Tue - February 6, 2007

Wed - January 31, 2007

Sat - January 27, 2007

good morning....

and a very merry saturday to everyone!

me being the insomniac that i am was up at my usual 5:30 this morning....for those of you normal sleepers out there, that would be before sunrise. this morning's sunrise was exceptionally nice so i just had to take a pic....have a great weekend!

Posted at 10:53 AM    

being adults....sorta

last night we had the pleasure of actually going out to a real dinner on a friday night with our fab photo friends the lyons. i don't think we've actually been out for a friday night in....geez...i don't even think i can remember the last time! after a quick stop by the lab we all headed up to maggianos in south cost plaza for a gigantic coma inducing meal. after dinner we showed justin and amelia one of our favorite "top secret" photo spots in the area....which has these really cool uplights on at night! of course, us all being the big dorks that we are were lucky enough to have our trusty point and shoot camera on us to take some fun shots. after our nerd-fest justin and amelia took us on a tour of the new yo gabba gabba offices! if you don't know what yo gabba gabba is...you will soon enough, they just were signed with a big deal with nickolodeon! justin is the producer of these wickedly cool and hip kids television show that we are lucky enough to have the first two pilot episodes of....grace's loves it! for any of you readers with younger kids, keep an eye out for yo gabba gabba, it's going to be huge!



we kept trying to self timer a jumping shot of all of us (i did mention how nerdy we are right?) but we just couldn't nail it....instead we have about 10 shots of outtakes :)






the entrance to the uber-cool yo gabba offices...

Posted at 10:50 AM    

Fri - January 26, 2007

shannon + eric

tying the knot on august 18th, 2007.

our first engagement session of 2007 was a blast! eric and shannon came down to see us from san francisco for some wedding planning and their engagement session in our little neck of the woods. we took them down the road to carlsbad beach for some fun in the sun. we chose a staircase to shoot at and made a goal to shoot everything within 50 square yards of that spot...we always love a good challenge :)

a little side note to all of our wedding couples for next year out there....NOW is the time to schedule your engagement session! it's slow, the weather is nice, and we're feeling creative! drop us a line so we can get your session on the books....

here's a few...

Posted at 03:48 PM    

Wed - January 24, 2007

www.theblogisfound.com

it's a bird...it's a plane...it's our brand new, completely custom blog!

if all goes according to schedule we will be launching a totally new blog in the first few weeks of february....a completely new look for a new year! our new whiz bang blog will be decked out with flash header, randomly populating banners, bigger images, easier commenting and viewing, slicker navigation, cool and consistent design, etc, etc, etc. we're VERY excited about this new addition to our web presence! this past year our blog played such an important part in our business that it's only fair to have the blog look as cool as our other websites :) on the other hand we feel very sad that our trusty old blog is going to be retired....this blog has been a journal of just about everything in our life for the past two years. it will be like that rusty old car in the garage that you just can't junk...

Posted at 03:33 PM    

the brown wedding...here comes 2007!!!

january 6th, 2007 . tampa, florida

for our first wedding of the year, we made a trip across the great u. s. of a. to florida. it was a beautiful day in tampa and believe it or not it wasn't that humid! it was so great to start the year with a couple as awesome as tyson and julia and their families. their wedding took place in a small church in dade city with the reception following at a working farm...very cool! it is always so flattering for us when a couple likes our work enough (out of all the other amazing photographers out there) to fly us across the country to capture their wedding day! thanks guys!




so tyson has a lot of snakes...a lot of snakes...like over a dozen. it's very rare for me to see something i haven't seen at a guy's prep before but cleaning snake cages was a first! it's a good thing i had a snake as a pet when i was younger....jaclyn would have hid in the closet if she was there :)



a quick prayer before the ceremony...




a quite moment in the limo...


tyson's grandfather escorted them to the reception in a horse drawn carriage...it was quite fun hauling ass on foot trying to keep up with it!





we love weddings with slideshows!



and the grand exit...complete with real BIG sparklers, a stretched rolls and lots of friends and family to send tyson and julia off!




and of course....the rings! go gators!

