Beautiful Day Photography’s Weblog

This past Sunday I had the pleasure of Shooting Jennifer and Anthony’s wedding at Wayfarer’s and Trump National. They flew in from TX to have their ceremony and it was SO intimate and touching. They had met while traveling in Thailand and have traveled ALL over the world together. Although there was the French/English/Phillipino language barriers at the wedding, it was plain to see how much they love each other and how amazing and supportive each of their families were. One of the most touching moments was the Mother/Son dance and how emotional they were and when Anthony’s mother, (who speaks no English) read her speech in English with a little help from Anthony…Also, it was SO cute to see Jennifer speaking a little French to the family as well…All I know, is that these two will DEFINITELY have amazingly beautiful children:) Here are a few photos from their wedding. The highlight of the reception was their first dance. They played the theme from Dirty Dancing “Now I Had the Time of My LIfe” and learned the ENTIRE choreographed dance from the end of the movie…It was SO cute and everyone was freaking out over it. I thought for sure they would do the lift in the air, but they twirled instead…..Not to mention I have to give some props to their fabulous British DJ extraordinaire Dean Henderson. (www.1royaldj.com). Also, a few cute French traditions were thrown in, like the SABER (where they use a huge knife to slice off the top of the champagne bottle) and also, the blindfolding of the groom during the removal of the garter (check out the photos below!) In order to view ALL of the photos from this wedding, click on this link. Thanks!

Anna and Steve’s wedding at Wattles Mansion in Hollywood on Saturday was an absolute BLAST! Due to the impending rain clouds, last minute decisions were made to get a huge tent for the dining area. Although people were bummed that it was blocking the view of the city,I think it created some amazing photos and not to mention shelter. I think the party turned out to be even better than imagined underneath the cozy, yet very expensive covering. ironically, it didn’t actually end up raining…. better safe than sorry though. Here are a few photos that I thought were cute, but if you are interested in viewing ALL of them, click on this link to view our favorites uploaded on pictage.com.

I personally LOVED Anna’s choice in Yellow flowers and black bridesmaids dresses…I thought they were SO vibrant it was almost TOO bright for my camera, but it was such a sunny, perfect choice.

The fabulous coordinator, Ryan Larson, with Savoir Flair Wedding Coordinating was their coordinator and I am priviledged to not only call her a great friend, but an amazingly talented coordinator. Almost EVERY wedding I have shot of hers has been submitted in a magazine or published. She has a way of being tasteful and trendy, yet NOT ostentatious. ALL of the couples that gravitate to her are usually cool, fun, hip people that think outside of the box which makes for a fun wedding:) I always have a blast at her weddings!

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Also, my FAVORITE DJ was there, Danny Farrell, with NYC Dj’s. We ALWAYS seem to start the dance floor. This time we salsa danced together while the guests were finishing their dinner…He’s SUCH a blast, not to mention an amazing dancer!

I also wanted to thank my two FABULOUS assistant photographers, Meg Perotti and Mai Hunyh (soon to be www.maifoto.com). This was Mai’s 4th wedding EVER to shoot and she did SUCH an amazing job. Meg, has been my backbone for YEARS now and is an amazingly talented photographer. I shoot most of my weddings with her and she makes any wedding more fun and entertaining…for instance we are CERTAIN the Wattles mansion is haunted after our search for an upstairs room with a vantage point to be able to take a photo off the balcony of the tent…Instead we found a hidden staircase and a room that looked like someone was living in it….I ran into a glass window and Meg tripped on the staircase…SO much for our catburglaring skills:)

So I HAVE to say that I LOVE Joo and Bobby! They are the cutest couple ever and I hope that we will remain friends and get to travel together. We shot SO many photos for their wedding and I am in LOVE with a lot of them. My fabulous assistants Jessica and Robert were there and they took some hilarious “blog” photos of me at work:) I am going to post a few here , but if you want to see my favorites that are posted on www.pictage.com please click on this link www.pictage.com/478076.

