Mon - February 19, 2007

Tue - February 13, 2007

It's all Greek to me!

Since I will be traveling to Santorini, Greece later this year for Cortnie & Andrew's wedding, I decided it would be a great time to knock off something on
MY LIST OF THINGS TO DO , namely, #34--learn a foreign language and travel to the country where it is spoken!

I know there's no way I can really learn to speak Greek before I go, but it sure would be nice to get a bit of a handle on the language and be able to make some conversation with the locals! What I am looking for is any recommendations of good audio tapes/dvd's, etc that might be able to help me. If you know of a good one, leave it in the comments for me!

Santorini, here I come!

Posted at 12:38 PM     Read More  

Sat - February 10, 2007

An Xtremely Awesome Week!

This past week in which I haven't blogged was one of the busiest, craziest, most fun weeks ever! Liana and I went down to Cabo to give our Xtreme Retreat Seminar to a group of awesome photographers. We stayed and held the seminar in an insane villa overlooking the ocean and had a blast with everyone the whole time. Liana's mom, Cynthia and sister, Laurel were such troopers, making all the meals for our group (not an easy task), and they ran the kitchen like a catering team that had been in business for years. The Casa couldn't have been more perfect for the seminar, and we sat in a big circle with each track throughout the week hearing the ocean just outside the doors. We had fantastic models, Steven & Kristen Florin from Hawaii, and the ever-photogenic Jasmine & JD from right here in California. They were also tireless making sure that everyone in the seminar got really killer shots. I think everyone that came had an awesome time! Another cool thing was that Becker came down for some R&R also, and he ran our nightly poker tournaments! Kristen (who claimed she'd never played before) won the first two nights, but I did catch a lucky win on the river in the last hand of the last night bringing home the bacon. I'm so ready for Vegas in a few weeks!

In any case, I'm sure you all want to see some photos from the week.

My shots of Jasmine & JD:

















My shots of Steven & Kristen:







They're really really good looking:









This is Lola. She works for my friend Tara Null, Cabo Wedding Coordinator Extraordinaire! Lola was a dream to work with, and she's not a real bride yet--she's just getting some practice!



The sunset from our Casa:



Kristen & Steven, Liana, Becker, Me, Jasmine & JD:



One of the days, we had most of the participants out shooting on the beach--I love this shot of the group:



Liana and I managed to shoot a bunch of bio photos of some of the attendees as well! I think they are hot! Here's the ones I shot (plus one of Liana, since I needed an even 15 for this grid):



From top left: Kelly Hike, Pepe Lima, Joe Wang, Deb Franklin, Ashley Bartoletti, Misha Waite, Dawn Shields, Abby Liga, Emily DeWan, Drew Bittel, Jon, Coz Swifka, Lisa Carter, Mary Basnight, Kelly & Rylee, Liana, Erica Griffin, Steve Flanagan

Thanks so so much to everyone who came and helped out, I can't tell you how appreciated you are!

Posted at 06:58 AM     Read More  

Sat - February 3, 2007

Brian's Senior Pictures

Today I headed down to shoot senior photos for Brian, who could be the next big thing in the photography world! Brian was visiting a close friend of the family down in San Diego to check out some art & design schools, which made this a great time to snag a few photos of him. Here's a couple of my favorites from today:











Brian was absolutely awesome to work with and one other little bonus--he's one of 8 children! Hopefully I will be shooting all of their senior photos in coming years as well.

Talking to Brian, I couldn't help but remember my own senior year at Cary High School in North Carolina--that was such a good year! I couldn't find one of my senior pictures ( I guess I gave out all those little wallets we ordered), but I did find this photo from my cheerleading days. I was probably about 15 in this one (sorry for the bad scan!):



haha!

Posted at 12:12 AM     Read More  

Fri - February 2, 2007

New Art Site Help!

I'm working on the new site to showcases my art photos which I will be selling and I could use some help deciding on the look of the front page. I need to know what you think! Leave a comment below with your thoughts on the style you like best:

#1:



#2:



#3:



#4:

Posted at 12:39 PM     Read More  

Thu - February 1, 2007

The Great Blog Crash of 2007

I'm finally back! You might be wondering what in this world could possibly cause my blog to disappear into the black hole of the internet. This blog got so many hits that it maxed out its bandwidth for the month. The place where my blog lives, on my .Mac site doesn't allow me to increase the bandwidth any more and only replaces maxed out sites on the 1st and 16th of the month, so since my blog went down on the 26th, that's a good solid depressing week with no blogging. I'll tell you, it's been awful! I seriously cannot believe that a hip company like Apple wouldn't offer a pro blogger package for people that need a lot of bandwidth, especially since it is so cheap these days. Bah humbug!

You can see the WHOLE OLD BLOG HERE

There is some good news though: this crash has prompted me to start the wheels turning for a brand new blog! BOOKMARK THE NEW SITE NOW, WWW.JESSICACLAIRE.NET

Here's a little sneak peek of what's to come:



So anyway, there are lots of good things coming! A new blog and site, a new site for girls only, fine art prints from my travels, as well as juicy news and tidbits of good gossip. If you're interested in being notified about this stuff, just SHOOT A QUICK EMAIL to info@jcsphoto.com ! You don't even need to write me a note if you don't want, it's just to give me your email address so I know you're interested. I promise I won't spam you too much :). When the new blog goes live, the mailing list will be the first to know so get on the list so you don't get lost in the shuffle of moving!

**I'm going to leave this post pinned to the top of the blog for now, but I will continue to add new posts right up until the new blog launches right underneath this.**

Posted at 12:34 AM     Read More