Portraits: Blended #15

I took photos of Andrea and Linh while I was in the bay area. Linh and I went to UCLA together many years ago - more than I care to say! Linh was born in Vietnam and grew up in Orange county. Andrea is of Japanese descent; she grew up in Richmond California. Her father's family is from Peru and she is fluent in Spanish. We took these pictures in San Francisco.

Political Pilgrimage

I'm headed to Washington D.C. for Barack Obama's inauguration in January. I have no idea whether I'll get a ticket or not; it goes without saying that demand for tickets is through the roof. But I'm excited to travel to another part of the country and take pictures!

I'm already planning which lenses I want to bring with me. While I would love to take my 70-200mm f/2.8 beast, I do not want to be lugging that around with me all day. As of now I'm going with my 10.5mm fisheye and my 50mm f/1.4, both of which are quite compact.

And I'm finally going to get Nikon's 18-200mm VR II lens. This lens was all the rage when it first came out. It was sold out for months. It's not a professional lens, so it isn't really suited for portrait or wedding work. But from what I hear it's a great walking-around lens.

I can't wait to walk around DC with it!

Portraits: Robert and Neil

I took a few pictures of Robert and Neil together. These were taken at the Presidio in San Francisco.

Portraits: Blended #14

Neil is the third person in my bay area trifecta: as with Regine and Robert, I met him through my aunt Pamela. They all went to Stanford together.

Neil is of Barbadian and Polish descent. His grandparents on his father's side are from Barbados, and his mother's grandparents are from Poland. He currently lives in Vallejo, which is northeast of San Francisco. We took these photos at the Presidio in San Francisco.

Photo on Parents.com

A big thank you to Kelly, who submitted this photo to Parents.com. The photo is from the maternity session I did with Kelly and Scott over the summer. It is now part of an article on how to take pregnant belly photos.

P.S. Kelly and Scott had a healthy baby girl in September.

Portraits: Blended #13

Robert is another subject that I met through Pamela - he's her husband! And my uncle. Pamela and Robert live in Ohio with their three wonderful children. Robert gew up in Dayton and is half black and half white. We took these pictures at the Presidio in San Francisco, CA.

Lightroom-licious

I finally broke down and bought Lightroom. I decided to give it a try because the workflow I had with Aperture was not working. I only used Aperture to organize images, so I'll be the first to admit that I was not using Apeture to it's full potential.

With Aperture, I was importing my images, exporting them to another folder on my computer, opening them in Photoshop's version of Camera Raw, saving them as PSD files, then re-importing them back into Aperture. And while Aperture has the ability to send files directly over to Photoshop, I couldn't figure out how to open them in ACR, which resulted in my import/export dance.

With Lightroom this is greatly simplified. I can use ACR to edit the photos directly in Lightroom, and when I need to open anything in Photoshop I can open it as a Smart Object. Smart Objects have become my preferred way of working in Photoshop, because at any time I can double click on the photo and it will open in ACR.

Lightroom also has some wonderful slideshow and web gallery options, which reminded me that one of these days I'm going to redesign my website. I'll probably plunk down the money for SlideShow Pro, but for personal projects and photos for friends, the options in Lightroom will be all that I need.

I feel like an Apple traitor. And who knows - maybe Aperture will woo me back. But for now, Lightroom is my new BFF.

Portraits: Blended #12

I met Regine through my aunt, who also introduced me to Alan, an earlier participant in my mixed race portrait project. Regine is of Haitian and Irish ancestry, and her first language is French. She currently lives in Berkeley, CA. We took these pictures at Dimond Park in Oakland, CA.

Wedding: Michelle and Jonathan

This was a beautiful wedding. The ceremony and reception were at the Mission Inn in Riverside, CA. I was an assistant shooter with AAcreation Photography.