Kai:: Fashion Shoot:: San Francisco, California

Kai and I first met, oh maybe 3 months ago.  He had recently moved to San Francisco from of all places, Hawaii (!!!!), to pursue his dream career in modeling.  I had newly relocated myself from all places, Washington State.  And when you come from Washington State, Hawaii is like HEAVEN!  Well, at least for me.  I love going to Hawaii and wish I could live there, but for the time being, visiting will have to do.  :)  Ok... back to Kai.  Our first photo shoot was down at the Embarcadero near the Ferry Building.  The images came out wonderfully and photographing Kai helped me to become a better portrait photographer, especially since I was just starting out.  And, come to find out, the photos I took of Kai helped him out in getting in with a modeling agency.  :)

Fast forward to this last week.  Kai had messaged me on Facebook about some ideas of a fashion shoot in the city.  He had pulled some outfits together and we ventured out into the city, with his lovely friend, Nicole.  We did some street shots near Union Square.  Kai had a fancy outfit to wear, which included a black bow tie.  We were trying to figure out where we could go and I decided we must go to the Westin St. Francis.  I felt kind of funny taking pictures inside a hotel that I was not staying at, so I went to the concierge desk, with my camera in hand, to ask permission if I could take some images inside their hotel lobby.  When I approached the concierge, he began talking camera techy talk naming off all of my gear.  It made me smile.  :)  I asked him what kind of photography he did and he said he just did it as a hobby and then he gladly gave me permission to photograph inside the hotel. We took some indoor shots using ambient lighting.   Some shots turned out better than others, but I was still very happy with how the images came out! After finishing up our shoot inside the Westin St. Francis, we went right into the middle of Union Square.  It was so much fun!  I did feel kind of like a fashion photographer!  Here are a few images taken during the shoot.  I think you will enjoy!  

Kai thinks I should get into fashion photography.... what do you think?  I think it would be a lot of fun!

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A nice trip back home and a few photo shoots...

I love Virgin America!  I love their airline, I just wish they flew Boeing 737NG's, instead of Airbus A320s.  I guess I'm still partial.  :)  Matt and I spent many, many hours and many, many dollars flying on Virgin America, back and forth between San Francisco and Seattle.  So, naturally, I signed up to become a frequent flier with VA, which meant I receive email notifications of some sweet deals!  One of which, was the $33 one way sale, celebrating their 3rd year in service.  So, I jumped on that deal so fast and received the cheapest airfare deal to fly to Seattle to visit friends and family.

I'll be posting a few different photography posts from my visit to Washington, but today, my post will be about Tye.  I've known Tye and his family since I was a little girl.  Our families have been friends for many years.  We would go camping every summer together at Sun Lakes in Eastern Washington.  I remember trying to learn how to water ski from Tye's parents and I think I swallowed half the lake!  We lost touch for about 15 years, but recently, we've all reconnected. Tye's older sister Leah has become a great friend of mine over the last year and she's in the Bay Area as well. Tye and Leah's mother Rachel, asked if I could take some photographs of Tye.  Tye just got back from Afghanistan about a month ago.  We're all thankful he stayed safe.  I don't think I've seen Tye since he was a little boy.  Now, he's a soldier and a grown up!  Thanks Tye for serving and protecting our great nation!

For the photo shoot, we met down at Owen's Beach at Pt. Defiance.  We climbed up a hillside to get some of the forest shots and then headed over to the Logging Site for the railroad shots.  I was so happy that the rain subsided and we were able to get some really nice shots of Tye!  I don't think Tye's eyes are closed in any of these pictures, hee hee!  :)  Enjoy!

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Nicole Chubb Ralston Portrait Shoot

If you've been following my blog, you will have read about Nicole from time to time.  She was my first new friend in San Francisco.  She actually lives in San Jose with her brand new hubby, Jesse, and their cute dog, Barney.  Biskey and Barney need to meet.  They are friends on Facebook, but they've not had the chance yet to play, run and sniff each other out.  :) 

Nicole is a fellow photographer and we've both been on a similar journey as we've started our businesses.  We're beginning to network with other Bay Area photographers and sharing with each other new things we're learning.  She's getting ready to relaunch her new photography website and needed a new picture for her website.  Yesterday, Nicole drove up to San Francisco and we did a little shoot in my neighborhood, where it may have been the only sunny area in San Francisco!  Our friend Ziada met up with us too and she snapped some shots of Nicole as well. 

After our photo shoot, we went to Chipotle for dinner and it was my first time there.  Wow!  That place is so yummy!  Then, we dropped off Ziada at school and Nicole and I drove to South San Francisco to listen to Rob Evans speak about wedding photography and fusion video.  Rob happens to be a celebrity wedding photographer, and he also shoots everyday people's weddings too!  His most notable weddings he shot were Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt, as well as Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes wedding.  I always love going to workshops and learning more about photography.  It's so helpful!

So, here are pictures I took of Nicole.  I decided to edit all the photos in black and white.  It's something I've been wanting to do.  Enjoy!  All photos were taken with 50mm at f/1.8.

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Portrait Session with Vic

Vic is new to San Francisco.  He used to be an opera singer.  I still think he's an opera singer, in fact, I asked him to sing a song and he did!  Vic, I think you should still be an opera singer, but that's my opinion!  Vic is creating a website for online lessons and e-learning for opera singing and he asked me to take a few head shots and portraits for his website.   So, here are some of the portraits I took of him.  We met down at the Ferry Building earlier this week.  Enjoy!

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