it turns out that Ryan not only lived in Tucson, but he went to my rival High-School, and attended the same church I did. He graduated a several years after me, so I’d never met him… He moved out to Yucca Valley to attend a school that offers culinary arts. Destiny also goes to the same college. She’s going for animation. Her goal is to work for Pixar one day. I don’t blame her… I love Pixar. Their movies are among the best, and most creative.

It was a joy to shoot Ryan and Destiny’s engagement photos. Their love is so apparent. They only have about a month and a half until their wedding day.

One last thing that I think is super cool and special. They haven’t kissed each-other yet, and they’re waiting until their wedding day! How awesome is that? Their first kiss is going to be soooo special!

Ryan and Destiny,
May God bless you and keep you, may He cause His face to shine upon you, and give you peace.

I pray that you two have a blessed marriage!

We set up the Senior Portrait Experience at the Caltech campus in Pasadena. It’s a beautiful campus with a lot of different and great backdrops. The eucalyptus trees were in full aroma(how else could I phrase this?) and the atmosphere was relaxed and perfect for a portrait session. There weren’t too many people at Caltech since class was out, and not much was going on. Sunny was great and assisted me with supporting my lighting equipment.

We had a great time, and we got some great images… I hope you enjoy them.

The lighting was perfect, the location was nearly free of other people, and we got some great shots.For the most part, I was using an off-camera flash set-up to compliment the gorgeous lighting.

Stay tuned for Jesse’s photos…. We got some great ones of him too, and we’ll be going to the Venice Beach skate park for his Senior Portraits as well.

Enjoy:

Give me a call to set up your portrait session…. 818.439.5727

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Thanks to Jen O’Sullivan for putting this together, she organized, planned, and got everything in order. The engagement photoshoot was held at the Sunset Restaurant in Malibu, Which just happens to be the same restaurant that I took Sarah for our first date, and first anniversary(not wedding.) It’s a really great restaurant with an incredible view, and very, very delicious food. The plan was to have about 50 photographers, and 50 engaged couples that hadn’t yet chosen a photographer for their wedding yet. That way, everyone had the opportunity to work with 4-5 couples or photographers.

I was truly lucky to have 6 great couples to photograph. The hard part was this: I had only 15-20 minutes with each couple. That barely gives me any time… Most of my engagement sessions last between 2-3 hours, and we get dinner afterward to get to know each-other better. To top it off, as a rule, I know that the first 15 minutes don’t count when taking photos, It takes a little bit for my subjects to get used to the camera. In general, 15 minutes. So, as you can imagine, this put me in kind of a pressure-cooker of a situation. How am I supposed to make my couples look amazing without the warm-up time? And without the time that I usually take before the shoot to build up my rapport, and get to know my clients? To be honest, it felt a little dirty and quick. Get in/ get the shot/ get out. But you know what? it somehow worked! I got some incredible shots of my couples, and I think they’re going to love them.

Thanks Lisa and Trace, Amanda and Chad, Jen and Tim, Allison and Branden, Gabriela and Yariel, and of course Kim and Vincent! I had a ton of fun with you guys, and you all did such a great job with the portraits!

So, with no further ado(did I use that correctly?)… Here some of the photos:

And don’t forget to leave a comment!

Ginger Beef is one of my favorite dishes when going to a Thai restaurant. I love the taste: sweet, with a bit of a kick from a ton of ginger and garlic. It’s a veritable firecracker in your mouth. Not from the spice, but just the plethora of flavor inherent in the recipe.

Now, everyone knows that a good Thai dish has to have a nice cold Thai Iced Tea to go along with it, and how could I resist trying to make that too?

So I do what I always do when I’m looking for a new recipe: I google it! Now I generally look up a few recipes, and I do that for a few reasons. One is because not everyone thinks that a dish should taste the way I think it should. So I usually mix and match recipes to make sure that I get the right taste out of my endeavor. So I found a few recipes for both the Ginger Beef and the Thai Iced Tea, and I chose the ones that I though would turn out the best. Turns out, they were REALLY GOOD! I modified the beef recipe a tiny little bit. It’s a little sweet, and I’d suggest using maybe a 1/3 cup of sugar instead of a 1/2 cup. But to each his own.

