Five years ago, they met. Through some mutual friends, they were convinced to try out a blind date. Todd wanted to casually date while Elysa was set to find the man of her dreams. Elysa was a little hesitant to go on the date but she did anyways. The date started out as a group of friends which led eventually to the whole group heading over to La Jolla Shores. When they arrived, the rest of the group ditched Todd & Elysa leaving them alone on the beach which was the perfect setting for them to start some one on one conversation to learn more about each other.

3 days after their blind date, they started to officially date. Todd was a Marine and in August of 2004, he was informed that he would be shipped to Iraq until March of 2005. During that time, nearly 7 months, they wrote nothing but letters back & forth and when given the chance Todd would call Elysa to check up on her. Once Todd returned to the states, they continued where they had left off.

After dating for almost 4 years, Todd had planned the perfect opportunity to propose to Elysa. It was his 24th birthday. She had thrown him a BBQ with all their family & friends. When they had lit the candles, Todd looked at Elysa right as he blew them out. Elysa asked what his wish was, his response was “You”. Todd then dropped on his knee in front of all their family & friends and asked her to marry him. She was his birthday wish.

Todd & Elysa are such amazing clients. Their love story is such a unique one and they have held on hard to each other through the last 6 years. Their romance is perfectly fitting as on the weekends they take his motorcycle to Julian and enjoy the sweet food from Mom’s Pie Shop. The one big thing that Todd, Elysa & I share in common is our love for Sushi!

Their engagement session started at the http://niwa.org/ which is such a peaceful location. It’s inside of Balboa Park but when your really walking around their with all the oriental music, coy pond and tons of bamboo it feels like your out of San Diego for a brief moment. After our shoot at the friendship garden concluded we drove over to the Pier 32 right near the old blue crab restaurant where The Real World was taped while it was in San Diego back in 2003. I loved the buildings & textures down there with all the old piers and colored walls. It was sure a fun location!

Todd & Elysa will be getting married on their 6 year anniversary of May 1st, 2010.

I am now offering 1-on-1 mentoring for photographers! These mentoring sessions cover fast editing workflow, shooting on manual, advanced editing in photoshop, building a custom blog, off camera lighting, backlight shooting, getting clients to relax during a shoot, etc. I just started offering these to photographers and they are starting to fill up! I’m going to do a video pretty soon talking about what exactly happens during a 1-on-1 session.

Yesterday, Shari Barnes came to spend a 2 hour lunch with me where we covered fast editing workflow, building a custom blog and taught her how to understand the histogram. Beyond that it was so much fun because we totally connected on a more personal level too and we spent some time chatting about our love for photography and our strong faith in Christ.

After I got home from the session, I got a really sweet email from her describing to me what she experienced!

“First, I loved that you prayed for our food and for our time together, and for me.  It is amazing that we have the right to share faith publicly, and can mix it with business!  Thank you for that! I really appreciate you sharing your workflow with me.  It is SO much better and easier than mine, and I can’t wait to set it, and the other business tips you gave me, into motion! I am stoked on the marketing tools that you were able to share with me that will help get my name out there!  I can’t wait to get my blog going, and finish my website. You have such a heart for teaching, and such a sharing spirit.  I felt very blessed today! Thank you again, SO much!”

If you are interested in doing a 1-on-1 session with me, click here

Last evening, my cousin was in town and we visited the high end organic eatery, Tender Greens. Their setup is pretty simple in a sense that when you arrive you order from a register and walk to another register where your organic food is delivered along with your choice of drink & bread. I love this place because they give you healthy eating options for less than $15/plate and it feels like a 5 star dining experience!

The title of this post is perfect customer service is not referring to their store but to one person. His name is Ryan and he clears the tables.

You know when your leaving your table and you rarely speak to or even make eye contact with the table clearing person? This time, he made contact with us! First, he got to our table before we did. I guess he knew we would choose that table because it is self seating. He cleaned the table to make sure it was sparkling. Next, he walked by our table while we were eating to crack a few jokes, they were actually really funny jokes, quick one liners. Now this where it got amazing. My friend is also with us and her salad wasn’t what she expected. Instead of the waiter changing it out, he got her a new salad free of charge. Near the end of the meal, I passed him an extra tip and he rejected it at first.

This was his response: “I would love to but I want to be rewarded by your excitement when you arrive to dinner. While I work, it doesn’t matter if I am having a great time or even a bad time. All that matters is that I make sure you enjoy your time with me and that you leave satisfied.”

As I am walking out of the door, he runs after me and gives me a fresh out of the oven cookie at no extra cost and shakes my hand to say “Thank You”

Ryan, the busboy can sure teach us all a valuable lesson. No matter what field we work in we need to provide the same style of work ethic to every client. If your a photographer, do you present your images to the bride this way or do you drop them to her and that is it?