Here are a few pics that I grabbed just to give you a sneak peek. It’s funny how things that you, JOO, probably considered to be annoying (like the crazy wind blowing your veil all over the place), can end up making some AMAZING photos. I personally LOVE the one where right when you walked in to the church and the wind kicked up your veil and you were looking at Bobby and laughing…Also, I cannot take credit for the detail shot of your shoe..Robert took that one as well as some BEAUTIFUL close-ups of you both….He’s so good! I HAD to blog the shot…

Here are the ladies swarming around Robert to look at the photo he just shot (I’m sure he LOVED the attention:) ) It’s really cute, I catch him doing that ALL the time. When he takes a great shot he LOVES to explain it and show it to the people in it. He loves moments and he LOVES capturing them. He’s great to have at weddings, he loves to get to know everyone

So we took some shots in the dark in the lobby..SUPER SLOW shutter speed, but I LOVE the way it looks! And finally, here is my PHOTOSHOP special. I took a BEAUTIFUL photo of the twilight, but I couldn’t get Joo and Bobby outside due to the madness until it was already black….so I worked some photoshop magic:)

SO My fabulous boyfriend/photographer Robert surprised me on a whim and took me to 6 Flags. I had never been before and we had SO much fun! We went on an off day and before the rush of high school kids getting out of school for the summer and NO ONE was there! We were able to walk to the front of each ride and ride the front car and ride each coaster like 3 times! NO one was there. I couldn’t imagine waiting hours in line…it definitely was the way to go. Rob won me (well actually lost the game and won it as a consolation prize:) a wonder woman cape and crown and he had a batman cape. So we were super heroes for the day. We did the bungy swing in our costumes, played games and had SUCH a great day. we were exhausted when we got back and stayed in and watched a movie…WHAT A GREAT DAY!

Through a twist of fate earlier this year and through a connection with my boyfriend Robert, I have had the pleasure of meeting a young, bright, ambitious lady named Jessica Lehrman (www.jessicalehrman.com).  Not only does she bring positive energy wherever she goes, but she has added her talent and brilliance to my company and helped me get through an amazing transitional time in my life and career….buying out my business partner. SHE IS MY SAVIOR I swear! I felt overwhelmed earlier this year with the weight of responsibility and the process of having to switch over a business and ALL of its components and responsibilities onto MY shoulders alone and I had a CRAZY busy beginning of the year with MANY goals to achieve.  She has worked for me night and day, working with my crazy non-sensical schedule, and come to assist and shoot for me on all my weddings.   Recently, she has been published numerous times in the Santa Monica Mirror and she is soon to become their sole photographer at the age of 19. I see SO much of myself in her and at the same time she inspires me ALL the time. I am POSITIVE that this young lady will have a VERY successful career no matter how many life changes  and transformations she goes through…For those of you who HAVE a moment to read her entrance essay into Purchase University in NYC, PLEASE DO.  I feel that it embodies her personality PERFECTLY.  And JUST to show you how determined she is as an artist, she at first did NOT get accepted into the University because she didn’t have enough Science credits.  She called them and begged them to re-review her and to PLEASE read her essay.  After some strings being pulled, the powers that be read her essay and immediately called her to accept her into their School….must be a POWERFUL ESSAY…READ IT!

I.  Essay:  Describe a personal or historical event that has had an impact on your life:

On a Monday morning one day in October, 1997, blonde and pigtailed Hailey McNelis decided to wear two differently colored socks under her black Mary Jane’s and brought her proud little tush to Miles Elementary School.  Over the weekend her mind had visited, revisited, and gotten a weekend pass to an image that had apparently left quite an impression in that popularity-prioritizing little mind of hers. That image was of me. It was of me, wearing MY two differently colored socks on Friday morning under my own black Mary Jane’s.

Now, what was this girl thinking?! This was completely unacceptable. While Hailey was on the high road to being just like everyone else, I had set quite a different course for myself.  I had to be different. This was, jeez… important to me.  I’m an individual. I’m an artist.  How would I be identified now? As just another two-toned foot princess?  And not the queen?! This mixing-up-the-sock-colors thing was my idea! And not something designed for mass consumption! After careful consideration of the implications of Hailey’s theft – and consequent neutralizing – of my only form of dis-identification from the sweet and sticky pool of third grade Barbie look-alike’s, I must transform into something unstoppable, uncopyable, and even un-understandable by the other third graders.  I must become absolutely original. So, I became a hippie.

At the time, there were no hippies in third grade, there were no hippies in fourth grade, and I didn’t even see any hippies amongst the highly mature fifth grade population.  In fact, the only hippies I knew were college students, and that made this whole invention of self even more enticing to me.

This transformation wasn’t as difficult as it could’ve been for someone less fortunately endowed of a hippie nature. Having enjoyed the music of the Beatles since I was born, I had learned to read when my father put on “Baby’s In Black, And I’m Feeling Blue”, sat down next to me, and placed the sheet music to the song on my lap. As he moved his finger word by word along with the music, I had one of my first peak experiences of discovery.  I had also spent years enjoying the company of a teddy bear named Jerry, who wore an interesting purple collar and was also associated with music that we listened a lot to.  My parents were the perfect embodiment of all the positive ideals created in the sixties. So, I never really “became” a hippie, since I was born into a life of one.