Enjoy!

Ginger Beef:

Ingredients

• 1lb sirloin steak (sliced into thin strips)
• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sesame oil
• 1/4 cup chopped ginger
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 green onions, chopped
• 1 carrot, shredded
• 3 tablespoons Soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons cooking wine or apple juice(I used wine)
• 2 tablespoons rice or white vinegar(I used white)
• 1/2 cup sugar or Splenda®(I used sugar)
• 1/2 tablespoon cornstarch
• chili flakes to taste

Directions

1. Saute steak in canola and sesame oil with ginger and garlic. Barely brown both sides of the meat.
2. Add onions and carrot. Cook for 2 minutes.
3. Add sugar, stir constantly and allow to caramelize for a few seconds.
4. Combine Soy sauce, wine, vinegar, cornstarch and chili flakes. Add to stir-fry.
5. Bring mixture to a boil. Serve immediately. (with rice, or noodles. I used rice.)

Thai Iced Tea

Ingredients

• 6 cups water
• 1 cup Thai tea
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 6 tablespoons cream
• 6 tablespoons condensed milk

Directions

In a kettle, bring the water to a boil. Place the tea in a teapot or glass container. Pour the water over the tea and let steep until bright orange in color, 3 to 5 minutes. Strain into a clean container, such as a pitcher (or, if in tea bags, remove the bags). Add sugar and stir to dissolve. Let cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Fill 6 tall glasses with crushed ice and add tea to 3/4 full. Add 1 tablespoon cream and 1 tablespoon condensed milk to each glass.

Serve with iced-tea spoon so guests can swirl the mixture themselves. I suggest providing straws with which to serve this drink.

Edit: After making it a few times, I like it better without the condensed milk….

Eli is my little cousin Gillian’s brand new baby. Born on the Ides of March, at almost 10 pounds. He’s huge. Which isn’t surprising to me; his dad, Ricky, is over 6 feet tall. The other reason that I knew Eli was going to be large was because EVERY time that Gillian had anything removed from her medically; Teeth, Tonsils, etc….  The doctors looked at her and said, “Those are the biggest (fill in the blank)s I’ve ever removed.” So you can imagine the anxiety of giving birth to a baby that, in all likelihood, would follow suit.

Either way, Eli is now here, and a party of our big, happy, weird family. And seriously the cutest newborn that I’ve ever seen. Gillian brought him over for his 1 month portraits, and they turned out great. Check them out below:

Don’t forget to leave a comment!

I’ve been craving Orange Chicken for a while now, and so I decided to make it. This recipe takes about 30 minutes of prep, a couple hours to marinate, and then a little bit longer to cook. So it’s a 3 or 4 hour long process. Not a problem, if the food turns out well. But in my case,  and I’m not a bad cook, it turned out just o.k, or mediocre… Which after slaving away and waiting patiently for 3 hours, is NOT o.k.! So I’m not gonna give you the recipe that I got. But if you really want to know, I’ll send you the link… Just PLEASE don’t make it. I even made everything from fresh ingredients, even home-grown oranges…. Sarah bought the chicken at costco though. It just turned out kind of bad, and the sauce clumped together too much.

The problem started here: Whenever I make a new meal, I look up the recipe online. I’ll look at 4 or 5 recipes, and take a little from each that I know will go well together, and work it that way… This time, I was a little pressed for time, and I only looked at one recipe… BIG mistake!

“So what’s this doing on my blog?”  You might ask??? Well, I planned on blogging about this, and when it turned out poorly, I was really bummed. I expressed my disappointment on my Facebook page, and was told by multiple people that they still wanted to see the images…

So here goes! I hope to have a better dish to share next time around… enjoy!

Don’t forget to comment, and sign up for weekly blog updates!

Meet Jessica. She is the daughter of Donna Deutchman, CEO of Habitat for Humanity. She’s a High School Senior, and I will be shooting her senior portraits in the coming week. During the annual Builder’s Ball, which was located in the Universal City Marriott, Donna wanted a few photos of Jessica, and Jesse(Jessica’s boyfriend) by the cars. There were a few nice cars there. One was an original ’65 Shelby Cobra, and a Stingray Corvette. But they wanted photos by the RED one. Along with all the other photos I was taking during the event, I was able to capture some great portraits of Jessica and Jesse. I think I outdid what Donna was expecting, And they absolutely loved the images.

