Paris this weekend...actually Vegas baby!

I am posting real quick in between getting ready to help Geri Goodale photograph a wedding tomorrow (see our engagement shoot a few posts back of Melissa and Linford) and packing to go to Las Vegas for a photography convention with the owners of Visual Photography and Angela Rhodes on Sunday. I am excited to go and see all of the print competition prints, take some classes and (if you know me!) make friends with a few slot machines while I'm there.

The pictures I have posted were from a trip I took with my Mom last summer to Las Vegas (these were all taken with my point and shoot camera). My sister Diane surprised my Mom and flew over for one night. We stayed in a fabulous suite at the Luxor and had a great time playing tourist...and yes...lots of gambling. It was a great time with my Mom and sister and I think we visited every major hotel on the Strip within two days. My favorite hotel ( and one I hope to stay at some time) was the Wynn hotel. The hotel was gorgeous, the people friendly, the slots loose, and the buffet to die for!

Rosanne Barr was on Jay Leno the other night and was talking about a show she is doing in Las Vegas at New York New York but the thing she kept talking about was the buffet at the Wynn. I think for the first time in my life, I agreed with Rosanne Barr.

Enjoy!

Happy Birthday Steven!

I did not take either of the pictures on this post but wanted to share about a wonderful nephew of mine.

My nephew turned 20 yesterday. He has always been a special person in my life. His mother is my twin sister, Diane. She got pregnant with Steven when we were right out of high school. He was a true joy from the day he was born. He never cried, had these brilliant blue eyes and the sweetest disposition ever. Diane, Steven and I lived at my parent's home while Diane and I went to college. I spent many weekends taking Steven to all the fun places in San Diego like the Zoo, Wild Animal Park (scary dinosaurs!), the beach and Sea World. It has been great seeing him grow into the man he is today.

He was the first person I ever photographed in a studio setting. I had just started working for the JCPenney portrait studio and he was three months old. He was my first ever practice session. Over the years the poor boy has gone through multitudes of sessions with every type of pose and prop imaginable. One Halloween, I think he was three, we covered him with black cloth up to his neck, posed pumpkins all around him on the black material and made him make faces pretending he was one of the carved pumpkins. The images are hysterical.

He had an enormous passion for baseball from the time he was able to walk and you could always find him in my Mom's backyard playing baseball games...usually against himself. My dad had season passes to the Padres and he would dress in his little Padre uniform, go to the game and cheer on Tony Gwynn in right field. He knew all the players at a young age and today still has the same passion for the game.

Steven plays baseball for a college team today and has turned into a gorgeous young man. He will always hold a special place in my heart and I hope he knows how special he is.

Happy 20th Birthday Steven-We love you!

Renee and my surfing Buddha tshirt!!

Sometimes I find messages that inspire me in the most obscure places...on buildings, in books, bumper stickers, message boards, etc...today I found one right on an old tshirt I have worn over and over and never really paid attention to.

It is a god-awful bright orange tshirt that I picked up for $3.00. When we do beach photo sessions during the summer for Visual Photography, we wear orange shirts to stand out from all the other people on the beach so our clients can find us. I am in desperate need of doing laundry so, in need of a short sleeve shirt because of our summer-like temperatures in San Diego, I threw this tshirt on. Until today I never paid attention to what it said.

The message on my tshirt says..."You are safer moving forward than standing still..." Surfing Buddha

I realize as scary as stepping outside my "safe" box is...I am inspired again. Inspired enough that I photographed Renee at 8:00 this morning...

For anyone that knows me...I never willingly wake up early. Even on school days when Cassi has to get up at the ungodly hour of 6:30 to go to school, I usually wake up long enough to get her to school (unbrushed hair, no make-up, clothes probably inside out-ME not her!) and then go straight back to bed and sleep until I absolutely have to wake up for work. I even have my morning routine down to the last second unless something distracts me and then I'm late for work!

So the surfing Buddha on my bright orange shirt speaks to me-I have even invited almost ten different people to view this blog. (welcome by the way!) As scary as that seems...as unsafe as moving forward seems to me...I can't keep staying in the same place anymore.

Anyways...enjoy the pics of Renee and the other fun things I found to photograph down at the beach. She was my willing subject at Mission Beach this morning. We normally walk in the morning (Yes, when I get my butt up!) at Lake Murray but the weather was too beautiful on our days off so we went to the beach.

Yesterday, while we were walking, I kept finding areas I wanted to photograph in and Renee offered to be my guinea pig this morning. Thanks Renee!

Enjoy!

Engagement Images

Can you tell how much in love they are? We had a wonderful time with this couple and they were a complete blast to work with. These images were taken a year ago at WindandSea beach in La Jolla, Ca for their engagement.

Their wedding was held in Greece (I know...romantic!) and then we photographed their reception here in San Diego at a Greek restaurant downtown San Diego (images to follow at a later date!). Recently I received a sonogram image from Stephanie and today found out that the baby is a boy and is due in July. I can't wait to see how beautiful their baby will be with parents that look this good! (Congratulations Stephanie!!!)

Enjoy!

Kikki and Patrick McCullough

I wanted to share some images from a wedding Angela Rhodes http://rhodesphotography.com and I photographed last October. Friday October 13th to be exact. Kikki is an employee of mine at Visual Photography and she was the most radiant bride I have ever seen. She truly was meant to be a bride. It's just too bad it only happens once. She was one of those brides devouring any magazine, website or bazaar she could find wedding related.

The weather forecast was rain, rain and more rain. Considering she chose a friday the 13th to get married, you would have expected it to pour. The weather was absolutely breathtaking for the wedding at the Grand Tradition in Fallbrook, California. It did pour buckets about 8:00pm during the reception once everyone was safely inside.

Kikki has a website devouted to her wedding pics, http://web.mac.com/pinkink1/iweb/Site/Welcome.html her MySpace page has multiple slideshows and in each and every picture you can just see that she was walking into this marriage 100% committed to upholding her vows.

When her Dad saw her for the first time...I am totally not kidding you...she stole his breathe away. He could not speak and actually gasped. If you know me personally, you know I am generally not a mushy person but...

The moment was magical.

That one moment defined why I love what I do. There is a quote that says (and I am going to butcher it here) but "Life isn't about the breathes you take, but the moments that take your breathe away. "

I believe this and am honored to be able to have photographed a wedding that defined this quote.

Enjoy!

Katelyn and Michael's wedding

This past Saturday I photographed a wedding with Angela Rhodes of Rhodes Photography http://rhodesphotography.com and as always, we had a blast. The couple was adorable and super easy to work with. Here's a few of their images from the wedding-Enjoy!

Disneyland

We (Diane, Amanda, Mike, Mackenzie, Brendon and my dear daughter Cassi) spent the day at Disneyland today. It was an amazingly clear, beautiful southern California day at Disneyland. The park was super super crowded but for some silly reason...we never really had to wait in long lines...the Disney gods must have been with us!

Mike, Amanda's boyfriend was forewarned before going to the park that Aunt Donna would make them take a bunch of pictures. I controlled myself...I really did...even sneaking off under the guise of getting Space Mountain Fast Passes so I could take pics without holding up everyone. I only shot 200 images and I have to say that more I use my Canon SD630, the more I love it.

I thought I'd share a few pics that I was able to take today. Enjoy! The images are straight out of the camera! Enjoy!