Where have you been? The question should really ask where have I been? Haven’t really tweeted, facebooked or worked for a little over the past week and that really sucks because I have so much work to get done and who wants to work when your sick? I think my mind just got rocked a little too much in the past month because I was shooting weddings then went with showit to San Fran & OC all in 3 days and that was a ton of travel. Then I came home, went to the San Diego fair with my friends, I eat some nasty fried food that no human should ever touch and I get sick the next day. I thought it would just pass by quickly… NOPE. It got worse and worse then slightly better then bad again. Last summer I shot a wedding when I had the flu (that sucked) and then last weekend I shot a wedding when I had a bad cold and it was almost 3 days to the date that I have shot two weddings one year apart when I was horribly sick. WHAT. THE. HECK!?

So, I am finally getting better. Scarlett arrives tomorrow and I feel like I’ll be 100% by the end of the week when a summer filled of amazing weddings starts up so I MUST get well by Saturday. COLD, I hate you with a passion. I’ve said that a lot this week.

While I was sick I watched a lot of TV and movies. Price is right, Let’s make a deal, Ellen, the news, americas got talent, last comic standing and sports center. Yes, I did watch Ellen a few times because I couldn’t stand watching soap operas. I watched one for 5 minutes and it made me fall asleep and it was lame so Ellen was the next best thing. You watch weird shows when you’re sick.. Price is right was pretty good but Bob Barker was way better than Drew Carry.

The one tv program that I was a loyal viewer of the most was… The World Cup! I never watched soccer before but watching so many great countries play for the past week has lead me to become a soccer fan!

Also, when your sick and need something to help detox the cold out of you.. drink LOTS of wheat grass. That stuff might taste like your eating a lawn mower but after you’ve had it for a while, it makes you feel SO good! Try it!!

Thats all for now.. I hope to be 100% again shortly! I’ll get back into the normal blogging routine then.

Yesterday, I had the honor of shooting Kara & Chris’ Wedding at the Estancia Hotel & Spa in La Jolla, CA. They are a beautiful couple and I can’t wait to share more images from their incredible wedding!

I started this week on a plane. A plane from San Diego to San Francisco which led to an automobile. That automobile led to another automobile and that trip led me to a few other cars, trucks… lots of driving. Follow me here, I know its hard figure this all out but it will make sense. I promise! So all those ways of transportation put me on a bus for a few days and now I am going home on a train from Los Angeles to San Diego.

The first leg of the 2010 SHOWIT Freedom Tour has been completed which went from San Francisco to Orange County and as I write this, they are on their way to Arizona! If you want more information on the tour, click here.

I was on the west coast part of the tour promoting a fast workflow solution for applying actions to your images called “Action Runner”. San Francisco was an awesome trip and just yesterday I was in Orange County sharing with an inspiring group of photographers who were hungry to learn information from Gabriel Ryan, Rudy Arpia, Jessica Claire & myself. Other than wonderful lessons given from our team, the night included some great “SHOWIT Live” 1-on-1 workshops on how the attendees can optimize their websites.

It was such a wonderful time being a part of the showit tour and I truly enjoyed every moment of it! Thank You, SHOWIT! I love you guys and I already miss everyone!

Special Thanks to Rudy Arpia for snapping these great images from the event!

I’m sitting in a Starbucks. The time is 5:30pm. I have traveled from San Diego to San Francisco and now a road trip to Santa Barbara before we head down south near my hometown of Orange County. This is intense. I’m tired but really excited to see what comes next at the same time!

A few weeks ago, Showit contacted me asking if I wanted to speak on their tour. At the same time, Actionrunner & Thirst Relief who are the tour sponsor contacted me in the same day asking me to speak for them too! So I’m part of the tour on the west coast representing both Showit & Actionrunner. It has been special for me to take part with them because it was only two years ago when I attended the “Free to Succeed Tour” in San Diego right before I started my business and since then I have been building my brand and on the same type of tour today, I’m speaking on it. It’s been emotional in that respect and I’m extremely humbled to be on this journey with them!

Tuesday morning I woke up at 6am for my 8 am flight to San Fran. Arrived in San Fran, did a little final prep for my presentation. Later that night everything started to get together and people started to arrive. It was the first stop in the 2010 SHOWIT Freedom Tour!

By the way, HUGE thanks to Henry Sun for snapping such great images of the entire evening!

First part of the evening I joined Showits rad support stud Andrew with the live help desk to help photographers make their sites rock out!

Right before me were great presentations from David Jay, Jessica Claire & Jasmine Star and a wonderful concert from Molly Jens0n!