Here are my favorites:

Travis Williams is a Tucson based senior portrait artist, and a friend of mine. I drove out to Tucson to help out with my parents because my dad was coming home from the hospital with a fractured pelvis. I called up Travis to see if he had any photo-shoots that I could help out with. He had a senior session, and asked if I could assist for him. That was the Perfect opportunity to learn first hand what established senior portrait artists were doing. I learned a ton, and I’m looking forward to implementing what I learned during that time. We held the shoot in Downtown Tucson in a parking garage, and it provided an awesome urban backdrop.

I was able to get some shots in, and had a great time…. Here are some of the shots:

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I know this sounds ridiculous, but it’s true! I’ve talked to a few seniors about this, and they had no idea that the studio session, with the boring, 1 pose, shot wasn’t what the rest of the country did. When I talked to them about doing senior portraits they weren’t interested. I though to myself, what’s wrong with them? They don’t want photos that they’ll actually like? Photos that they’ll enjoy taking, and not feel uncomfortable with all the big photography gear and the studio Where they’re just a number, and they have to pay $30 for a portrait that they won’t love? I didn’t get it. But upon further review, I found out that the senior portraits that I was used to weren’t at all part of the market out here in L.A.!

So I have started a very tough endeavor. I need to educate L.A.’s seniors(and Juniors) about the REAL senior portraits. So I started off with Jeth. She’s my friend’s little sister, and has 15 weeks of school left before she graduates. We went to Orcutt Ranch for the Senior Photos, and brought along her friend Flo, who is also graduating shortly. We had a great time, and spent about an hour and a half taking photos. Jeth and Flo were awesome, and the session went flawlessly. Check out the photos below, and leave some love in the comments section.

Enjoy!

This weekend was no exception, Sarah and I flew up to Arlington Heights(Chicago Area), Illinois, along with Sarah’s mom, to visit Ryan, Jenny(Sarah’s Sister), and Tanner(Our nephew). We were supposed to go to Chicago a month ago for Tanner’s 2nd birthday, but a ton of stuff got in the way, and we had to postpone our flight to this last weekend. Well, wouldn’t you know it, Chicago decided to get to 20˚F and snow 12 inches the very day that we were supposed to go. I always have a can-do attitude, so I said to the family, “let’s go anyway.” My reasoning was that if our flight was cancelled, we would be stuck in our layover city(Phoenix) and my mom could pick us up and drop us off the next day. Well, we somehow got all the way to Chicago with no problems at all. and were able to spend the whole weekend there with no delays or problems!

Tanner is one of my favorite subjects to photograph. I know, I’m probably a little biased, but I just think he’s the cutest thing ever. He recently started talking A LOT… and he LOVES Elmo and chocolate. He’s always asking for chocolate(shoclate) milk.

So here are the photos from this last weekend. There were so many  great photos that I had to narrow it down to my favorites.

I’ve talked to a lot of photographers, and no matter how great a photographer, or person they are, there always seems to be one problem: getting and maintaining traffic to their website. Now I know that anyone can go the easy way, and buy advertising through google, but what if there was a way that you could do this all yourself, without having to buy ads with a low ROI(return on investment), or pay someone a ton of money to maybe get you traffic. There are a few simple steps that will drastically improve your Search Engine Ranking that I’ll be highlighting over the next few days.

Here’s what I’ll be talking about.

• Part 1: SEO – Why your web traffic sucks(The Bad News)
• Part 2: SEO – 5 simple steps to improve search engine ranking(The Good News)
• Part 3: WordPress
• Part 4: Noah Photo Blogsites
• Part 5: Social Media and Networking.(How twitter and facebook can change your life)

I’m gonna make a few guesses here. 1: You have a website, but can’t seem to get people to stay very long if you can even get them to come at all. 2: You have a flash based website that looks beautiful, has large images, but kind of looks like everyone else’s website. 3: You have a free blog hosted by Blogger or WordPress. 4: You’ve heard of SEO, but think you need to pay someone $99 a month to “get you to the front page”

Well if even one of these guesses fit you, I hope you get a lot out of what I’m about to tell you.

