Janaka and David got married on August 20, 2016 at the Olive Grove Church in Nuevo! My family has known Janaka and her family for years. Janaka’s sister-in-law has been one of my wife’s closest friends for over 20 years. So, I was very happy and excited to capture the memories from their special day! It’s obvious that Janaka and David are head-over-heels in love with each other.

On these next two photos, you can see Janaka’s bouquet: her rescued Sphynx cat Balthazar! This is the most mellow cat I’ve ever met. He didn’t flinch once during the wedding ceremony, and loved the attention he got at the reception.

It had been a long time since I’d used a film camera, so I picked up a couple rolls and wound up going to Huntington Beach, CA at sunset. I’d forgotten how nice some film can look. While taking these photos, I had to stop myself from previewing the photo to check exposure. The film I used was Kodak Ektar 100, and the shots were taken with an old Canon Elan 7e with a 24-70 f/2.8L. The negatives were scanned on my old film scanner. None of these images were touched with Photoshop.

Linda and Patrick got married on January 16th! This wedding started out with a traditional Chinese tea ceremony with the bride and groom and the groom’s parents’ house. Linda wore a stunning traditionally styled Chinese dress. The tea ceremony was a beautiful expression of love and devotion. Then it was off to the clubhouse at Heritage Lake in Menifee for the wedding and reception. During the wedding ceremony, Patrick and Linda performed a sand ceremony, which represents two coming together.

Now on with the pictures! First, a short slide show:

Now for the pictures!

Robyn and Mitch got married on November 23!! They tied the knot at the Valley Fort wedding venue in Fallbrook, California. It was a beautiful day, but it was pouring rain the day before the wedding. Their prayers for good weather were certainly answered. Robyn and Mitch are a super fun and laid back couple. They met at church a few years ago. Mitch proposed to Robyn at a Storm baseball game that involved the entire stadium. Robyn was very surprised and quickly said “Yes!” amongst both families. Both Robyn and Mitch come from large families, so there were lots of siblings available for bridesmaids, groomsmen, flower girls, and escorts.

I also want to thank Gina Baker from GinaBakerPhotography.com for her awesome work in helping to capture this day and making sure all the special little details were captured (especially the photos of Robyn getting ready!).

Here’s a slide show of some of the images from the day. Hint: This video looks great full screen!

On to the pictures!

Three generations are represented in this next photo.

This post of Alyssa & Keenan’s engagement photos has been a long time coming…

Keenan contacted me and wanted this to be a surprise for Alyssa. It’s a good thing we’re all photographers, so Alyssa didn’t get suspicious with all the camera gear. She knew he was going to propose, she just didn’t know where or when. Little did she know that this particular trip to the Japanese Friendship Garden in Balboa Park, San Diego would be an unforgettable experience for her!

Keenan really did get down on one knee to ask Alyssa:

In a flood of emotions, Alyssa quickly and tearfully said “Yes!”

Some time later, I had the opportunity to take some other engagement photos of the happy couple. Alyssa and Keenan are a super fun couple to work with, and it’s obvious that they kind of like each other.

Alice contacted me the other day to arrange for a family photo session out in the wilds in Murrieta. The day we met for the shoot, it was windy and you could definitely tell that fall was in the air as it was quite chilly. They also brought along their black Lab named Bailey. All in all, it was a fun photo session with four generations.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

And let’s end with just shot of just Bailey!

So Matt over at NiltoMil posted this interesting article about Google’s new image search. Since I’ve used the TinEye image search in the past, I was intrigued. I know Google usually operates under the guidelines of “Go Big or Go Home” and that their stuff is usually very amazing.

I was not prepared for what I encountered by searching for my stock images. It absolutely blew me away, and I’m not even anywhere close to a major player in the world of stock photos.

I spent waaaay too much time doing searches, and I found some of my pictures on some blogs. There were some that were used on the home page of different companies. Some were on menus for restaurants. Some were used by major corporations.

Of all the images I found, I think this one in particular was the most exciting one to me.

Yes, that’s right. Dave Ramsey bought one of my images.

Thank you, Google. And thank you, Matt, for your article!

Yesterday I said:

I’ll be updating the help pages for creating an account and for creating a registry over the weekend.

Well, not only are those tutorials updated, I added one about how to order an image package.