The new backyard

More Oakland greats!

Left Your Pet at Home? More Hotels Offer Them

This was a great shoot I worked on with one of my favorite photographers, Caren Alpert.  We had a great time playing fetch with Zuess and dodging slobber while he jumped around my laptap.  The resort is beautiful with some of the most friendly staff I have ever encountered.  So great to see this on TIME.com!  Follow the link for the full story. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2034634,00.html

Fast Company with Jill Greenberg

This was such a great cover shoot to work on. Everyone at the twitter office was friendly and not at all your typical tech company. The Fast Company team were easy going and allowed Jill to take the time for the whole team to get to know our amazing subjects.aption

What is your color IQ?

This is a great little test to calibrate how you see color.  It will let you know how you evaluate different colors on the spectrum and score you!  I scored a 15 with 0 being perfect.  All of my errors where in the green spectrum.  Good thing it wasn't in the reds because that is where half of my color correcting for work is needed!

http://xritephoto.com/ph_toolframe.aspx?action=coloriq

Oakland Cemetary

Oakland Classics II

Dog Culture

Oakland Classics

Fall Train Ride

There is a certain nostalgia being in old train stations.  Many people complain that America is missing this lifestyle, that it can only be found in Europe.  It's here, it just runs much, MUCH, slower.

Wonderful day at LeftSpace

I had a great day assisting Mike over at Leftspace. The staff Justin and Dakota are supportive and easy going, some of the best studio managers around!

Fun test shoot

This is from a few months back, I love working with Mike, he has a great creativity and loves to explore new things.
http://vimeo.com/10392068

Working with the best!

It was great to work with Jill Greenberg.  I love, love, love her pictures of animals!  It was a wonderful, simple, shoot with great people.  I will post the cover shot once it goes to print!

Lunch!

Screen Grabs in Portrero

Captured In San Francisco

Awesome Photo Shoot!

Great dog, awesome owner, Great shoot!

Holiday Season on the way

Had a wonderful time working with the great creative team on their new holiday look book.

Can't wait to see the final product.

Moose II

Yet another great pet named Moose!

another great night

I love my job!

Another wonderful weekend.

Memorial day

Saratoga

The Butcher, The Chef, & the Goat

Incredible event at www.studio308sf.com This is a great event space with beautiful natural light in the historic cannery building.

Mountain Winery

Wedding Season

I am so happy to be in wedding season again.  The wine weddings are in full swing, let us eat cake!

Diablo Magazine another great dig tech assignment!

Élevé - Diablo Magazine - May 2010 - East Bay - California

Dog Love

Nothing Better than your own backyard

Golden Gate Park

Light Modifiers.

The question I am most asked by photographers. "Have you seen any new/creative light modifications while out there assisting?"

There are the typical standbys. The Beauty Dish is an effective constant in many photographers bag of tricks. Of course the medium softbox is another perfect standby. A few that I see a bit less of are medium strips with grids, I highly recommend anyone who does portraits to give those inserts a try. Pro Camera and Calumet rent them but quantities are limited in the SF rental market so reserve them in advance.


My new favorite is the elinchrome system. Not the generic octabank you see at every corporate set from here to New York but some of their smaller modifiers. The rotalox spot is my new favorite. It gives detail in the shadows but still has that directional softness we have all come to love.....and over use! Plus they are easy to travel with and come with the case! TAKE THAT BEAUTY DISH!

This will help you!

Want to keep canon utility on your computer, but hate that it keeps auto loading,and slowing down/sometimes crashing Capture One? Make your digital tech, assistant, yourself happy and do the following!

Go to Application>Image Capture>Preferences>Camera>then select NO APPLICATION!

The Moose

Love the natural light studios, can't resist them.

Cupertino & Berkeley

Had a wonderful time working with the New Yorkers. Nice to have some east coast snobbery to keep me from going completely N. Cal Hippie. Sad to have busted up the cube truck, but hey sometimes things just don't go as planned. Check out Marco's website, his agency is the same as Herb Ritts.....Perhaps another legend in the making. He also has a great assistant, Tara.

My Dusty Canon 50mm Macro

This old lens has served me well. I bought it on my 18th birthday, along with my EOS 3. The poor little thing just can't hold focus any longer. Hard to let the thing go but the repair man says it can't be salvaged. 12 years isn't bad for a lens. Time to get the 100mm and say farewell to over a decade of use. This photo was taken with the addition of an extension tube, that luckily doesn't need replacing.

Mavis

Thanks to Caren Alpert for the use of her beautiful studio. Rentals are available and the space has a huge freight elevator! I used the Profoto Umbrella for this shot and I love the soft wrap around light. Cant believe this was a F11.

Montara

Nice long hike up the Montara hillside, this is a view towards Pacifica. It's a long 11 miles with a 2200 elevation gain. It's the best time of year to enjoy some vibrant green outdoors! Also a dog friendly hike. The Mavis was in heaven.

Fun Photo "Editing" Solutions

Seems like everyone has their favorite lately and we have all seen the pictures on facebook of the people using them, but I was wondering what some of the photographers I work with are using for their snapshots.

Poladroids are really cute and are now supported outside of just the mac native platform. Plus they always have that great muted color.

Photoshop lite made the list but many said it bogged down their Iphone.

The mill from the UK is really cool and allows for a lot of individual color tweeks. Thanks to Mike Sugrue for that one.

Camera bag is one of the most useful for catchy fun pics of about anything. It is very user friendly.

My Personal favorite is the best camera You can frame,vignette, and send everything to all the popular social networking sites out there. It is also great for quickly converting to Black and White It's easy to use and you have probably already seen its effects all over!

Hunters Point

Simplify

I have long been an admirer of her work and have seen exhbits in LA,New York, San Francisco. This looks like a great opportunity to see some of her lesser known photographs.

Diane Arbus: Christ in a lobby and other Uknown or Almost Known Works

Check it Out!