personal

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 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 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

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

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

Wed - December 13, 2006

Christmas cookies!!!

so every year we get together to make christmas cookies with my (jac's) family. this year was especially fun now that the kids are old enough to actively participate :)

a gingerbread house to keep the kids entertained...and fed...

this occupied them for about 10 minutes...so they moved on...to superman :)

my sister's daughter rachel turns the big "1" on the 19th!!!

back to cookie making...

josh looking very confused as to why his house doesn't look like the one on the box :(

grace sneaking a taste ;)

phillip after eating too many cookies :)

Posted at 04:54 PM

murray canyon

a little update for everyone out there....we're out of the studio until next monday. we're on a little vacation out in palm desert with my family chillin out for a while. we'll still be reachable by email and genevieve is holding down the studio if you need anything extremely urgent.

so this morning my dad and i went out for a hike bright and early to murray canyon. murray canyon travels from the desert floor all the way up to the top of the mountains. luckily for my legs we only did a 4 mile (one way) section of it this morning up to a place called the seven sisters. the seven sisters is this gorgeous location with seven small waterfalls cascading down the side of the hill carving their way through the boulders. i used to hike all the time but since we've been so busy for the past few years with our business it's taken a back seat to many other things...so it was great to be back out in the fresh air! the trail was beautiful and it was great to spend a few hours with my dad just walking and talking. apparently the palms that line murray canyon are the the fourth largest natural grove of palm trees in the world...no where else in the world is there a climate like palm springs that changes so quickly from desert to the high elevation of san jacinto so this valley is always fed with water.

ok, that's enough from park ranger nate...on to a few pics!

a fallen piece of palm in the stream.

we must have criss crossed this stream a few dozen times!

always a welcome sign!

one of the seven sisters falls.

my dad playing photographer!

an abstract reflection in the stream shot through some foliage.

Posted at 03:40 PM

Sun - November 26, 2006

the turkey coma finally wore off....

i would have posted a long essay on the many many many things were are so blessed with on thanksgiving....but thanksgiving is not for blogging, it's for eating great food with family and friends...and that is exactly what we did! :) in fact, we were crazy enough to have both our families over to our new house for the big meal this year! it was great fun to have all of our closest loved ones under our roof....what made it even better was that all of the "veterans" brought the food! i started off the day with the best intentions of photographically documenting this joyous occasion...but 48 pictures into it i gave up and just relaxed....

here are the few snaps i took pre-turkey coma....

the bird...

jaclyn's younger sister danielle and her boyfriend matt playing with grace's new "i spy" book...

my grandma, the greatest cook in the world....no seriously, i know everyone says that, but she is! here she is showing off her turkey creation :)

our table with big blank orange wall waiting for our new family portrait....and grace terrorizing everyone's feet zooming around the house on her carebear car.

the is what the hostess of 25 people looks like...

all the ladies chatting it up on the couch...

the final spread...this is where i ditched the camera....happy (belated) thanksgiving everyone!!!

Posted at 10:26 AM

Sun - November 19, 2006

our new family portrait :)

so we bought this house a few months back....we've never posted pictures because we've been working on fixing it for a while now but it is finally getting somewhere. the biggest draw to our new place besides the amazing location and great floorplan was the abundance of wall space! coming from a two bedroom condo that had literally NO wall space this place is like heaven, we can finally show off our personal work! so for Christmas this year our little present to ourselves will be to fully deck out every room with pictures. ssoooooooo the first place we started on was the family room which has vaulted ceilings so we've got a nice 16 foot high wall that needs to be filled. the room is a bright burnt orange color so we wanted something SIMPLE that could graphically take up the entire wall....so we had this idea....

each image in this series will be printed at 18x24 inches, framed in a simple metal frame with no mat then hung in a grid like for a total area of seven by eight feet! a little narcissistic maybe, but man we sure won't be able to keep a strait face in that room :)

a special thanks to "the man" jay reilly for helping out in implementing our grand idea.

Posted at 06:32 AM

Fri - November 3, 2006

halloween @ disneyland

w o w. halloween at disneyland is quite an experience :)

click here to see the slideshow

grace and i terrorizing on the bumper cars!

super josh.

i dressed up as a disgruntled photographer...

jac and her two sisters; danielle and nicole.

back on the crazy ferris wheel!

the aftermath of the blueberry dum dum sucker...

this guy definitely stole the show...everyone was following him around laughing the butts off all night! the best part was he kinda pranced around the whole night in that suit!

Posted at 07:51 AM

Thu - November 2, 2006

go blue thunder!!!...and a halloween carnival

a few months ago, we signed up to sponsor our nephew's soccer team. we finally made it up to redlands to see blue thunder play a game and boy was it a sight. even though phillip isn't that interested in the game, it was so adorable to watch a bunch of five year olds run into each other, fall down, and attempt to kick the ball. all in all, blue thunder lost to the flaming raptors 4-1 but they all had fun and that's all that matters.

check out the super cool the image is found blue thunder team banner!!!

after the game (which was in 90-degree heat!) we headed back to my sister nicole's place to hang out in the air conditioning and get ready for a halloween carnival.

rachel:

grace and phillip:

the one and only joshua:

ok, so joshua had the funniest costume i've seen in a while.

Posted at 04:21 PM

Tue - October 31, 2006

have a very merry halloween

my fine jack-o-lantern creation :)

grace at disneyland trick or treating last night...i think she might still be on the sugar high!

now...out for more candy...stay tuned for more pics tomorrow...