Don’t you see that Ryan made it a celebration that we were enjoying our dinner and he was ecstatic that we were? He went out of his way to make sure we were smiling every minute.

I’d say to you and even to myself… no matter who your client is, they deserve a celebration. To Ryan, I was just another guy getting food and he could have bused our table and said Thank You like any proper employee would but he went above and beyond because he wanted to be remarkable.

Are you remarkable? Do you go above and beyond for each client to treat them like it’s a celebration?

Last week, I had such a fun time shooting Elysa & Todd’s engagement session in San Diego. They are full of life and they love to cuddle with each other and I love it when my clients cuddle during a shoot because I don’t like shooting “posed” images, I allow for their love to create the great images. Our shoot started at the Japanese Friendship Garden in Balboa Park and completed around the marina next to Pier 32 which is also next to the location where “The Real World” in San Diego was filmed back in 2003. It was sure a fun adventure & I cannot wait to share all the images with you! For now, here is a teaser!

What are you doing this Tuesday at 2:30pm PST? You better not say your busy, thats a lame excuse!! You know that at 2:30pm this Tuesday you want to be watching my amazing, beautiful and fabulous girlfriend Scarlett Lillian chat it up with Dane Sanders tomorrow!!

Scarlett’s background fascinates me. We were eating dinner one evening recently when she talked about how she started as a photographer 3 years ago that very same week. I love hearing of all the amazing accomplishments that my girlfriend has conquered! More than just a sought after photographer she has been featured in magazines, she was a speaker at Partner Con, started her own spend a day 1 on 1 workshops and NOW she is about to step into teaching her very first group workshop to 20 women who are flying in from all over the nation just to learn from her! You know how she did all of that. One, she has a strong relationship with Christ and two, she has asserted herself from the day she ended her videographer career and started as a photographer. You too, can do great things like this if you believe that you are a professional photographer & if you assert yourself.

This Tuesday, you have an amazing opportunity to watch as she sits down with Dane to answer your questions and cover the topic of “asserting yourself”

Here is a little video message from Scarlett

Tune into Ask Dane. Tuesday January 26th, 2010 at 2:30pm (pacific time) only at www.askdane.com

When I first started the photogshootout in San Diego in September for our first “free” event, I had no idea that it would have grown to myself and Yvonne Lebrun working together and events selling out in less than 10 minutes. San Diego PhotogShootout feels like a train that is moving at supersonic speed. The events are growing, the models are hot and the number in attendance has doubled since our last event. If this were a review of how we did in 2009, I would grade everything with an A+.

Community goes deeper than just people hanging out and taking pictures. Our events are all about having fun, learning to take better images and meeting other like-minded photographers. From the shootout, we encourage our attendees to keep the community growing. It doesn’t matter if its you and a friend taking pictures for fun or grabbing a bunch of friends for an afternoon shoot. Community is Community, plain and simple!

This month, I think we surely outdid ourselves… again. How do we keep outdoing ourselves? Last time, we shot on a ranch with horses, longhorn bulls and a huge barn. This time we shot at a great location located right behind Encinitas Ranch Golf Course called the San Dieguito Heritage Museum. It’s this small piece of land that the owners have a cute passion for collecting raw, antique stuff. For example, they have an old gas station, general store, porch and some open dirt land. Our setup was specifically designed to match the 50′s “Rock-a-billy Pinup” theme. We had a few vintage hotrods donated to us from Hire Old Cars and you can’t forget about the stunning models, rock-star leadership team & the 50 workshop attendees!

The shootout leaders that covered a range of topics from compositional shooting to strobe lighting were made up of: Garrett Photography, La Vida Creations, Evan Bishop Photography, Hanssie Trainor Photography, Scott Anderson Photography & yours truly!

After all the shooting concluded, we all regrouped at Garrett Photography’s studio in Solana Beach, CA to enjoy the community and hear from presentations that were presented by Pixel2Canvas and the nights featured speaker, Tofurious.

Hair & Makeup services provided by: Kelly Sluder and Robyn Mason

At the end of our day. Our awesome sponsor, Shoot Dot Edit sponsored our evening events with providing a great space for everyone to mingle, eat great food and be inspired by Tofurious

Tofurious rocking the packed house with his workshop, “Marketing to your Target Audience through Social Marketing”

Tofuious loves our sponsor, “Dotman” from ShootDotEdit

Thank You to our leaders, models, hair & makeup team, stylists, vintage car drivers, heritage museum and the attendees! It sure was a spectacular event!! I can’t wait to see everyone at the next one!