Posted at 03:20 PM    

Fri - January 19, 2007

death valley

this past weekend we took a small trip to death valley for grace's first camping trip! she was a total trooper and we had a blast! last week we also added a new member to our family....a new land rover LR3 V8 SE. ever since we were married we have been a one car family but we finally ran into so many obstacles with just the audi that it was time to cave. so to fully initiate mr.rover into the fam we took a nice drive out to the rough trails of death valley for a little camping and off road adventure. to add to the fun death valley recorded it's lowest temperatures in over a decade! the nights got down to the very brisk mid twenties....add in some wind and we really went for the worst for our first family camping trip! surprisingly despite the weather we had a wonderful time! my best friend peter and his awesome wife elizabeth (who came bearing dozens of homemade cookies!) met us there and it was so great to see them both again. there were two downsides to the trip though....first off, fifteen minutes into our first trail my front tire blew and was ripped to shreds :( secondly...i still can't believe it....our beloved 14-2 chargers lost to the patriots in their first playoff game :( :( :(

we didn't take too many scenic shots because we were zooming around a lot but here's a few of our favorites....

if you've got a few minutes to spare, take a look at the DEATH VALLEY SLIDESHOW BY CLICKING HERE!




isn't grace just the cutest all bundled up! peter is a geologist so grace kept showing off showing him rocks :)



this was grace's face for the majority of the trip while we were driving on the "bumpity bumps"....that's off road for those of you that don't speak three year old.


bad news....








after an eight hour day of off roading grace was ready to call it a night :)


on our last day we took this awesome trail to a peak that was 6,700 feet above the valley floor...what a view! grace pretending to fly on the edge...


grace stole peter's camera for a few snaps of mom and dad...


then we took another trail up another 3,000 feet to find some small traces of snow. it's amazing that grace could play in a tiny little patch of snow for like a half hour!!!

Posted at 05:24 PM    

Wed - January 17, 2007

angel + erik . the bride and groom session

we worked with angel of events of love and splendor (check out her awesome new website!) at the amazing vanrhein wedding earlier this year and after eating dinner with her found out that she wasn't exceedingly pleased with her wedding photos....so....the image is found to the rescue! little did angel and her husband erik know when they signed up to get dressed up again we would take them to a location 3 hours from their home in LA, that was a brisk 40 degrees, raining, muddy, and extremely windy! what an experience that was! we were pleasantly surprised that angel could put most models to shame...she was tough as nails out in the freezing weather totally strutting her stuff for us. thanks for playing along guys...hopefully you have regained feeling in all of your fingers :)

Posted at 04:25 PM    

george + hannah

gettin hitched february 10th 2007.

ok, could george and hannah be any cuter?!!? these two are so fun together they were laughing the whole shoot! i decided to continue with my own personal challenge of "good shoots in weird places" that started with courtney and aaron's session at the arco. this location was even harder to pull anything out of than the last one. a big thanks to george and hannah for playing along with all my crazy ideas and for not asking for a full refund when we pulled up to see this....every girl's dream for where engagement photos would be taken...


after an hour and a half of fun and lots of me scratching my head...here's what we ended up with...

Posted at 04:04 PM    

Fri - January 12, 2007

the stripling family!

while we were out in the lovely state of florida we had the chance to stay with our good friend susan stripling and her family. they were gracious enough to put us up in their daughter emma's princess room, drag us around tallahassee, feed us, put up with us, let us play their nintendo Wii, introduced us to fried pickles, etc....so the least we could do was shoot some awesome portraits for her! for those of you that don't know susan, she is an AMAZING photographer in her own right so it was quite intimidating shooting her :) she took us to this really cool swampy beach place for the pics....man, florida beaches are a LOT different than the plain ol boring ones we have here in so cal! it was a crazy eerie day with a super thick fog bank covering the beach...it's a good thing we brought our umbrellas!

first up...susan and her equally cool husband mitch!


oh my gosh...the stripling girls are so stinking cute it's insane!!! they were both so sweet to us :)








this might blow susan's chances of ever being sponsored by canon...but she just had to find out how a real professional camera feels ;)

Posted at 12:24 PM    

the reed wedding...that's a wrap!

december 31st, 2006 . la valencia hotel la jolla

our very last wedding of the year took place on the very last possible day of 2006, new years eve! we couldn't think of a better way to spend the last day of an awesome year than with an awesome couple like vicki and tim. vicki and tim are both so full of life and genuinely kind hearted people that just made us (and everyone else) want to be around them all day! to top it all of our favorite uber-cool florist annette gomez was on hand to provide the stunning decor and florals :)



the ring bearer, auto getting some last minute adjustments to his tie.


vicki and tim really wanted to be sure to allow us enough time for their pictures so they decided to see each other before the ceremony. their first sight was very moving and we practically had them to pull away from each other so we could go shoot!


da shoes...on a dumpster :)




this has got to be one of my favorite shots i've ever taken!







a great moment of vicki looking at tim while her father was giving her away :)

the rings...


vicki's daughter is on a cheer squad (that vicki coaches...who also won the west coast division!) so there was no shortage of gitty thirteen year olds running around the wedding....here they are wishing tim and vicki all the best for the video.




vicki tore up the dance floor!

