Welcome.

Hi. Hey! Welcome. Benvenudo. BonJour. Yo!
Ok, that should just about cover it. Until I blow up in the China market.

I really am glad you're here. I have to confess, blogging wasn't a talent I was born with so it has been a little slow coming and evolving. But I run into people all the time who tell me they check this thing so you have convinced me to keep it up.
I hope you will have fun checking in and seeing some images from the amazing weddings I get to photograph and some of the best times of people's lives, including our own. Even though I won't be able to hear you, if you laugh at my weak attempts at humor on here, it will make me feel better and of course bloggers live for comments so show me some love.

Make it easy on yourself and add me to your RSS feed and if once a week isn't enough for you, you can follow my daily happenings on twitter. Now this is getting wierd.

/ todd

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Kickin' it in HDR

I added 2 more photos...

I was just playin' around with some images from Mexico from this year. I did them in Photoshop and Photomatix in a process called HDR. It is taking multiple different exposures (same composition, different shutter speeds) and combining them to create High Dynamic Range.

the absolute master of this stuff is Trey Radcliff and his blog is Stuck In Customs If you are interested in this process (we photo nerds call Photoshop editing "Processing") you should check out his tutorial. It is not only super informative but also hilarious.

anyway, I have only played with a few to give it a try. Maybe more to come this winter in some down time. The cool thing about it to me is that it is totally real. Nothing is added really. It is just incorporating all the lights and darks that your eye sees a lot more of so in a way, HDR is closer to what your mind experienced when seeing that scene. Which is nice...

What do you think?

also a good friend of mine bought my old camera when I upgraded to the bad boy D3 and he loves to do HDR stuff. Check out his FLICKR page: Superwagon

So cute it hurts!

I couldn't resist. After a day of cleaning up outside, re-organizing my office, catching up on billing, backing up and restoring my iPhone, working on getting framing orders finished for Christmas delivery, planning out my next batch of albums to design and catching up with family, I came across this photo of my girls last spring in Cancun. I laughed out loud at how much I love that little girl!! ... and so I had to play with the photo and post.

Robert & Georgina // 08.16.08 // Puerto Vallarta

Ok faithful blog fanatics, I am officially back in the game!
Other weddings from the last 2 months are still coming...in the next month.

What a way to resume with Robert and Georgina's destination wedding in Puerto Vallarta.
Actually Georgina is originally from Puerto Vallarta but joins Robert at their homes in Cabo (2 of them), Santa Cruz and Scottsdale. Where they actually live, I don't know :) I think the latest frequent spot is Cabo since they are opening a winery downtown. So if you haven't guessed it yet, Robert is an entrepreneur in real estate, computer engineering, aircraft re-building, travel and title ownership (and I guess add restaurant ownership now). Georgina is just his young, beautiful, smart, attorney wife, that's all :)

So this wedding had both a destination feel with an all out family fiesta ending.

Just your average 6 story ocean front villa the family stayed at for the week prior to the wedding...(oh and me too for a few days)

10 4x4's 8 4x8 sheets of wood and some nice decor later, the pool was transformed into a cliff side venue.

The day prior, we drove about an hour and a half south of Puerto Vallarto to a little town called El Tuito for a civil ceremony. We shot some stylin' portraits on the way back.

I have no idea what this gentleman was singing but they sure made it sound festive!

Literally 5 minutes after the ceremony, it started downpouring. Luckily it let up about 10 minutes before sunset for a few family pics and down to the rocks below for some sunset photos to cap the night.

I never checked the temperature while down there (I'm lost when my iPhone gets negative 3 bars) but I can officially say it was the hottest I have ever been shooting a wedding. (something about being right in the middle of a rainforest had something to do with it) So I didn't blame Georgina for a second for changing during the reception.

Actually the "night" capped about 3:30am. They banned me from photos after midnight. Just kidding, I couldn't stand up anymore after 17 hours so I hit the sack. Party Pooper!

Congrats Robert and Georgina! You and your families were genuinely so fun and welcoming to me. It was a fiesta to remember.

I have a slideshow coming asap. I have to get Showit Web going again since I have changed computers and my laptop crashed.

Kendra & Caleb (Pismo Beach, CA)

Wow! Sorry for the delay since the last post. I got a nice 4 day x2 chance to see my parents in Wisconsin and have a great little baby shower for our little girl coming up. I still had weddings on the weekends so a lot of flying back and forth but so nice to visit home in the summer. I will have forthcoming posts on some of that coming up.
Last week, I once again had the sweet gig of shooting a coastal wedding. This one was half and half. It started at a beautiful victorian BnB just outside of Pismo Beach, CA. Then, of course, we hit the beach for the bride and groom shoot.
here are just a few of my favorites:


The parasols started as a great practical idea for the guests...


but really caught my eye and were a great accessory for the bride.













Thanks so much too Kendra and Caleb for including me to capture such a fun day. They were truly so happy to be married and it was contagious. They are off in the Riveria Maya for a week in the sun. Too bad they didn't invite me to shoot some beach portraits there. I just never get to do anything fun! (juuust kidding)

destinations...

so no commentary on these. you have to use your imagination. as you can tell though, the 5* marriott on Kalapaki beach is must go destination. ok, so i'll add some commentary as soon as i get done editing the 4 weddings from the last 2 weeks.





maybe a little on this one: this shot was so cool. i went back to the beach where jason and kambra had their ceremony and about 11:30pm, i took this with a 30s time exposure. i couldn't even see the palm trees to focus on them so i guessed. i was psyched when i saw it on the screen.

Aloha! (from the end of the earth)

I really think I made it to the end of the earth...or at least one of the four corners. Anna and I had the awesome opportunity to go to Kauai for my first destination wedding. So while I was there, I found out that the Hawaiian islands are the most isolated islands on earth. Kauai is almost at the very Western tip of the islands. We trekked all the way to the North shore where all the locals said the best sunset was. Then we took a one and a half lane road with ten one lane bridges (see my point?) to what they call "the end of the road". It dead ends at the beach and there is no way to get any more unubstructed view of the sunset. Needless to say it was awesome!!! Ok, Todd, there's your first ever blog post...it wasn't so bad was it? ...some wedding images tomorrow.