Unveilus

Custom made halloween costume for Gia

2011-10-31T14:49:00.001-07:00

This is Gia's halloween costume that was made by my mom and designed by Kattia. We started looking for a pre-columbian outfit or a pipil outfit to be exact, but didn't find anything that came close. Since there wasn't an outfit that we could simply buy... Kattia began doing some research and finally arrived at the designed shown on these photos.

My mom is an expert with textiles and makes sample garments for top labels, so we thought this would be a good project for her. There is also a halloween costume competition at her work, (which they take very serious) and maybe we can win a prize.

The costume pays homage to the native pipil people of El Salvador. We obviously took some creative freedom and made it look a bit more festive, but the basic shapes and overall pattern is inspired by authentic garments. I was happy that Gia was a good sport, and let me take these photos without yanking off her costume's headdress.

Point and shoot shutterbug techniques

2009-11-20T18:12:00.001-08:00

For anyone interested in improving their photographs using a point and shoot camera, check out pointandshootshutterbug.com. The site has a number of tips that are easy to follow. There are examples of photos using the techniques described in the site and what to do to achieve great results without the need for expensive photographic equipment. The owner of the website Kenny Watson (photographer), is a buddy of mine from art school. Here is a photo I took, as we work our way through a bottle of sake in little Tokyo.

hilton anaheim wedding reception and ceremony at saint pius v roman catholic church

2009-10-22T00:15:00.000-07:00

We started shooting the bride at the Hilton Anaheim hotel near the Disneyland resort. The bride and her bridesmaids were upbeat and having a great time. As the bridesmaids helped the bride to get ready, Kattia began to take photos in a photo-journalistic fashion. The room had many large windows which provided natural light and a modern backdrop. I took the photo shown below in this setting, which gave the bride a really nice splendor.

The ceremony took place at the Saint Pius V Roman Catholic Church in Buena Park. Flash photography was not allowed during the ceremony but we were allowed to move around the isles. I was glad that we could move from one point to another because it allows us more creativity and better photo opportunities.

After the ceremony I rode in the limo, with the bridal party, to the Cerritos Sculpture Garden. The garden offers a number of open spaces as well as intimate areas and a collection of public artwork. The garden provided the perfect setting for the bridal portraits.

The ceremony at the Anaheim Hilton went smoothly. I was impressed by the crew from the Anaheim Hilton as they were courteous, friendly and fast. The bride and groom made a great entrance. At some point, the groom lifted the bride and took her for a spin. It was a really cool/stylish move and the guests loved it.

Saint Pius V Catholic Church
7691 Orangethorpe Ave Buena Park, CA 90621
Hilton Anaheim
777 convention way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Ice Town's First Annual Charity Hockey Tournament

2009-04-26T14:43:00.000-07:00

The Ice Town hockey team won the championship game and will now go on to play the NHL alumni! I'll be shooting that later tonight if I don't freeze my butt before then. Here is a photo of the winning team.

The photo below shows Matt (the director of hockey at ice town and really cool guy) presenting a huge check to the Loma Linda University Children's Hospital. Earlier in the week I got a change to meet up with Tiffany from Loma Linda and I have only good things to say about them too. I was such an honor to be a part of this charity event.

Click here to view more photos of Ice Town's First Annual Charity Hockey Tournament

Traditional Wedding at the San Gabriel Mission

2009-03-10T12:58:00.001-07:00

Here is a wedding I shot at the San Gabriel Mission, in San Gabriel California. This is a great place for traditional weddings due to the style of the church. It's a very popular location for wedding portraits as well. You can see more photos of this venue in our San Gabriel Mission Wedding Gallery.

A visit to the PMA 2009 show in vegas

2009-03-07T07:56:00.001-08:00

I had a chance to go to this years PMA show in Vegas this week. I saw so many cool new products and services. I was surprised to see so many coffee table book binding systems. The staff of WHCC was also there, and I have a book coming in from them in a few days.

A visit to southern california's railway museum

2009-02-05T16:36:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed the scenery and the collection of trains at the Orange Empire Railway Museum. They also have many trains that are being restored and provides opportunities to photograph textures, vintage signage and cool mechanical forms. Below is a photo taken in front of a train engine. I will return later in the year to photograph Thomas The Train Engine when it becomes available at the museum.

A nice wedding day at the Hyatt in Huntington Beach california

2008-10-20T22:32:00.000-07:00

Here are my favorite photos from this wedding. It took place at the Hyatt in Huntington Beach, a beautiful place for weddings. In the morning I covered the groom as he and his brother got ready. At the same time Rudy Arpia was covering the bride as she was getting ready. The grooms mother was very nice and treated me to a Chinese pastry, stuffed with sweet meat. Great stuff, but I don't know what its called.
It was a beautiful day even the sky had nice white puffy clouds. The ceremony took place in front of the bridge that leads to the beach. I guess that's good feng shui. The reception had nice lighting by OC Audio Visual Solutions. Matthew, the owner of OCAV, gave me some good advice on marriage while we waited for the guests to enter the reception area.

The bride looked beautiful and her bridesmaids were great. They did the "robot" (dance) during the reception. It was great.

Wedding at St. Edmunds Episcopal Church in San Marino

2008-10-09T17:14:00.000-07:00

I photographed Heidi and George on their wedding day a few weeks ago. The wedding took place in San Marino, CA at St. Edmunds Episcopal Church. I had a great time shooting it and the bridal party was fun and offered lots of creative ideas. I wish we would have had more time, since they seemed to want to keep trying a variety of poses. I love shooting at this time of year, the light was incredible and Heidi found an awesome location for the portrait session. Here are just a few of my favorites photos.

Wedding at the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles

2008-10-07T16:23:00.000-07:00

I went to my first lesbian wedding that took place at the first congregational church in LA. The church has the largest church pipe organ in the world. The sound from the organ is powerful... I wish my home sound system sounded like that! The brides were beautiful and the details on their dresses were exquisite.

Wedding Ceremony & Reception At The Skirball Cultural Center

2008-07-23T22:16:00.001-07:00

These photos were taken at the Skirball Cultural Center. The architecture at the Skirball is real nice... it reminds me of the Getty Center. The light in the afternoon was perfect. The bride and groom looked damn good! It was great shooting with Rudy again and this time we even shot a celebrity. I'm going back to the Skirball to check out their Noah's Ark exhibit.

Wedding reception at the sheraton anaheim hotel (disney hotel)

2008-07-08T17:24:00.001-07:00

I joined Rudy to shoot a wedding in Anaheim, at the Bethel Baptist Church (originally known as the German Baptist Church and later as the North American Baptist Church). I had a good time shooting from the balcony at the back of the church while Rudy covered the first floor. The ceremony was long and was conducted in Romanian and English simultaneously. My best friend in High School was Romanian, so I could understand a few words. I learned from the ceremony that one should not go to bed upset with their loved ones. It seems like good advice, so I'll give it a try and see how it works out. You should try it too. The groom is a huge soccer fan... just check out the wedding cake topper to see what I mean. He is really lucky to have a bride that lets him get away with that. The reception took place in the Disney Hotel, check out Rudy's blog for bridal portraits at the hotel gardens.

My photo in a legalzoom commercial

2008-05-30T03:26:00.001-07:00

I finally got the chance to see my photo and design work on tv. They have been running the Legalzoom commercials for some time now, but I've never been around to see them when they come on. I took the photo below on location and after heavy photoshop work it started looking more like what we had imagined. Basically we wanted to have a scence that showed the moment of a client receiving their Legalzoom goods by mail. We had a short deadline and the creative director was planning on changing the background to a residential setting in post. You can see the videos here

Live Blogging from Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve

2008-05-04T15:50:00.001-07:00

I'm posting from the Poppy reserve and the fields looks great. My girlfriend was here last weekend and said the fields had more blooms than today. I'll post more photos later.

Wedding at the Bel Air Presbyterian Church

2008-04-26T23:09:00.001-07:00

I just finished second shooting a wedding with Rudy. I'm posting this as he drives us back home. The wedding went great and here are a few of shots from the event. All of these shots were processed using the OQO. The step that takes the longest in the process is converting the raw files to jpgs from lightroom.

Logo Designs for Foro de Fotografos & Andres Valenzuela Photography

2008-04-04T15:31:00.000-07:00

Rudy (the creator of Foro de Fotografos) asked me to redesign his logo. His forum has been rapidly growing and attracted many successful and aspiring photographers. The forum is 100% in Spanish, which means I have to polish up my Spanish writing skills (although Rudy tells me that my written Spanglish can be understood). I got a chance to meet many of the forum members in Vegas this year during the WPPI convention and they are a cool bunch of dudes and gals with so much passion for photography. SO MUCH PASSION FOR PHOTOGRAPHY... damn, i can't emphasize that enough. It's a treat working on this project, knowing that there are so many cool people behind the brand.

The idea behind the design was to create a mark that emphasized the double F's found in the name. I also wanted the idea of an entry way, which was done by leaving the F in the foreground open at the bottom. The first F appears to be in a room while the second F in the background evolves into a more organically shaped room. At some point in the design, the double F's began to represent the members and the process that occurs as both members and forum shape one another through collaboration. I also proposed two additional ideas (seen in the lower left corner) which suggested a sense of unity/community.

This logo is a redesign for Andres Valenzuela Photography. I met this dude at David Jay's party in Santa Barbara in January, but it wasn't until I met up with him in Vegas that we talked about working on his logo. There were a couple of things that I wanted to bring to this design. I felt the original was unbalanced and too rigid. So I created a letter "v" that is angular on one side but finishes wonderfully organic on the right side. For those of you who know typography, you'll know that a letter "a" next to a letter "v" can create distracting negative spaces in between the letters. To remedy that effect, I slanted the "a" and "v" and put them close to each other, thus creating a more solid entity. What I love about this design is the juxtaposition of the organic shapes against the dynamic double hash marks in the middle. (They remind me of the hash marks on a 1996 corvette grand sport... but hey, thats just me)

Serrano Canyon Hike Photos

2008-03-24T16:24:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we hiked the Serrano Canyon Trail (see map below). This is the best time to hike this trail because the wild flowers are in bloom and the weather is nice. The hike is about 8 miles round trip starting from the parking lot. I didn't take so much photo gear this time, just a 20d with a 17-40mm lens.

Here are a couple of things to watch out for if you decide to hike this trail. There is a lot of poison oak along the trail, and mosquitoes in the lower part of the trail so wear long sleeves or bug repellent. There are also a dozen or so, small creek crossings along the way that are slippery, especially for kids. Three people from our group got their shoes wet when they slipped while crossing. I even have a photo of my girlfriend's mom slipping, but won't post it because my gf would kill me. :)

Reaching the end of the trail is the best part. Once there, there are many spots to take portraits or landscapes. The view is inspiring and the sound of the wind moving through the fields is really relaxing.

View Larger Map

First Photo of Spring- Clover Flowers

2008-03-20T20:09:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning and realized it's the first day of spring. Here is an image I shot a few days ago from my garden. I use to photograph flowers and landscapes whenever Kattia, Rudy and I went hiking. It's been a while since I went hiking but this year I plan on checking out some trails and I'll share some of the photos I take here.

Sweet 16 Party Photos

2008-03-11T18:04:00.001-07:00

I photographed my niece's sweet sixteen party a couple of days ago. She is a demanding gal! She wanted her photos the very next day… haha. Her party took place at the Rancho Cucamonga Lions Club and the photos were taken just as the sun was setting. The party was cool, even though nobody spiked the punch.

Photo session with Kyren

2008-01-28T00:05:00.001-08:00

I spent a few hours working with Kyren under cold and rainy weather. We initially wanted to take portraits in the mountains since there is so much snow cover. However the weather was too rough to drive up. So we headed to a nearby location with large open spaces and a roof to protect us from the rain. Kyren is a model and I've known her since art school. I've worked with her on a number of projects and she is always cool to work with. Here are a few photos from the shoot:

A new replacement for my laptop the… the OQO 02

2008-01-21T17:52:00.001-08:00

I bought an OQO 02 last November as a replacement for my laptop. I'm using it to backup CF cards after a shoot, post process raw photos, blog, navigation, stream internet radio, and run all the applications I have on my laptop. I am running XP on it and its working great. Post processing raw photos is possible but a bit slow. I'm amazed that a device this small can process 12mb raw files and give me the ability to apply actions or filters in Photoshop cs3.

Here are the specs:

Processor:
1.6GHz CPU

Operating system:
XP Professional

Disk drive:
120GB

Memory:
1GB DDR2 SDRAM

Wireless:
WiFi 802.11 abg + Bluetooth
WWAN: Verizon REV A

You can find more info at the the oqo website: http://www.oqo.com/

Snow Sledding at Mt Baldy

2008-01-14T13:39:00.000-08:00

I went snow sledding with my family and took my camera with me. The weather was nice but it was a bit windy. Heading up to the Mt Baldy ski lifts took a while because of the traffic. Check out the photos:

Liz + Josh wedding

2007-11-13T23:17:00.000-08:00

I shot a wedding with Rudy a few weeks ago. During the getting ready session, I got a chance to photograph the bride's ring. I really loved the ornate style of the ring.

Portraits of Kattia

2007-09-10T01:15:00.000-07:00

We got bored this Sunday afternoon and decided to take a few shots using our Canon 85mm f 1.2 lens. It’s a really great lens for portraits and creates a nice blur after just a few inches from the point of focus.

Here Marlon took a few shots of me in the backyard. You know we photograph people all the time, but I think its harder being the subject and posing. It was fun though; I would love to do it again, but perhaps with a more dramatic wardrobe and setting.

Our New Custom Built Workstation

2007-09-06T17:34:00.000-07:00

We’ve just got a new custom built computer to handle our image processing. The system we are replacing was not keeping up with the high resolution camera files we shoot. We needed something fast, powerful, quiet and with good looks. For the case, we went with the Cooler Master® COSMOS™. This was one of the more aesthetically pleasing cases we found, next to the Lian Li Cases. It’s cooled by the new GIGABYTE™ 3D Galaxy II Liquid Cooling System. Overall, it’s a very silent system with lots of room for expansion and the RAID drives are cool.

Here are a few specs: Intel® Core™2 Quad CPU 2.40GHz, 4GB RAM, 2 - GeForce® 8600 GTS in SLI™, 2 - 300GB SATA hard drives, 2 - 500GB SATA hard drives in RAID. All this equipment is sure to speed up the time spent on processing photos.

Gracias to Matt at Zionik for building our system (while addressing all of our concerns) and getting it to us in a week!

Adam and Belen

2007-07-28T15:49:00.000-07:00

We had the opportunity of photographing Adam and Belen this past weekend at the university they attended. It was great working with them because they let us try some poses we had not used before and they just had wonderful chemistry that came through on so many of our shots.

This shot really shows Adam and Belen's energy and spontaneity. In leaning further back, a wonderful expression emerged on each of their faces.

Adam and Belen had some great salsa moves, and were not afraid to show them off.