Posted at 11:39 AM    

Wed - January 10, 2007

grace's first camera

well it was bound to happen...the power of two photo-nerd genes have combined to produce a new breed of super photographer child....grace finally has her first camera! after a couple years of always stealing ours (and breaking one) and taking surprisingly amazing photos, we decided it was time for her to have her own photographic tool to work with.

jaclyn went to toys-r-us today and finally purchased the elusive fisher price "kid tough" digital camera...grace insisted on the princess pink one of course :)



here are her first 44 images...just click play...

Posted at 07:54 PM    

the schulnik wedding

december 16th, 2006 . la jolla museum of contemporary art

we're a little late getting this one up :) this wedding was way back in last year!

matt and kim we're married on a soggy, windy, grey day at the mary star of the sea catholic church in la jolla. the whole day was very relaxed and tons of fun! there was the constant threat of rain and a few intermittent showers kept us and everyone else on their toes :)

jaclyn arrived at kim's parent's house for her prep to find this adorable little dog waiting for her.




matt getting a little love from his father.


kim looking stunning heading for the church doors where her father was waiting.






the groomsmen....





since there was a constant threat of rain, and way too much "prettiness" in la jolla we headed for the shelter of parking garage where matt actually went to high school! matt and kim photographed SO well together we could have shot all day if we didn't get kicked out by an overzealous security guard.





we shot a ton of their portraits by nothing but the xenon headlights of our audi....it was quite a challenge dealing with the ultra harsh light and very low angle of our headlights! we had to shoot everything with matt and kim sitting or laying on the ground to match the height of the lights...thanks for being such good sports guys!



and of course....a few of us actually contorting ourselves to shoot the shots....the tricky part was keeping ourselves out of the way of the light source!




we got back to the museum just in time to grab a few shots in one of the installations!


and of course, the rings!

Posted at 01:19 PM    

the girls of everafter events!

a few weeks ago i had the privilege of shooting the fabulous girls from everafter events for their new website pics. it was quite an honor to be picked out of all the other great photographers here in san diego :) for any of your couples out there that are looking for a wedding coordinator...or even if you're not...you need to have one of these girls at your wedding! besides the fact that all of them are so sweet, fun, and easygoing...they are AMAZING at coordinating!!! from a photographer's standpoint, having a coordinator is SO important to your wedding day flowing smoothly. it's always so sad to see a couple stressing out about little things, working on last minute details, running way late and incurring overtime charges, etc. on their wedding day. your wedding day is a time to relax and have fun!

so look at these pics and then go go go call or email the girls of everafter!

from left to right....alesha, merilee, and jamie.

Posted at 12:53 PM    

Sun - January 7, 2007

wpja feature article

after our winning images in the last wedding photojournalist asosciation contest the powers at be decided to interview us for an upcoming article for their online wedpix magazine. we were interviewed for an article titled "what's in your gig bag." you can check out some of our cool quotes and opinions by reading the article here.

Posted at 06:50 AM    

Fri - January 5, 2007

welcome to florida

we're on the road again! we finally rolled into our hotel here in tampa at 2:30 AM local time this morning after a very long day of traveling and delays. we're here to shoot julia and tyson's wedding tomorrow and then head up to tallahassee to stay with and shoot family pictures for the fabulous susan stripling! we took a little drive up to dade city today to scope out our locations for a tomorrow and snapped a few pics along the way...

some of the locals....


a reflection of the trees on our car hood...


the site of a future church...

