Vendor: Modern Chair Rental

Building relationships with vendors is super important in this industry and furthermore referring them is key for a lasting relationship.

Todays second blog post is a plug for my friends business, Modern Chair Rental located in La Habra.

They specialize in, you guessed it, modern chairs & furniture.

I helped my friend out by doing product photography for all his cool looking furniture. Here are just a few items he has available.














Check out Modern Chair Rental online or walk into their warehouse and see the furniture yourself =) Ask for Cesar and tell him Robert sent you!

Bun in the Oven & A Fresh Bun

About five months ago I was privileged to do a maternity session. I typically recommend having this session a month before the due date that way you look nice and big =).

These sessions are great, the mother to be loves these photos, but the consensus amongst the fathers to be is they think these photos weird. Not at all! Pregnancy's only happen a couple of times in a lifetime so you have to capture them while you can!

Bun in the Oven:















A 4 month old Bun:















Feel free to give me a ring if you'd like to schedule a session =)

Take Ivy: Desert Shoot & La Venta Inn

After a successful show of my friends band, Take Ivy, asked me if I could shoot them in the desert.

We discussed idea's and what not and the final decision was to shoot at El Mirage with a couch as a prop. El Mirage is awesome, its a dry lake bed in the middle of the desert - great for off roading and photo shoots! The last time I was at El Mirage was during high school. This was the place where I first learned how to operate a manual transmission - on an ATV!

Most photographers know when the best light occurs which is our "golden hour". Since there was no way we would make it to El Mirage during that hour I had to do the next best thing, rent a generator and blast them with 2000watts.

The gear:
- Honda gas powered generator (rental from Home Depot)
- Two Speedotron Force 10 monolights (1000watts each)
- Two Speedotron 22" beauty dishes (thanks to J. Ho for one of them)
- Two C-stands and one sand bag (thanks again to J. Ho for the sand bag)
- Canon 1D3, 5D, 70-200 2.8IS, 16-35
- Creative Vado HD (I'll post video once I figure how to edit)
- One Sun (used as key and rim/back light)
- One band (thanks to Take Ivy)
- Mary (band members sister)
- Me =)

Onto the goods:

That day was super hot in OC but really cool winds in the desert with the exception of the strong sun and lack of shade - except for Adam holding the umbrella!. IT WAS SUPER BRIGHT in every direction which made it tough for the band's eyes. What I did was have them close their eyes, count to three, open and I click.






















Here is a sneak peak for a wedding I was privileged to document. It was held at La Venta Inn in Palos Verdes Estates.














Lots more to blog later!

Take Ivy

A few weeks ago my friend, and lead singer, asked me if I could shoot his band's first gig playing at Chain Reaction. It's been years since I last stepped foot inside the venue so I felt really dated when I walked inside =(

The band is named after a popular photography book by T. Hayashida that documented the style of era at Ivy League schools.

Check out some of the book here

If you ask me how they sounded all I can say is from whatever I heard its pretty good. I only say that since I was shooting most of the time and I was concentrating on photography more than the music. Kind of weird since the venue is extremely loud but shows how our brains work when their in concentration mode.

















Support my friends band by visiting their MySpace and seeing them live! Check out their MySpace Take Ivy

Walt Disney Music Hall, Fresno Puja & San Diego Wedding

I've been told I don't blog enough and I read on CNN that consistent blog updates lead to 10-15% increase in business, so here we go!

A while ago I did an engagement session at Walt Disney Music Hall. Great couple, awesome architecture and pretty good light.































So what is a puja? Wiki defines it as "a ceremony of gratitude or a religious ritual performed as an offering to various deities, distinguished persons, or special guests". I received a phone call from the groom (as seen from the photos above) if I could come out to Fresno to document his two day puja before his wedding.

I definitively wanted to, but there were a few issues. One of them is Fresno is ~240 miles away from where I live and ~340 from San Diego where I had to be Sunday for a wedding.

Solution: Fly from LAX to FAT (Fresno's airport) on Friday, fly back to LAX on Saturday and drive to San Diego that night for a wedding at Little Chapel of the Roses on Sunday.

Complicating but it turned out excellent!

I'm scared of flying and going on an Embraer 120 didn't make things better. You feel absolutely everything, pitch, yaw, roll and all the other little bumps!


Photo courtesy of my BlackBerry Storm

I also shot some video while coming back to LAX, awesome sunset!






Onto the puja - Day 1:













































Day 2:
























The puja went great, the flight went well and onto my 2 hour drive to San Diego was excellent because of a pit stop at San Juan Capistrano for a little Jack In The Box =)

The Little Chapel of the Roses is an awesome place to have a wedding!








































































Until next time, happy shooting!