Thereafter, I came to school, not only dressed like a gypsy, but with my hair a combination of frizz, braid, and beads, smelling like a combination of patchouli incense and the ambiance of a “Bleeker Street Café”.  This drive to be different brought me to a welcome identity that I truly loved. And, in no time, I began to really connect with the philosophical nature of the countercultural psychedelic utopia that was created around 1966. I enjoyed the intellectual explorations I was having with people 3 times my age.  I would opt to “do a sweat” rather than “hang at the mall”.  I became obsessed with that time and culture. I told people I was Jimi Hendrix reincarnated (except I had lost his guitar skill in the journey) and I used to cry while watching Woodstock on tape, because I “was born into the wrong generation”. I wanted more than anything to dance in fields of purple haze, to march in revolutionary protests, and to live in a culturally rich commune on some farm in some distant land away from 1990s 9 year olds. I wanted to be a face in the crowd of muddy people at some Dead concert, or a drummer that Ringo would fall in love with.   I was a flower child in a disconnected world of musically and culturally challenged kids getting off on Britney Spears and the Spice Girls.

As natural as this transformation was for me, it also was an emotional challenge.  My “tribe” was not made up of 9 year olds, yet here I was stuck in a 9 year old body. The sixties tormented me, they scratched out my hopes of a happy future, since I could clearly see that the youthful generation of my era was not going to ever be into love and happiness while watching “I Know What You Did Last Summer”, and using too much antibacterial sanitizer. Was I destined to suffer the longing to participate in a generation of freedom and acceptance, while having to live a life imprisoned by superficial values and unsophisticated taste in music? Third grade was definitely a confusing time for me after that two-colored sock incident.

I became very fascinated with the human experience; I started having mutually stimulating conversations with the artsy college students my parents knew.  I embraced my own artistic side and became a painter – as well as a poet.  I took being a hippie to heart, and ended up actually becoming very popular in school.  Aside from being a cute 9 year old, I had a way of life, alternative beliefs, and strong opinions on everything. I lived out third grade as a wannabe starving artist hippie prematurely hormonal pre-teen.

Then fourth grade happened, and everything changed. My parents decided to buy an RV, we left Tucson, and the four of us traveled around the country for over a year.  What a trip!  Home schooled and happy, I lived the alternative American dream. But I was pretty much alone when it came to a peer group, other than my annoyingly sweet 6-year-old sister. I had no one to show my hippieness to, and the adults only cared about who I was, not who I looked like. I no longer needed to be different, since there were absolutely no other 9 year olds trekking through the narrow canyons of Zion National Park on Monday morning, or learning about alligators in a bayou swamp in New Orleans on Thursday afternoon. Gosh! There was no longer a culture I was counter to!

In fact, wherever we went, whoever we met, I was seen not as a hippie or a 3rd grader – or even as a wannabe – but as “my own person”.  People seemed to recognize something in me more authentic than even I knew was there.  And, eventually, I came to meet them from what they saw in me.

Halfway into our magical experiential learning road trip I had this epiphany: “Wherever you go, there you are”. It was simple enough, I know, but this idea really came to me as a surprise amidst my search for identity and meaning. You mean, I can’t escape who I am? My true self is my own poltergeist? Banging around in there, trying to get recognized?  Crazy! Blasphemy!

I realized no act was needed.  No reservations were required.  Who I was was the real deal, and more interesting than that haunting voice strategically whispering over the drowning soundtrack of the Grateful Dead or Jefferson Airplane. I didn’t have to cling to my hippidom to be different because who I am is already like no one else, and – what a discovery – I LIKED who I was.  I didn’t need to push against that.

So, in a moment – a synaptic convergence – I caught up with myself and cozyed up to this new relationship.  I jettisoned the image and became Jessica, an artist, an activist, a person who is going to make a difference in the world of others, because she believes everyone should have a chance to discover who they are, and have a way to express that.

I have really grown a lot since third grade.  Not only am I two feet taller, but I filled out with ideals that keep me strong in who I am, and who I want to become. Now, I can wear two different colored socks, and know that everyone is unique, even if they’re wearing different colored socks, too.  I know that something as silly as socks, or skin color, or accent, or taste in music, won’t stop me from being the person inside that I am, and being curious and open to who everyone is.  I trust that who I am is amazing and loving, and creative and serving.  And even though I’ve ditched the whole hippie thing, I still hold many of the ideals from the sixties very near; I still dream of my man Jimi, and I’m still in the planning process of some sort of cultural revolution.

