Meet the Allen girls, aka “Allen’s Angels.” This is an exclusive sneak-peek of what’s to come when we announce our first-ever Limited Edition event this spring, “Little Angels.” The Allen’s used to live 2 doors down from us (they moved all the way across town….5 minutes from here!). When they decided to bring their sweet girls to us, we couldn’t resist using them for models for our Angels event (more on that later, but you won’t see these wings except at the event each year). We couldn’t have asked for better models for these beautiful wings, and mom & dad loved the angel images, too. Miss L & Miss A were so agreeable and let us do anything we wanted (hence, the fluffy white hat, too!). What can we say? We can’t resist using cute kids to try out our stuff when they are up for it! Oh yeah, mom & dad weren’t too shabby, etiher! 🙂
The wind blew us into IKEA for our semi-annual visit. Every now and then I get a hankering to pay homage to my Swedish roots. Sorry Gramps, breakfast at Ikea is about as far as I get.
It never ceases to amaze me how much fun the kids have here. Seriously…it’s ridiculous, you would think we were at Disneyland. Hey wait a minute… maybe I’m on to something. The employees even act like it’s Disneyland.
“Teagan, stop jumping on that bed!”
“It’s quite alright sir, that’s what they are there for”
While in line at breakfast, Miss T somehow knocked over the ENTIRE tray of oatmeal condiments (rasins, brown sugar and milk) sending them crashing to the floor, shards of glass and sugary mess everywhere. I do not exaggerate, their were two employees there before the last piece of glass came to rest. I couldn’t even get an apology out before one of them interrupted me.
“Darn those pesky bowls…they just get in the way don’t they?”
Teagan stood blank faced, somewhere between shock and tears.
“I do that all the time!” said the bright smiling Ikea castmember. “You guys better hurry up and sit down before your food gets cold…we’ll take care of this!”
Fourteen thank-you’s later, I took Stef and the girls to our table. On the way there, I glanced over my shoulder…no mess to be found. The whole thing was cleaned up and a new tray was on the counter…
Ok, maybe this IS Disneyland..
Reminds me of the last scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark!
It seems lately we’ve had a run of photographing beautiful sisters, and the Fastiggi girls were no exception! I’m sure having their portraits made wasn’t high on the priority list for these teenage girls, but mom & dad felt it was time, as they haven’t been professionally photographed together in ages. They were such great sports and brought the best clothes! Dad absolutely loved the last image here and swore it looked like an album cover…and it looked amazing as the 20×30 metallic fine art print they ordered. We’re so lucky we get to photograph such gorgeous AND truly nice people!
An audience with the King.
Got a chance to meet Kevin King, inventor of the RadioPoppers, the amazing cool new wireless transmitting device for off camera flashes. NOTE: this post is for the particularly geeky photog types so the rest of y’all might want to move on…
First, I don’t know why, but I was surprised about how young this guy is. Something about the name KING just made me think white beard and silver blond hair. For some reason I kept picturing the Burger King guy…At any rate, Kevin is one of the most unassuming down to earth (brown haired)guys you’ll meet and it was a pleasure chatting with him.
Ok, the skinny. Kevin made a cool device called RadioPoppers. Essentially what they do is make wireless infrared flash photography possible at incredible distances, and eliminate the need for ‘line of sight’ shooting. Before these cool doo dahs, in order to use a flash off camera in ETTL mode, your transmitter had to ‘see’ or be pointing in the direction of the other flash unit. Who cares right? Well, now you can put flash units wherever you want (behind trees, on balconies, under staircases) and get a balanced exposure all controlled by the unit on the camera.
This is really cool for wedding photographers. Now we can set up all kinds of lighting before the event, and make adjustments on the fly without even seeing the other flash units. No more asking assistants to adjust the lights and no more missed shots from flash misfires.
I asked Kevin how they work and he was thrilled to tell me. Unfortunately, after ten seconds all I heard was mwaa mwaa, blaahh mwaaa…. or something about a gated hoopflange…
Kevin, I appreciate your intellect, but all I really want to know is, can I put a flash in a trash can and fire it from across the room? Apparently the answer is yes.
For those in the know, and anxiously awaiting…they WORK! It is quite awesome to use them. I dare say, and I might be speaking prematurely, that these babies may forever change wedding photography…heck flash photography in general. Can’t wait for the first production run (hey Kev, I’m on the list right?), these things are going to be fun!!
Kevin was nice enough to strike a pose here showing off his new toys. Best of luck!!
After the fun at the mall, we took the girls down to La Jolla cove to see the sea lions. Not much excitement here as they were all asleep, but Reilly & Miss T were fascinated. We could have stayed here all day. Check out the lone white sea lion! We had such a great time visiting with family & friends, & the 80-degree sunshine today wasn’t too shabby, either. We’re on our way home tonight…back to more fun!
The Tignino sisters came on a cold January day and were such good sports outside, even though we were all freezing! Their mom & dad told us they really just wanted to capture the personalities of their daughters at this point in time. Based on their reaction when they saw their images, I think they got exactly what they were looking for. It’s so interesting to photograph siblings at these ages when their personalities really do show through; the differences are so apparent, even if they don’t say much during the session. Middle sis here was the perfect example; she said very little, if anything, during the session, but we could tell by her actions and “quiet attitude” that she really was into being photographed–and the images say it all! Such great girls…mom & dad have every reason to be proud.
We’re on a mini-vacation in San Diego right now, visiting friends and James’ family. These are a few images from the fun day we had with the girls yesterday. We considered going to Sea World or the zoo, but then realized it doesn’t really matter where we take them, as long as we’re together and the focus is on them…hence, the fun day out to lunch, the bookstore, at the outdoor mall for Ben & Jerry’s, and checking out the sea lions camped out on the beach in La Jolla. More images to follow from the beach…stay tuned!
Reilly posing in front of a cool wall at the Pacific Sunwear store
Enjoying some yummy Ben & Jerry’s ice cream
Teagan focused on her coloring while waiting for her pizza
Teagan relaxing on the sea lion statue at the mall
These gorgeous people are the Coursey family. Mama is preggo with a baby girl this time around and wanted to capture this special time with big brother, B. It’s funny because more and more these days we’re finding a connection other than the photography with many of our clients…scary it’s such a small town! After chatting a bit, I realized that dad and I went to rival high schools, graduated the same year, and knew a whole bunch of the same people. I’m pretty sure we must have met at some point along the way due to all of the mutual friends. Makes what we do that much more fun! Good luck to the Coursey’s on the exciting event coming up soon!
This is Miss A and her proud parents. Little Miss A was about 6 weeks old when we photographed her, and she’s absolutely gorgeous (mom & dad aren’t too shabby, either!). What you don’t see here is their other baby, their yellow labrador. The day they came to us it was pouring down rain, so the dog hung out in their car until the very end of the session, when Eric went out and got her for her cameo in the photo session. She did great and they got the family portrait they hoped for with both babies! We really hit it off with this family, and I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that Eric, like James, is from the San Diego area and is an even bigger Charger’s fan than James, if that’s possible!:) I don’t know what the deal is with all of our clients who share the Charger’s passion, but it sure is great!