Posted at 05:16 PM

Thu - October 19, 2006

the poconos

after kellie and steve's wedding at skytop lodge in the poconos we headed back to my family's cabin in the poconos for a day of relaxing before we headed back out on the road. we took grace for a pony ride at a cool little farm place where she could also play with goats, cats, horses, etc. then it was back to the cabin for some hot chocolate, playing in the leaves, looking for deer, etc....ah the mountains...

this is pretty much what anything that is not developed on this part of the east coast looks like right now....so gorgeous!

my parents and i watching grace ride her pony "spirit"...aren't we cute :)

that evening we celebrated my mom's 50th birthday!!! since we were so far out in the sticks and the nicest restaurant in the area was arby's we stayed in and had a nice pizza dinner which followed up with my mom's favorite, german chocolate cake!!! of course grace was on hand to help with the candles :)

here's a picture my dad took with our little point and shoot camera...picture by dad...photoshop magic by me :)

Posted at 01:55 PM

Sat - October 14, 2006

arlington cemetery and the hershey factory

our last stop in DC was the arlington cemetery....a place of quite respect....in hindsight, not the best place for a three year old :) it was another place that really took you back by the overall scale of it...we only saw like a sixteenth of the grounds and even that was awe inspiring.

i got stroller duty (lucky me since the entire cemetery is on a hill and full of stairs!) while jaclyn got to take all the fun pictures. while we were walking under the many trees grace got hit in the knee by a falling acorn....which i am thoroughly convinced was sweet revenge by the squirrels she has been chasing non stop at all the places we've been here. below is an artists rendering of the culprit:

switching gears here....after our day at the cemetery we had a wonderful dinner at the cactus cantina with some of our favorite clients from earlier this year, joanna and daniel...thanks for an awesome dinner guys! the following day we tackled the long drive from DC to the poconos. about three hours into the drive we took a small detour to the town of hershey and jaclyn's little heaven on earth, the hershey chocolate factory.

this is grace being carried back to the car...chewing on a leaf, that's right a leaf! i guess she thought everything at chocolate world would taste good....

Posted at 06:52 AM

Fri - October 13, 2006

more on the road...

more from our time here in DC....we headed out to do all the tourist stuff on tuesday. it was really a great experience for us both especially since we had never seen any of the monuments or memorials here. it really helps history to come alive seeing all of this....which ironically made us both realize how little information we actually retained from our schooling.

the morning started with a very imposing grace....

then we headed off to the lincoln memorial...which was HUGE! from pictures i had seen i always thought it was like life size....but man oh man, it's HUGE!!!

where grace had a very uninterested reaction to the gettysburg address that was carved on the wall...

back out front....we saw real amish people!!! who looked very happy to see me pointing my camera at them by the way :)

then it was off to the korean war memorial, which was amazing. one of the things i found really moving at the memorials was that they all in one way or another actually reflected yourself on top of the many names of fallen soldiers.

a hop skip and a jump over to the vietnam memorial which was very awe inspiring. for those of you that haven't been there, it is basically just an enormous black wall with all the names of the fallen soldiers engraved on it. it really puts into perspective the reality of the huge numbers you learned in school.

to put it into perspective, this lady was holding a book with all the names that were on the wall...over 700 pages...2 columns per page...size 10 font...on and on....

a nice view of the washington monument while walking to the jefferson monument....

we also had a great time with our awesome photo friend from san diego, sara france, who also happened to be in town for a job. so we hooked up and walked around all the monuments together...grace took and instant liking to her :)

and to top it all off...a couple videos from the day!

first up, grace chasing ducks....she did this for about a half hour and never caught one :)

secondly...my little prank on jaclyn...say cheese!

Posted at 07:21 AM

Mon - October 9, 2006

on the road again...

we're off for our whirlwind adventure on the east coast! we are glad to be shooting kellie and steve's wedding this saturday in the poconos but before we have to get to work we are going to travel around a bit. we'll be out here running around until the 19th...stay tuned for all the fun!

we've been on photo hiatus but here are a few pictures we've snapped so far...

grace and i waiting for our flight in san diego international airport:

after a long day of flying we landed in the city of brotherly love....and the home to <begin boxing announcer voice> RRROOOOOCKYYYYYY BALBOAAAAAAAAAA <end boxing announcer voice>. i found it quite odd that out of all the national history here in philly the thing that enterprise car rentals felt they were best known for, enough to be welcome all visitors at their entrance, was the italian stallion. anyway...makes a great photo op :)

after we finally rolled into the swanky lowes hotel around 1AM we had a wonderful nights sleep...then an amazing breakfast at their "sole food" restaurant. after breakfast (at 12:00...our bodies have not adjusted to east coast time yet) we hit the road to head on down to washington DC. after about an hour and a half on the road we stopped for some starbucks and as soon as we got out of the car grace started smacking herself in the head with her bear....i totally understand grace, the drive was B O R I N G!

we've now landed at our new home for the next three days in DC at the extra-swanky hotel helix. we're going to head out for a day of sight seeing and general touristy stuff...should be fun...maybe grace could charm her way into the oval office to meet W and give him all her words of wisdom :)

so here is grace...beyond excited that the room we booked has a separate nook for her with a bunk bed AND it's own tv and dvd player! this is her watching a bugs life from the top bunk :)