Posted at 02:33 PM    

Mon - January 1, 2007

h h h h h happy new year!!!

last night we got home late from an awesome wedding at the la valencia in la jolla...and that's a wrap....the 2006 season is finished! it's hard to believe we started this season shooting in hawaii last january and FIFTY weddings later finished up the year on the last day of the year. this year has been full of much joy and many changes for us. it's kinda hard to wrap our head around all of the exciting things we did, places we traveled to, things purchased, experienced, etc. over the course of 2006. for those of you that are regular followers of our blog you've witnessed first hand just how crazily busy we've been!

we're anxiously looking forward to an awesome 2007!!! we've got some fun and exciting things up our sleeve that we're planning on launching throughout the year:

- the "ultimate" and "jumbo" engagement sessions...

- a whole new the images is found blog...

- "the white session"...

- wedding websites for couples...

- a slew of new portrait products and packages...

- new wedding products and packages...

- a photographer's FAQ...

- workshops for photographers...

- etc, etc, etc...

along with all of that we'll still be shooting like crazy and continuing to push ourselves creatively. we've got lots of fun ideas running around in our little brains that are just aching to get out :) we're continuing to refine our back-end systems to boost efficiency and improve our turnaround time on images and products.

a look back at 2006 would not be complete without a big shout out and even bigger thank you to all of the truly amazing couples that allowed us to play such an important part on their wedding day! we feel so incredibly blessed to do what we do week in and week out....thank you everyone!!!

we'd also like to take a minute to thank our amazing families and friends whose love and support over this past year has been priceless to us both.

to all of the photographers out there that we've had the privilege of befriending this year, thank you for all of the good times, support, techno babble, shooting, inspiration etc.

and lastly, a big shout out to all of you loyal blog readers...especially the commenting ones :) it's nice to know that at least a few people out there enjoy looking at our imagery and reading all these poorly written words!

here is a quick celebratory pic of our awesome couple from yesterday's new year's eve wedding, vicki and tim!

Posted at 05:46 PM    

Tue - December 26, 2006

a very merry christmas . part two

wow...what a day! after our time in the morning to open presents our families came over for a wonderful day filled with much fun, many laughs, good food, and zaples! i've put together a whole slideshow of the day that you can see by clicking here ....take a look! merry Christmas everyone!!!

this just about sums up the face made for every one of her million presents she opened up :)


and my reason for a very merry Christmas...jac has to be the greatest wife ever! and yes, for those of you that didn't know...i am still a 12 year old at heart.


the aftermath...


we're a tad behind but we gave my parents and jaclyn's parents a 100 page book of grace's 1-2 year life! here is grace and my parents and sister enjoying it together.


the wall portraits were quite a big hit...and very intimidating while eating dinnner :)


my grandfather does this every year...like clockwork...big meal...crash :)


after dinner we reinstated a family tradition of making zaples!!! for those of you that don't know what zaples are, they're basically homemade doughnut dough fried into these freefrom balls of yummy goodness that are then rolled in sugar...yum yum yum.


my grandmother...master of the zaple!



my cousin jessica...on her sidekick as per ususal.


my mom going crazy with the funny face!


my sister sarah and my other cousin diana.


jac's sister danielle.


danielle and matt :)


i bought grace a pink camo tent and camping set for Christmas...here she is enjoying her new flashlight in her tent :)


jac and her mom laughing it up...aren't they cute!



my dad bought a flash drive for my grandfather...who thought it might be a distress call whistle :)


yours truly about to enjoy the pumpkin pie goodness...


and of course, grace in her new dress up clothes!

Posted at 08:48 AM    

Mon - December 25, 2006

merry merry merry merry christmas!!!

well as usual i am up early....surprised grace wasn't pulling on us at five in the morning to get to all of her loot. soon the madness of tearing wrapping paper, flying tissue, big smiles, and lots of laughs will begin. before it does, i would like to wish all of our friends, family, clients, fans, etc. a Christmas day filled with much joy and laughter. may your day be filling in every way.

here are some pics grace took at church last night :) we were stuck in the back of the church with grace sitting on the floor when she found our camera in jac's purse....so like a good photographer she took a ton of self portraits! it was hard to keep her quiet because she kept yelling up at us "i got one!"