I am a Chargers fan, but, Peyton Manning is undoubtedly one of the best QB’s of all time. Not only that, but Tony Dungy built their franchise in the NFL known as a team that has many christians on the roster. Tony Dungy knew the right way to win and that was passed onto the Colts current head coach, Jim Caldwell. Yesterday, Peyton Manning and Jim Caldwell accepted their AFC Championship. Did you notice the first words from both of their mouths? “I’d like to thank Christ who gave us the strength to win todays game”. One more on that, my pastor Miles McPherson is the chaplain for the away teams that play the Chargers. Miles told our church a story once that when he led the service for the Colts. Manning and Dungy along with many of their players all had their bibles open along with that, they were taking pages of notes.

Based on the evidence, Peyton Manning is a great athlete and he knows that Jesus lets him live the way he does and his power comes from above. Want more information on the faith of the Colts? Read Tony Dungys book, “Quiet Strength”.

Peyton Manning steps onto the field using the gift the Lord gave him and he then speaks on behalf of his heavenly father when the opportunity arises.

Recently, another photographer told me that he disagrees with photographers putting their faith out in the open because it creates controversy. I disagree

Here is why

I firmly believe that Jesus gave me the skill that I have in Photography. I do these devotion’s because I feel that living for Christ involves living for him outside of the church and not hiding what you live for.

Are you called to be like Christ? To live like him? Did you just say, “Yes”? Did Jesus hide the fact that he was Christ? NO! He healed people in public, he pulled demons out of others in front of crowds. Now, you aren’t called to do those same things, well maybe you are because I do believe in the power of healing prayer BUT you are called to live for him, right?

As a believer & photographer I will live my faith out on my blog, facebook, twitter and whenever I speak at events. I’ve been asked “why” before. To obey god is to live for him, to live for his name through everything and as social media becomes more of the way we all communicate it should feel normal to live the way we do in person, online. That goes in depth with the idea of “be authentic”.

Whatever you do, your really good at it. Jesus put you exactly where your at while you do that thing. Give it back to him by living for him through that.

1 John 5:3 NIV

“This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world.”

I urge you…. don’t allow outside influences to change the way you live your faith. Don’t be afraid to face the frontline!

God Bless!

Well, I just got home from another installment of our San Diego PhotogShootout community workshop. If your unsure of what PhotogShootout is, in simple terms we provide a place where photogrphers, models, hair & makeup artists come together to celebrate the freedom that we have to create art. The workshop was held at the San Diego Heritage Museum followed by an after party sponsored by ShootDotEdit, featuring our special guest speaker Tofurious who gave a wonderful presentation about soical media marketing for photographers.

I will be putting together a full blog post within the next week or so. For now, check out this awesome group photo of all our 50 attendees along with the leaders & models!

Thank You everyone, for making today a complete success!

I love using new technology! New technology loves me! It’s a two way street between us.

Google Wave is a hot new feature from Google that is a new platform that merges social networking, email and phone conversations all into one program that is a livestream of conversation. If you want to plan a party, event or even just talk with friends through email but it’s LIVE! Then you need google wave. Personally, I use it to plan our workshops & shootouts and I think it’s brilliant!

If your even a bit curios as to what Google Wave can do for you, all you need to do is comment on this blog post and I will personally send you an invite!! Google Wave is still in beta and the only way to get an invite is break into the google offices which is scary and crazy or you can just comment on my blog. You choose.

By the way, I only have a few, so be the first to comment and get one before it runs out!!

Do you ever feel that moment right before you fall asleep and your eyes start closing then WHAM! Your eyes shoot right back open and you start to think… “Did I remember to do this, or do that”. It’s that kind of stuff that can’t wait until the next day?

Okay, don’t think I’m insane but what I forgot to do was drink orange juice. Last night, I’m looking at the ceiling realizing that I need to throw down some pure orange juice! I tossed and turned a few times trying to forget about the whole thing and it wouldn’t go away! At that same moment, the tv is on. I was watching Conan O’Brien and it goes to commercial. Now this part, I think God was just pulling a prank on me.

THE COMMERCIAL IS BY “SIMPLY ORANGE JUICE“!!!!!

Are you kidding me!? There is no way this just happened.

So…

I get out of bed. Walk to the kitchen and gulp down two large glasses of orange juice. AND I slept much better that night knowing that I conquered orange juice.

I love orange juice, don’t get me wrong… I just had that moment where I wanted it but I was too comfy in my feather bed and I tried to forget about it but that whole moment with the commercial threw me off the edge. I reaaallllyyy needed my orange juice.

Always remember to drink your orange juice!!