Foundation Workshop Seattle

As a wedding photographer here in Seattle, I am always striving to find ways to improve my photography. One of the ways that I do that is to attend workshops or seminars that are taught by some of the greatest wedding photographers around.

I have been taught by Cliff Mautner, Bambi Cantrell, Joe Buissink, and inspired by countless others. I add to that list the great Huy Nguyen. He is a former news photographer who became a wedding photographer. In just four short years he has rocketed to the top as being one of the most well respected "photojournalists" of weddings.

The event started out with a nice get together of the Seattle area photographers at the Pyramid Brew right across the street from Safeco. We had a nice turn out and really allowed us to get loose for the next day.
Photo Courtesy S. Flanigan

This was not a shooting workshop as others that I have taken in the past, but it was an exercise in ways to strive harder for the photographs that we take. We spent two great days learning from Huy, his work ethics, photographic style, and critiques on how we can improve our photographs and business.

I hope to use what I have learned these passed few days from Huy and from the other photographers that I have met.

The great part of this workshop was that I was able to hang out with some old friends as well new ones.
Huy teaching us his mysterious ways!!!
John Chin and I
James, Maurice, John, Me!!!, Sean

I have known these photographers for a while and it is always to great to exciting with great talent such as Maurice and John. I was able to get to know a few more, Mat Hayward, Jen Nance, Cesar Perez from Dallas, Eliza Truitt, James Chan, Jane Lee, John Hong, Sean Flanigan and Lina Jang and O.B..

All in all, we photographers in Seattle are an ever increasing tight knit group of people.
Maurice, Mat, ME!!!, Cesar

When Photographers Collide

I had lunch with wedding photographer Sean Flanigan

He is relatively new to the game, photographing weddings for the last couple of years. His background was as a newspaper photojournalist. His work is phenominal.

We enjoyed lunch at The Rock - Wood Fired Pizza. They had a lunch buffet which was good. Unfortunately I felt they did not have a great deal of variety. They had the standard peperoni, sausage and mushrooms, hawaiian, artichoke, and a veggie. Their full menu however looks better, and I think worth another visit.

Anyways, back to my story. We wound up talking about the wedding market here in Tacoma and Seattle and about some great products such as wedding albums. These meetings with other photographers help us by bringing innovative products, service and ideas to you, the bride.

I am glad to add him to my list of friends and colleagues in wedding photography here in Western Washington.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!

Yesterday was our anniversary. We didn't do alot of things, but we spent the day together and enjoyed each others company.


We started with a simple movie, 300. It was just a spectacular movie and Maida actually stayed awake to watch it. She has a habit of falling asleep during movies. I enjoyed the action and the cinematography. It was just beautifully done. Maida enjoyed the movie, but was sad that the king and his men didn't make it.

Afterwards we went and had a nice dinner at Stanley and Seaforts which has a nice view over downtown Tacoma.

I had a nice lamb dish and Maida had a prime rib stroganoff.

Good Night!!!

I'm SICK!!!

This is the weirdest thing. This is the first time I have been really sick in about 4 - 5 years.

I started getting sick Monday night around midnight. I checked my temp and it was only a low grade fever of 99.0. Later on I started feeling a bit dizzy at times and started coughing more. I checked my temp again and reached a temp max of 101.1.

Needless to say I have been couped up in bed trying to get better. Maida has been great at taking care of me. I slept most of the time yesterday.

I am behind on a few things and promise to get them out as soon as possible.


Next post will be my week in review.

Rascal Flatts Concert!!!

I thought I would split up the posts as it seemed to just be getting longer.

The concert started at 7:30p, but we didn't leave to go until about 7p. Lo and behold, we found traffic.

Parking was a b!tch. The main parking lot was full so we had to swing around and find one of the side parking lots. Thankfully we got the last spot nearby the Tacoma Dome. Then we couldn't find out seats. We thought we had truly crappy seats that gave you a view from just behind the stage. Nope we had near crappy seats. It gave you a profile view of the stage.

I think we missed about 10 minutes of Jason Aldeans set. (His Myspace page.) He played some awesome songs like Amarillo Sky and Why. Pretty good singer.



Now the major stars of the show Rascal Flatts. There stage we pretty amazing. You can see from the video. Note the video is about 5 minutes long and I hand held it with arms up the whole time.



I will tell you the show was amazing, the songs were awesome and some idiot decided to rush the stage and jump around. He got tackled pretty quickly by security. I just wonder why morons have to try and ruin the show for others by being total asses. Hope you enjoy the remaining pictures and videos.

Weekend in Review

I had a blast this week with my family.

My cousin Gretel is here visiting from Las Vegas and to pick up her car that she shipped from Hawaii. She recently moved from Paradise to Sin City. My brother, Gretel and myself will be driving that car to LV this week. It's going to be a long drive.

Back to my story.

Well, I take my brother and cousin to lunch at Anthony's. They have awesome crab cakes. After that we just go do a little shopping at the malls.

Saturday, my cousin Val, her husband Chris and their kids, Collin, Deysia, Jackson, and of course baby Callia (see previous blogs) came down for the weekend to hangout also. So you have all these people staying at my parent's house. It was just packed in there. My mom cooks a huge meal for us all plus orders some pizza from Pizza Hut. After lunch we spent at least two hours trying to figure out were to go. We wind up going to McChord AFB BX and Fort Lewis PX. Not the most exciting thing in the world, but hey, it's family bonding time. Maida's at home sleeping while we are all doing this as she worked the night prior and couldn't muster up the energy to go.

After, Chris, my dad and myself go to Best Buy to pick up this beauty Garmin c550 GPS. I'm going to use it on the road trip to Las Vegas. We picked Maida up afterwards and went back to my parents house to eat.

Sunday

All of us to include Maida, go to Family Fun Center. If you have never been, you should go for some good clean family fun. We wound up going a few rounds on the go-kart tracks with Jackson riding with me the first go around.










We play some Lazer Tag. I came in second overall between both teams. Collin came in first overall. My brother came in third overall.




We top the day off with a late lunch at PhoTai. Afterwards Val, Chris and the kids head home.

Transformers the Movie!!!

For those of you who grew up in the mid to late 80's you know of the cartoon and toys Transformers from Hasbro.

Today's kids know about the knew transfomers and the new cartoons are just CRAP!!!

Well Steven Speilberg and director Micheal Bay have teamed up to bring us Transformers the Movie. It's a live action movie featuring all of the characters we know and love. The trailer viewable at the website looks spectacular.

My only gripe about the movie, is that they of course updated alot of the cars with those available today. That being said, they don't use the original cars that the original cartoon uses. Paramount Pictures partnered with GM and of course will be feature rich with GM vehicles.

The movie will also star:
Shia LaBeouf - Spike Whitwickity
Rachael Taylor - Maggie Marconi
Megan Fox - Mikaela (Spike's interest)
Jon Voight - Secretary of State
Bernie Mac - Car Salesman (sells Bumblebee to Spike)
Josh Duhamel - Military Officer
Amaury Nolasco - Army Officer
Tyrese Gibson - Army Officer

AGAIN!!! Looks cool and I will see it.