Here are the basics of SEO. Google, Yahoo, Bing, along with a few other search engines take text from your website and run it through a few different highly complex algorithms and basically assess the quality of your site, and the relevance to searches made on their websites. If you are a wedding photographer in Los Angeles for example, you would want your bride to go to a place like yahoo and type in “Wedding Photography in Los Angeles,” and hopefully, if you play your cards right, you’ll show up on the first page. Last time I checked there were thousands of photographers in L.A. so the likelihood of front page results is slim to none, especially if you know nothing about SEO… I want to steer you in the RIGHT direction, but first we need to make sure you aren’t making some of the most common errors. So here is a list of things that you are likely doing wrong for your SEO.

1:You have no readable text on your website: It’s lost inside the flash file, or some random xml file. To further the problem, spiders(the bots that search engines employ to scrape the web for information) don’t read flash, they only read text. So if all you have on your site is flash, you won’t be getting very far.

This is what the spiders read when they go to a beautiful flash site:

This site requires flash.
Please visit HERE to download the flash player.

2: The quality of the actual text in your site is no good: If you want people to find your site by searching “wedding photographer in Los Angeles” you don’t actually have any sentences that say specifically that. You might only have the word Los Angeles written on your website only once. Another problem is that you have plenty of images, but you don’t describe them. With SEO a picture is NOT worth a thousand words. No-one is going to find your website by searching Google Images for “contrasty black and white image with plenty of film grain.”

3: You are using a free blog: Now this seems like it would be great for SEO, but in all actuality, the only people that your “blogger” blog is benefiting are the people hosting your blog for you. This MIGHT increase web traffic, but all this is doing is bringing people to blogspot.com or wordpress.com. Not only that, but you are extremely limited as to what you can do with your account. Yes, you can spend $15 a year to edit the CSS, but what does that really get you? Do you know anything about CSS? (FYI: You can host wordpress on your already existing website for absolutely nothing.)

4: You are using old and antiquated SEO “tricks”, like Keywords, or Link Farms. STOP DOING THAT! Link farms will only hurt you. Search engines have caught onto this a LONG time ago. They’ve also gotten rid of any value for your Keywords, so don’t waste your time adding 500 keywords to your Meta tags… Also don’t repeat the keywords that you want too many times. for example, don’t have a footer that says “Los Angeles Wedding Photographer” 5 times in a row. Spiders can tell that you are trying to trick them, and they will penalize you.

5: You are using INVISIBLE text: Yes, you will see this all over the place, especially with flash websites. You make the font color the same as the background so that you can have a nice clean design, without people seeing that you are over-using your keywords…. This might seem like a good idea, but it will hurt you, and the search engines will penalize you.

6: Your URL is ugly: Does your URL look like http://www.yourname.com/&page=?243&category=?345&post=?24563? Not only does your traffic think it’s ugly, but so do the spiders. If you have a website made with PHP, this will more than likely happen, and it’s not good. WordPress can be an exception though with it’s permalink structures.

7: You have spammed your URL: You sent a link out to all of your friends, and people in your network asking them to post the link on their site. Problem is, you sent the same text to everyone. The spiders don’t like this. They notice the trend that links to your site seem to have the same exact text surrounding the link. They then flag your site as a spam site. Along these lines, you don’t want to have more than 100 links on any given page. you don’t want to look like a link farm. Even if they are no-follow links, they can harm you. have a few high quality links to sites that you would put your name behind, like Camera Dojo, or Pictage. And the last part of this still fits this last point…. You need to make sure that the links on your site actually work. sites with bad links are also penalizes as a not high quality site.

So that’s it for today. Click the link below for what you can actually do to help your website grow traffic…. The GOOD news.

Part 2: SEO – 5 simple steps to improve search engine ranking(The Good News)

I met Ava’s mom Victoria through a friend of mine. That’s how i do most of my work after all, through referrals. But Ava had never been to the beach before, even though they live less than 20 miles away. Victoria wanted to take Ava to the beach and get some great portraits while there. We went in the late summer and I’m just now getting around to posting this. Since the shoot, Victoria purchased a couple Canvas Gallery Wrapped wall portraits.

Here are the photos we got: