I had the pleasure of photographing the Grom Bomb Surf Contest for the third year now.   One of the great guys in San Diego, Nate Wells, puts this great event on each year.  There were a ton of great volunteers that helped Nate pull off this extremely organized and fun event.

It’s a special surf contest for the kids (Groms).   A real family affair for sure….

Here are a few of the images I captured yesterday morning….Enjoy!

Our family has a wonderful family tradition of going on one big camping adventure trip each summer.  This book tells the story of our fourth trip like this.  We chose to go to Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon National Park in California this year.  It was a wonderful trip of camping, sitting by the fire, discovering God’s creation, adventure and several experiences with BEARS!  Please enjoy the book of images I captured along the way, as it tells a wonderful story of Love, Family, and of an amazing Creation.

**  Instead of creating the typical blog post with “normal pictures”, I chose to capture the actual Photo Book I created of this trip.   It’s a wonderful 70 page hardbound book, telling the story of our family camping adventure.  To have this is my hands is very special, turning every page slowly…..remembering the moments as if I was there again…..feeling the paper with my fingers, looking forward to the next page.   The same emotion I have when I see a beautiful print….in a beautiful frame….hanging on a wall, making that home so much more beautiful.  So, the next time you only think about having the digital file, so that it can be used for Facebook…..take a moment…..order a book or print….and create a lasting memory.  **

I had a great time doing Grace’s portraits for her Senior session this year.  We had wonderful light walking through the woods outside of Portland, OR.

Here are a few of the images from the session.

Enjoy…

I had a wonderful evening last night having fun with this awesome family.  They are such a kind, happy and fun family.   Jason is the Pastor of Daybreak Church here in North County San Diego, so it was a real privilege for me to be able to photograph his beautiful family.   We ended up choosing the Olivenhain Meeting Hall for the session.  It has such great tones and textures, with all of the old buildings…wood…and trees.

Enjoy the images…..(the last one is my favorite)

I had a wonderful evening photographing the girls for holiday photos.   We live near Leo Carrillo Ranch in San Diego,  so it was a close and beautiful location for me  to take some quick shots of the girls.

Whitney, my wife, and two daughters, Darby & Savannah joined my wife’s wonderful mother in the portraits below.  As a photographer. it is always fun to shoot your own family, but especially so, with how beautiful and fun they all are.

Here are a few of the images….

Ok, still having fun, as I try to learn how to create these time lapse videos.   I hope in another year I might start getting good at these!

Here is one I shot this evening from our backyard.   I put together a little more than 2,400 images into a 720p 24 frames/second video.  These are all small JPEG photos, so the resolution is not great (don’t want to burn through a ton of hard drive space until I figure this out).

I enjoyed watching all the planes and helicopters slicing through the San Diego night time sky.  I am guessing most to the flights flying north were heading to LA….with the flights going South heading toward downtown….or maybe an exotic flight going to Bali or Indonesia or Palau…

At around the 40 second mark it looks like there was lightning in the mountains behind us.   Loved the moon glow on the ocean as well….

I decided to take a walk at Swami’s today….one of the world’s top surf spots located in San Diego.   It was a great afternoon for seeing beauty.   The tide was ultra low, which exposed a huge chunk of reef.  Typically the reef is underwater, so there was a ton of animal and plant  life for all the kids to see.

Here are a few of the images from my walk….

I had a great time creating another time lapse video of my crazy girls at Thanksgiving.   I received a lot of feedback on last years’ Thanksgiving time lapse video, so I decided to bring it back again with “Season 2 of the Whacky People”!….lol

Here are my two daughters and wife……Darby, Savannah and Whitney.  The crazy lady that keeps dancing is Whitney’s wonderful mother, Darlene.  (We call her ” Darlin’ “)  She is a total sweetheart!  She made the trip to San Diego to spend an incredibly special Holiday with us.

So, Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and please accept this silly video as our wish that you all have a great Thanksgiving as well!

Here is the set up I used for the time lapse

Canon 1D Mk IV……16-35mm f/2.8 II……Gitzo Tripod…..Really Right Head BH-55 Ballhead…..Gitzo Leveling Head….Shutter Release, with automatic settings

I shot most of these 8,000 + images at f/5.6…..100/second…..800 ISO…..3,600 Kelvin…….Shot every 2 seconds……turn it on…walk away!

Here are a few images from the fun of the day as well.

Beautiful Bride…..Handsome Groom……Portland…..Marriage = Perfection…..Here is a little preview of the magical day….

I had the privilege of photographing my good friends newborn beautiful baby……Bryan & Korin Jennings little girl…..Ella Jennings.   We had a wonderful time the other evening, capturing a number of special moments.

Ella was totally perfect and precious!  Here are a few of the images I captured.  (we tried to get her asleep. but she was having too much fun in her first shoot and wanted to be awake for all of it….lol)

Enjoy!