St Louis - The hours leading up to the wedding

I've already fallen behind my initial commitment to post at least once per week, sigh...

Anyways, here are some pics from St. Louis again. These were taken on Patrick and Rachel's wedding day in the hours leading up to the big event and some taken after. I put my camera down during the ceremony/reception.



PJ going over his schedule for the day after he came back to the house from breakfast.



Mom and The Colonel swung by the house to pick up the keys to Pat's truck and to chat for a bit.



Cheesy shot of the rings



Chris and Max in the Blue Room waiting to begin



The Ring Bearer(Silas Chang) and pappa(Jason Chang)



Pat and The Colonel



Pat and Mr Vander Meulen



Lloyd, the Best Man. Going over his speech on his palm and getting ready to bust out his flask.



PJ and The Colonel up to no good... =)

.
.

Burgudy Engagement Session Part III? - Coyote Point

OK, I took these pics a while ago and meant to post earlier, but I just never got around to it. My friend Mark and I wanted to shoot together and decided to ask our favorite guinea pigs to be models(Burgess and Judy). We intended on going San Francisco, but the weather was atrocious and we ended up at Coyote Point. Mark pretty much ran the shoot and I was just running around taking random shots. It was still fun though. Mark had something I had always thought about, but never put together. He had a sheet of poses and locations he wanted to use and it actually really helped to speed up the shoot and made it much more efficient. Gotta remember to do that next time

.
.

St Louis, Part II

So here are some pics I processed on the way flights back from St Louis:



Bachelor Party Aftermath - The Best Man, Lloyd taking his morning coffee on the balcony as Pat takes care of some stuff for his new bathroom remodel.


Meeting Crissy and Shepard at Kaldi's for more coffee





A nearby dog giving Shep a little lovin'



Frozen Custard... I still have dreams about it, So Good!


Back at the hotel with Evangelyn





And Shepard!



Still more to come later!

.
.

St. Louis down time

So after Pat's wedding, we had a little down time before traveling home. So after running a few final groomsman duties, we grabbed a nice lunch at a super cool local cafe and spent the rest of the day at St Louis Zoo(which was free today). Just a couple pics to start us off. We saw a waterfall at near the front of the Zoo and thought it'd be a great place to take a couple of family portraits. Here are a couple of the other groomsmen and their families:



Jessica, Evangelyn, and Chris Chong



Jason, Silas, Camden, and Abigail Chang



Abigail Chang

More coming later!

.
.

Meet me in St Louis, Louis...

So, my old University roommate, Patrick O'Banion lives out in St. Louis and is getting married this weekend. It's been a great time of seeing old friends, laughing with their families, staying up too late, and general mischief. Just a couple pics I was able to PP.

Patrick and Rachel entertaining the hordes of guests after their wedding rehearsal dinner.


Meet Zachary Azar. Patrick's nephew. On a photography related note, this was shot with my new 50mm f/1.4 wide open at 1.4 and ISO 5000. I had to desturate a little(I've noticed high ISO's tend to oversaturate my pictures), reduce a little noise, and sharpened. See straight out of camera image here.

More pics to come soon...

Paddington

Paddington is my Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. My baby boy. =)

Burgudy - Again...

It's late and I should've gone to bed a couple hours ago. But just wanted to post this pic first. This was taken in a session with Mark out at Coyote Point. I haven't processed all my pics yet, but just wanted to put up a little "teaser". One of my favorites from that day.

.
.

UC Berkeley Graduation - NUP is done!

My baby cousin, Nup, just graduation from UC Berkeley this past semester. No, her real name isn't Nup. Her name is Sharon, Nup is just a nickname we've had for her ever since she was little(pun intended for those of you in the know). If there's anyone out there reading this who's hiring for an entry-level marketing/sales type position, hire my baby cousin. She's smarter than Burgess and me combined. =)



Where's Wal--er Nup? Finding Nup in a sea of graduates.


The venue conveniently had a secition specifically for people to take pictures and everyone rotated in and out as their graduates went up on stage. By this time, the sun was beating down on us pretty good.


Proud Family! Left to Right - Aunt Kit, Uncle Bun, Grandma, Nup, and Victor.


Victor and his girlfriend, Nai, anxiously waiting for Nup to walk out of the ceremony.


Shenanigans!


OK, totally unrelated to Graduation. But here's my future sister-in-law showcasing the super sexy 5D. Ya, that's right, a camera can be sexy! Photo courtesy of JT's soon-to-be-husband(Burgess).

Which kind of leads me to a couple of thoughts about new cameras. Some people have noticed my new camera(and lens) and seem impressed and automatically think I can take really fantastic pictures. A camera is a camera. Just having nice new camera alone doesn't make me a better photographer. A pro with a disposable camera will take pictures a hundred times better than pictures I can get out of the latest and greatest dSLR. I agonized over whether or not this was a wise purchase for me(just ask Myron). In the end, it was just something I wanted and something I had already budgeted for. I firmly believe that a photographer's best asset is his eye and his creativity. In both areas, I still have a lot to learn. But I do hope to somehow earn a living with photography, it something I love to do.
.
.

Ashely Herman - Part Two

I dunno why I like this picture so much. I think its a cross between the seeing the bond between Grandmother and Grand-daughter and looking like Grandma is trying to use the force to lift the bouncy house into the air with the Force. This pic always makes me smile inside.

Just as a side note to myself - Gotta be more careful when post processing around people. Ashley and Grandma look like they have a little halo around them.

Careless Hearts

An old coworker of mine back from my days with Align Technology has a band that was playing in a huge music festival in San Jose called Left Coast Live. His name is Paul Kimball and his band is Careless Hearts. It was late at night(actually it was early in the morning), but Careless Hearts came out and totally rocked. People were packed into the bar where they were playing and dancing wherever they stood. Lots of fun energy to try and capture that night.

Shooting conditions were pretty rough. It was in a bar that was in a basement and I didn't have a flash with me so I had to resort to shooting at ISOs upwards of 4000 and 5000. This was really the first time I got to test out the High ISO performance the new 5D. Results are below - Pictures are shown in pairs, the straight-out-of-camera pics are shown first. Followed by the same pic with a little post processing.











This last pic isn't of the band, but of some of the people who were groovin' to Paul and the Careless Hearts. Lots of rockin' music and lots of fun! Check out Careless Hearts here.


To see all the pics from that night, go HERE to my flickr set. Also, if you're interested they'll be playing at the new Courthouse Square in Redwood City on July 10. I'm going to try to make it out to shoot them again. Everyone should come, it should be a fun time!
.
.