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 love showit and all that it allows me to do for my own website and all my clients too! Showit gives you the freedom to put your websites on facebook then tag your clients into them and that instantly becomes a great marketing tool that makes you look awesome to all their friends. The latest installment to the long list of amazing showit features is now mobile websites! So many great photographers who are showit users have been creating great mobile websites that are viewable on almost any smartphone. I’ve recently taken advantage of this awesome new feature and launched my own mobile website!!

I’ve even now taken it one step further. I know that most of my clients have smartphones such as the iPhone, Android & the Droid. They are also sharing with me whenever possible that they love showing off their sweet images to friends and family. Showit already has given me the power to create web based client websites which showcases their lovestory, images and wedding day details. All of these features to my clients are now available for them to view on their phones! Showit has made it easy so when a client or anyone else tries to view the normal client website from a phone, it automatically redirects them to the mobile site!! How amazing is that?? Talk about awesome marketing! If you have a smartphone, visit my mobile site at: http://web.stephenknuth.com

If you haven’t yet, click here to download Showit. It’s free!

A few weeks ago, I got an email from an aspiring photographer in San Diego. His name is Dan Fields and he is an amazing guy. He has a strong heart for the lord and he loves his family. Dan has been shooting quite a lot lately but he was searching for a few answers to his questions of the need to grow his business to the next level. We connected and planned a 7 hour day 1-on-1 workshop which was held in San Diego. We met at Java Jones which is one of my favorite coffee shops of all time. This is where we discussed a ton of awesome information to help Dan reach the next level (which he has), do a headshot session of him and shoot an awesome downtown bridal shoot with Keary & Justin. It was such a wonderful day!!

Stephen Knuth workshop testimonial from stephen knuth on Vimeo.

If your are interested in doing a 7 hour day 1-on-1 workshop with me, click here for more information

I first met Phil a couple of years ago right after I had first gotten saved. He was the lead singer in the worship band at church where my parents & sister were all married and its the same church where I have been serving as a youth leader for the past six years. He recently went to Nashville, TN to start the recording process for his new worship album that is is releasing sometime in the early fall. I got a call from him last month asking if I would shoot the cover. Okay, now I really wanted to respond with, “Yes, Yes, Yes!! That sounds like so much fun!” The only thing is that I have little experience in photographing musicians. I am a wedding & portrait photographer. (Side note:If you want to see an incredible music photographer, checkout my friend David Molnar) Phil believed in me and he knew that I would do a great job. I accepted the shoot and we planned some sweet concepts for his album. I knew that during this shoot, Christ would give me the power to do great and he really did come through.

We did the shoot last week in downtown San Diego. We partnered up with my good friends at Hotel Indigo to shoot on their rooftop and also walked around the area near Petco Park. Such beautiful light!!

Checkout some of Phils music by clicking here

Shot my good friend and musician, Phil Higgins cd cover last week in downtown San Diego. Here is the teaser from our shoot!!

A few months ago I got an email from a photographer based out of Missouri. She had started a business, booked a few weddings and is happy as a photographer but she felt stuck and she wanted to grow to the next level. The next level of how to give her clients an amazing experience, how to start using social media to book brides, creating a quick workflow to finish images in faster time so that she could give more time to her family. She revealed to me that she had been following my work, inspired by my story and wanted to learn from me. I thought about it and agreed.

Angie arrived in San Diego, we covered everything she expected to learn. The 7 hour day included a super rad engagement session in San Diego, lunch and a fun headshot session. Following the 7 hour day it just so happend that I had a wedding the following day so I was lucky enough to give Angie not one but two consecutive days of learning. Thank You, Angie!! I had an amazing time with you!

Here is a sweet video that Angie sent me following her experience! Isn’t she awesome!?

Here is a preview from the headshot session I did with Angie

If you are a photographer interested in a 7 hour day learning experience, please email me at info@stephenknuth.com and we can chat all about the details!

Update: Since our session together two weeks ago, Angie has put all these awesome tools that she learned to good use and booked a destination wedding!! AWESOME!

Here are a few images from the engagement session we had (with one of my clients & happily married couple, Courtney and Andy)

Last week while I was hanging out with my love Scarlett Lillian, we had the opportunity to take one of Jacksonvilles amazing couples Dustin & Candice out for a shoot in the backwoods area for a shoot with our new lighting rig! The lighting rig consists of a Vegabond Powerpack, Alienbee 1600 and a strip soft box.

I have been shooting with studio lights since my college days and I love to work with it any opportunity I can. When my good friends Zach & Jody Gray were in SoCal a few months ago to teach their lighting workshop, I went up one afternoon and there I learned how to shoot better images in camera but also how to travel with your studio lights onto a location shoot.

I love shooting with off camera light now because not only do you get killer images IN CAMERA (Yes… most of these images were done in camera and had little to no photoshop done to them) but you also get to capture images with perfect lighting. If you want to learn more of this topic then you should check out Zach & Jodys lighting IN-CAMERA workshops!! Click here for more info