:)

Posted at 07:33 AM    

Fri - December 22, 2006

the reilly family

so here he is, the man, the myth, the legend...jay reilly and family! a few weeks ago i headed out to repay the favor for our awesome family portrait by shooting jay, his wife emy, and two boys keiran and brooks. it's always fun shooting photographers because there is a bit more pressure to perform with your "A" game :)

for a fun game...see how many times you see keiran's little red t-rex in these photos...he LOVES T-REX!!!!




i guess the closest thing we get to snow here in southern california is stripping foxtails :)

Posted at 01:05 PM    

courtney + aaron

getting hitched july 6th 2007.

well it's finally here...i've been looking forward to courtney and aaron's engagement session since we met courtney a few months ago. we were immediately enamored with courtney's bubbly personality and were looking forward to meeting her fiance aaron. well aaron is just as cool and a total crackup to be around! can't wait for july guys...have lots of fun back in texas!!!

on a side note...

i really want to start challenging myself more so i ended up shooting this engagement session in the middle of the day, in the middle of nothing. for all you non-photographer people out there, technically the middle of the day is one of the worst times you can choose to shoot because the light is really harsh, has no real direction to it, it's unflattering for skin tones, etc. so that sounded like a good time to start the challenge :) just for fun i added on top of that a totally random spot to shoot which was an arco gas station in oceanside. we stopped there, shot in the raggety old field across the street and then played around in the street a bit. here's a few i came up with...

Posted at 09:54 AM    

Thu - December 21, 2006

hung like a....

well it's official, our family portrait is finally installed and complete! after a good number of hours and way too many measurements for my little brain to handle...it's officially hung!

for those of you that haven't made it to chateau de kaiser yet, the dining room where these are hung is the first room you see when you walk in the front door...it makes quite an impression :) just to give you an idea of physical size (in case the scale model of grace doesn't suffice), each of the 12 prints is 18x24 inches. the entire assembly measured in at a hefty 75 inches wide, and 81 inches tall!!!

check it out...




also in the dining room we installed a collage of 20 images of us eating (or the food we've eaten) on our many travels over the past few years. the idea was all jaclyn's...way to go babe!


i'm sure many of you didn't know that long before i was a photographer i was actually very into art and design....in fact as long as i can remember back to my youth i was always drawing, painting, sculpting, etc. last month my parents finally handed over all of my old paintings since i finally had a garage of my own to store them in. it seemed very fitting to pull out my favorite diptych from my high school studio art days and hang it in our dining room. if you're interested, you can see a larger version by clicking here.



a view into the dining room from the kitchen bar. it didn't come out very well in this pic but the one in the green bar is a 24x36 pic of jac and i kissing on a hill in our wedding getup letting go of a huge bunch of red heart balloons.


we also took some time to hang some prints in our hallway...first up, two 20x30's of us from the same bridal shoot.



and a 16x20 i took of jaclyn in the desert a few years back.


the picture on the right is a 16x20 as you enter our home office.



that's it for now...we've hung a bunch of other stuff but our house is a disaster right now so we'll post more later :)

on a side note, we wanted to give a huge shout out to the man jay reilly for helping us fulfill our vision for these images. he is such a talented photographer and we never could have pulled all this off without his help. thanks a million jay!

Posted at 07:43 PM    

disneyland....again...

last week we took another (yes another.....gotta love season passes) trip up to disneyland for the day. we had the whole entourage there...jaclyn's mom and dad, sister danielle and her boyfriend matt, sister nicole her husband john and their three kids, her aunt candy and daughter tiffany, and of course our little family unit! that's right...FOURTEEN people maneuvering a very busy disneyland :)


danielle's shirt was very fitting :)






matt and i had some friendly competition on the bumper cars....unfortunately danielle just got in the way of our machismo!


jaclyn looking all hot rocking her new dolce and gabbana bag i bought her for an early Christmas present :)




sourin over california...


matt looking spooky :)



josh worshipping the powerful mickey mouse sucker.



baby rachael.


so we've never stayed for the fireworks at disneyland before because we're always too exhausted by the end of the day, but this time we did and man oh man does disneyland put on a show!!!



after the fireworks they cover everything with a huge "snowstorm".....which is actually bubbles...but the "snow" mixed with all the fireworks and the happy Christmas music sure got me in the holiday spirit...just for a minute though, then we had to battle 4 million people back to the parking structure :)

Posted at 07:12 AM    

merry Christmas to us!

upon arriving home yesterday from a bunch of shoots i was greeted with this pile on our driveway...and another pile this big by the front door!

it's all the frames we ordered to finally cover all the walls in our house with the gabazillions of pictures we've had stored away on hard drives for way too long! especially exciting were all the frames for our big family portrait ...YAY! we'll be posting pictures soon of the completed project....

Posted at 05:53 AM