When I first donned those duo-toned socks at age 9, I was grasping for salvation from a life I feared would lack color.  Now those years have doubled and my life lacks anything but color. I can say, what a long strange trip it’s been, but I know this is just the beginning.  I look forward to the long and winding road ahead.

So you MAY recognize them from a few blogs down…My LOVELY San Francisco couple. They are SO on top of their website and blogging. I am TRYING to get inspiration from them to blog more. But they apparently have posted more pics from our fun engagement shoot last weekend and have their story of how they met plus details of their upcoming wedding. So check it out at www.karenandloren.com ! Loren also says that a better link to view their photos is http://tinyurl.com/4er28y.  Enjoy!

So usually my goal for engagement photos is NOT to make you feel “on the spot” or “cheesy”, but rather to get to know you (the couple) and for you to see my shooting style and rapport BEFORE your wedding day. It also gives you practice and makes you feel comfortable in front of the camera. I ALWAYS include engagement sessions in ALL of my packages, because I find that it makes the actual wedding day formals run smoother….NOT to mention there are a PLETHORA of ideas of cute things to do with your engagement photos. Here are some:

1. Make cute scrapbook/sign in guest book for the wedding using a photo on every other page of signing, so later in life you have a photo album rather than a random book of signatures you will never read again. There is a website I LOVE to use called www.blurb.com to actually make bound, printed albums instead of having to print and glue them in yourself.

2. make a blown up print that you ca have mounted on either foam core, canvas, or framed for your home later. This can either JUST be a display OR be used to sign around, (which I find to be out of style, but it is still done at times)

3. Use them framed at different tables around the reception

4. Use them for your Save the Date or invitation

5. MY NEW FAVORITE (Make funny cute iron-on t-shirts for your bachelorette or bridal shower for the girls to keep or just as a joke:)

6. Now THIS one I JUST saw being printed at the printer the other day and I have NEVER done this before but I LOVED the idea. Rather than FRAMING a different photo at each table, use them as a key or legend for your table card settings, and them have them ACTUALLY printed on the number card on the table…Here is a really bad quality photo example I took with my camera at the printers…:)

From the ALL day beach volleyball in socks:) …..

To your POSH Edison Lounge Party in evening gowns and Catsuits…

I think we did your birthday justice girl.  Happy birthday again!!!

SO, this by far was the best wine tasting trip I have ever been on. Two close girlfriends of mine, Dr. Cher Johnson and Dr. Deena Amir have birthdays one day apart from each other, so it was a joint celebration. I of course had to make my famous iron-on t-shirts for the occasion, stating ” Like fine wine they get better with age-Napa Valley 2008″. I have to thank Cher and Deena AND their lovely men Ian and Don for how smoothly this weekend went. We stayed at this gorgeous

home up at the very top of a cliff, so high that my car BARELY made it up the hill and the hawks were flying right above our place! Don ordered us a party bus, which after spending quite some time on it, I have decided is the WAY TO GO for sure when you are wine tasting. No more squeezing in and out of a limo tipsy….It was perfect! We had about 12 people and SO many rooms in the house that we never got to visit them all. The first night we had groceries and BBQed at the house, but the next night after a LONG day of visiting like 8 wineries, we had a personal chef come to the house to cook and clean for us! We were in SUCH a coma afterwards that we couldn’t even move. They were SO amazing, they came hours early, prepped the food, served us drinks and appetizers to us in the pool and hot tub, set the table, made an amazing meal and dessert AND cleaned up…all for about only $50 a person!

Me at winery number 4, and Leif at Winery # 5 I started having to take photos of the glasses and signs in order to REMEMBER them all!

Don, Jill and Ian at the crazy Caste winery with the crazy cheese platter.

The Girls on the party bus!!

The boys on the party bus! It was fabulous, because we spent sometimes 30-45 minutes driving in between the valleys to the different wineries and we were able to listen to old 80’s music and watch their hilarious videos on flat screens , eat and drink on the party bus. I think most of the fun happened on the bus! One of the wineries called Tres Sabores was OUR ABSOLUTE favorite. We had this amazing picnic of 20 different cheeses and meats and their amazing wines and sauces to go along with it. We sat underneath this tree and ate and the owner of the winery toured us through their vines and explained how they pruned and prepared their wine. We were ALL by ourselves and it was the hardest winery to find in the middle of nowhere, but SO owrth it. Apparently an arsonist a few years ago burned their WHOLE crop for the year and they were able to salvage the charred red wine, decant it and turn it into this amazing pomegranate mole sauce for pork and chicken. They called it “Porque No? or Why Not?” So apropos, because when life hands you lemons, you make lemonade…or in this case Mole Sauce:)