Close

somewhere between a handshake and two kisses

sonoma county

Young Love…

Jennifer and Brandon got married last weekend at Rocker Oysterfeller’s in Valley Ford…. it was my first wedding of 2009, my first wedding since my own wedding, and my first wedding at one of my favorite venues in  …. so I had lots to be excited about.

He is 21 and she is 18. He just returned from Iraq and they actually got legally married in February so she could qualify for his military benefits, but her mom really wanted her to have a ceremony. It was a very small ceremony with just their family, which meant I had lots of time to play with the two of them in all the cool spaces around Rocker’s.

He is from my home state, South Carolina, and she is from Nevada. So to make him feel more at home the menu included good ‘ol fried chicken, cornbread and a John Deer tractor cake. I have promised that I would include a food specific section on my website, so I took advantage of the good food and beautiful presentation that Brandon and Shona (the owners and chef of Rocker Oysterfeller’s) put together.

Rocker Oysterfeller’s is an awesome location for a wedding. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in having a smaller wedding in Sonoma County. It comes with everything you need… beautifully  intimate setting, amazing food and places for your guests to stay… and you will want to be friends on facebook with everyone who works there by the end of it.

Sorry for the small thumbnails, but I had so much fun taking photos that day that I couldn’t edit the photos down anymore than this.

The Winner….

Here it is… the chosen one. My first photo on a book cover published by a real publishing house (unlike my self-published book.) This is the rough draft of their design. The photo is enlarged and the rest of it wraps around the book jacket… with some of my other photos on the back.

I think it looks good. I am happy. Yay, for working with a team of good designers and a writer who believes in having good photos. Thank you UC Press and Jonah.

The Aftermath of a Good Meal… for a book cover…

The night after I returned from my 3 week East Coast jaunt, I had to do another photo shoot for the cover of the farming book I have been working on, because the marketing department changed their minds and said this…

We're hoping to find an image that speaks a little more to the subtitle of the book: A Year of Farming, Eating, and Drinking Wine in California.

I'm thinking of something informal looking, the aftermath of a meal outside, before the table is cleared off. A meal involving vegetables and wine of course. Some background (blurry or otherwise) showing the farm might be nice. I don't think there need be any people in the picture (but maybe animals are OK!).

But the deadline was, of course, set for the Friday after I returned. So, nothing like jumping right back in. Luckily, I had Mimi, Arann’s mom, who is an experienced food stylist, with me to help make sure everything was as photogenic as possible, because I didn’t even have time to think about that aspect as well.

Now, which of these photos as a cover of a book would tempt you to pick the book up to find out more…

A match.com success story and why I love weddings…

Jennifer and Steve met 5 months ago on match.com and last weekend I got to photograph their wedding story. I was a little nervous, because it had been over a year since I photographed a complete wedding, do to my year-off for grad school, but this wedding was the perfect reintroduction. Everyone was so happy, the location they picked had gorgeous light and wonderful shade from incredible oak trees and so I just got to play. And weddings are so good because they have everything…. stories, happy people who actually want to be photographed, emotions, products and lots of action, so photo possibilities are endless.


product photography….


Another Comparison…

I apologize for being repetitive… but now that I have said sorry… here I go again… these are the Rollei’s version of the same weekend adventures… and my conclusion on the battle between film and digital… I like both. I think both have the potential (depending on the human making the decisions) to take really beautiful photographs… but they are different. They create different photos… and depending on what you want to photograph, you have to make the call. Or not, like me, and just lug around two obnoxious cameras and see what you get.

Here my cold friends are admiring the view for me, while I fiddle with the Rollei’s knobs, I think at this point, as their heads were blowing away, they would have preferred I stuck with digital.

And this is for Frank, he wanted the kiss…. and he almost has it.


Weekend at the Beach

My assignment this weekend… photograph a few of the beaches in Sonoma County… the problem: the wind chill factor felt like it was about 10º and blowing at about 50 mph… so not the most conducive for enticing people to visit… especially when the article is coming out in the summer and photos show people all bundled and windblown… but it was fun nonetheless and these are my favorites.

I must be gaining confidence because I had the nerve to interrupt this young couples’ kissing session to ask if I could photograph them… but the double-fur-lined hoodies in the grass were irresistible.

This is my dear friend Heidi who went to great pains to take this photo… it was definitely not candid… as she would have preferred to check the view from the car.

Not normally a sunset kind of photographer… but sunsets with kites are pretty cool.


%d bloggers like this: