Begic: Egyptian themed wedding

When I first spoke to Jennifer on the phone about her "Egyptian themed" wedding, she mention that the color were gonna be gold and turquoise. First thoughts, yuck. How she'd pull this off was beyond me. To my EXTREME delight, the decorations, music, ceremony accents were absolutely incredible. Way to go Jenn and Jerko, (said, Yeer-ko)!! Very classy guys.

Check out the details on this one. A pyramid cake, Egyptian god center pieces, a sand ceremony, (replaced the unity candle) and deep drummed mid-east music from beginning to end of the ceremony. Sooooo cool. Enjoy the shots as I enjoyed taking them.

~Sam

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Texture & Lighting

Just an exercise I went through with post process textures and off camera lighting. Easy to pick up but difficult to master.

The first cutie is one of my best buds daughter. Rori Lane was posing for me during a shoot with them in Sacramento. (I promise to get through these guys.)

Number 2 is a good friend Brandon, (Shiftb). Over at the house eating B.B.Q. and we decided to bring out the off camera lighting for a test run.

Take care.

A.J. and Mike

So yeah, basically I have the coolest clients ever. Everyone meet A.J. and Mike. I'd be hard pressed to find a cooler couple then these two in my client book, (kidding really, I love you all). These guys were so awesome to shoot for.

First a little on this couple. Mike is a very talented musician. He plays the electric bass but his talent doesn't stop just there. It's one thing to play the bass, this dude MAKES basses! And you wouldn't believe me if I told you some of the clients this guy has built for. Try the likes of, Fred Hammond, Tommy Brown, Jamie Gamble, Maurice Fitzgerald, Joshua Dunham, (Joshua is the Bass player for the artist formally known but now known again as Prince) You really need to check out his site: Zamar Instruments.
A.J. is a human resources administrator working for a Iron Mountain, an information technology blah blah blah. Here's the REAL fun stuff on A.J. The girl plays guitar and sings! She'll probably kill me for doing this, but heres a link to some singing and playing she did at a local spot. A.J. American Idol anyone? These two are just overrunning with talent.

So they met at a restaurant, (name escapes me) at Santa Row in San Jose. Matter of fact, Mike happened to be playing bass that night with a group He's with every now and then. If I understood the story right, A.J. approaches Mike first. She asks him a question and Mike turns around and walks away! Why, cause he is so attracted to her and rather then saying something that would make no sense whatsoever cause of the sheer nervousness, dude cuts and runs. Smooth Mike, real smooth. Actually, Mike is one of the more smoother guys I know but it just goes to show what girl can do to a guy. Long story short, Mike ends up talking to A.J., they hook up, start dating and February 14th of this year, he decides to propose. Way to go you guys.
We had our session at the location where Mike proposed. Communication Hill was new to me but after being there a few minutes I could see why it was the place Mike chose to propose at. Just gorgeous. Enjoy the shots guys as I enjoyed taking them.

~Sam

LARGE VIEW SLIDE

Happy Birthday Ethan

My buddy turned 3 on the 29th of April. Just wanted to post a pic of him listening to his favorite band Jars of Clay. I Promise you he almost knows the entire words to ,"Work". I tell you though, never in a million years could I have imagined someone being able to bring me so much joy. I love him. Happy Birthday Bubba.

M & M's (Mehgan & MaKayla Johnson)

Meet Mehgan & MaKayla, (a.k.a. Bug). These dolls were the subjects of my camera a few weeks back during a session in Modesto. Actually, this is my second time shooting them as we've already had one session back during Christmas time last year. Here we are again.

So we started our session in an Orchard not too far from Modesto in a city called Delhi. How did I find the orchard? I saw one I liked, knocked on the door and asked if we could have a shoot there, and they said yes. Love this old sofa in this series. Thank you Jared for lugging it out ALL the way from Fairfield. Great friend. Check his site out, pure AWESOME!

We next went to this open field with this old Chevy sittin on blocks. How did I find an old truck? Went to the owner's house, knocked on the door and asked. You'll be surprised to find, I've NEVER been denied the privileged of shooting on someone's land. Everyone is usually very hospitable about it, especially in the country. The horse belongs to my brother-in-law's in-laws. Did you get that? Henry and Patty own a gorgeous place on a few acres in Delhi. Thanks again for lending "Buddy" to us.

I did some new stuff to this session. For one, a few of these shots have textures applied to them, (photoshop technique). I think they turned out rather nicely. Two, I'm using more and more off camera lighting. I've been frequenting a lot of strobist sites and the things you learn are incredible.

Thank you girls and thank you Sis. Johnson. I hear one of these photos will be enlarged and hung in grandpa's, (Pastor Randy Keyes) office in Hazlewood MI. Great feeling on my part. Enjoy the photos.

VIEW THEM IN A LARGE SLIDE

~Sam

Band Shoot :: Hunters Point

One of my real desires early on in my passion with photography was to shoot a band. Why? I dunno, their cool? All of us have an inner wannabe rock star, (admit it). Really, I felt is was a chance to get creative with posing and post processing in Photoshop I wouldn't normally get shooting weddings/engagements etc. A photo could be haggard looking and folks would still dig it. Correct exposers, white balance etc. get thrown out the window and just the ultimate coolness of the photo surfaces. Guess what?.. I got my chance.

I met A.J. (guy in front on the "street crossing Beatles" shot) on a flight home from Vegas. My Photographer buddy Jared and I were on our way home from a photography conference and A.J. was there being...well,......a rock star. He was in the airport playing an acoustic guitar, (again, admit it, we've all wanted to do that) waiting for his/our flight home. Had a quick chat and found out he and his band were putting together a promo album. Asked if they'd taking their promo shots and he says no...the rest is history.

In meeting for a good place to have our shoot I suggested Hunter's Point in the City. As soon as I mentioned it to A.J. he tells me their studio is in the heart of HP. Awesome. For those of you not familiar with Hunter's Point, it is noted as one of the more dangerous parts, (more hyped that way more then anything else) of the City. Matter of fact, when the 89' S.F. Quake took place, the World Series was in Candlestick, (now Monster Park). The game was cut short and the evacuation from Candlestick was diverted through Hunter's Point seeing that the Bay Bridge was collapsed. This got bad and lots of folks had their car stolen/carjacked etc. HP got a pretty tough rap as a place not to be after hours. Tell you what though, it's a smokin place to shoot a rock band.

VIEW THEM LARGE IN SLIDE

A.J., Walker, Rob 1 Rob 2. Thanks for being awesome.
Jared, thanks for the help with lighting. Real homie.
Enjoy the shots.

~Sam

BTW~ I promise to update my blog more often. Lots have you have asked and in all honesty it's my being so busy/lazy. Okay, more lazy but I promise to do better.