Okay so at this point, DJ walked up to me and asked if I was ready to speak. Uhhhhhh… (long pause) Yes! I couldn’t believe it and I was so excited that my body was a little shaky. But the group of attendees were so awesome and they made me feel really chill. Thank You guys!

Overall. San Francisco was incredible. My presentation was great, the photographers attending were so awesome!! Thank You!

Today, I’m leaving for a road trip with SHOWIT and a few other great photographers for the first leg of the 2010 Freedom Tour! I’m SO excited!! Later today I will be speaking in San Francisco and on Thursday, Orange County!

The last time I was in San Francisco was when I was a child so I don’t remember that well. I will not have any time to explore the city, but regardless, I know it will be an incredible experience!! A few tickets are still available to pick yours here!

I’ll return home on Friday

Yesterday, a couple of San Diego Photographers and myself got together for a shoot. We met at an industrial park area for an hour of shooting followed by dinner at Soupplantation! I love the community we all have as photographers. So, during the shoot we had a 1 light setup with an Alienbee Ringflash and I was demonstrating to our group how you don’t only need a studio light for indoor studio shooting. Whenever you get the chance, bring a studio light to a shoot outdoors and make some awesome images come together!

One thing I learned from my good friend Zach Gray about outdoor shooting is that if you bring along 1 studio light to your outdoor shoot and expose correctly, you will have consistent lighting so when you enter your workflow, the editing will extremely quick and you could practically pull these images from camera directly and they would look great.

Here is the before (without the light). Natural light shot. See how it looks flat, only one source of light on the image.

1/320 f/3.5 ISO 100

Then I added a light to this same location. Now see the difference with what 1 single light will do to your location. It looks completely different and a WAY cooler shot!! NO photoshop was added to this image. I opened ACR and did a few tweaks to the image to give it the look it has but everything was done in camera with 1 ringflash. See how defined this looks?

1/200 f/14 ISO 100

Kay & Stephen are an amazing couple. They are also super smart and super in love. Oh, by the way… they are also both super intelligent scientists. Kay & Stephen attended the same high school in San Diego. They were the common story that I’ve heard before of “we knew of each other in school but didn’t date until our senior year”.

Then came time for graduation. They continued their relationship. Kay stayed local in San Diego (UCSD) and Stephen went north to Los Angeles (Cal Poly). After college Kay moved up north to be near Stephen and complete her Ph.D. Like I said before, these two are really smart. So now they reside in the LA area, both working as scientists and saving the world one day at a time. (Just kidding about the world)

The one strong commonality between these two is their love for adventure. They love rock climbing, off roading, hiking, camping and obviously being in love! At least once a month they find themselves spending time in the desert and that is where we ended up for their engagement session, one of their favorite places of all time.. Joshua Tree, CA.

We spent a full day in the desert dealing with 110 degree heat but at the end of the day, these two rocked it with their incredible style!

On our way out of Joshua Tree, we saw an old trash dump so we decided to explore the area. We eventually found part of an old house sitting there and I had fun setting this shot up. I shot through the free standing window with them sitting on the chair and the house behind them. Off camera light to the left hand side.

I’m super amped about this weeks “Ask away Wednesday”! Things are going to be a little different this week where instead of me recording a video and placing it on my blog, I’ll be on a LIVE webinar chatting with the team from SHOWIT all about social media & showit +sites and how you can create not only flash versions but now mobile ones too! Instead of the regular 10 minute video with 1 question… this week will be a 1 hour talk with a live Q&A! If you have already built a client site or you want to see the power of them, check out the live chat! You can register for FREE by clicking here

Wednesday June 9th, 2010 1pm-2pm (PST)

Click here to register for FREE

Last weekend I took the long drive to the Joshua Tree, CA desert with one of my awesome couples, Kay & Stephen! I’ll share more later but these two are so awesome! They love to backpack together on the weekends and Joshua Tree is one of their favorite places on earth. Checkout this teaser from the shoot!

If you follow my blog & facebook profile, you should know that I love SHOWIT and I’m always mentioning the powerful features that are available for your business. It provides the freedom of creating a unique website, client websites and now the ability of a mobile website for your smartphone!

Another reason of why I love showit is that they are constantly giving back to their users. One huge way that they are giving back this year is by going on the road for a few weeks to hangout with all their users! They’re taking a group of awesome photographers on a bus and going to nine cities where they’ll have photographers presenting great information, live Q&A, showit genius bar to get all your questions answered, and a live concert benefitting Thirst Relief!

I’m going to be representing both Showit and Actionrunner in San Francisco and Orange County. I’ll be sharing my workflow and how it can create more freedom to your business! It’s going to be an incredible time and I can’t wait to see you there!

Tickets are only $50! To get your seat, click here!