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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Jennalise's visit

Jennalise and I have been friends for maybe 4 or 5 years.  Our lives seem to parallel quite a bit.  They are not identical, but they are quite similar!  We both went through divorces at a young age, we both moved away from our hometowns to be with the one we love and will be sharing the rest of our lives with, and we both have recently started a photography business.  I had the pleasure of being in Jennalise's wedding in early 2009 in London. Matt and I got to visit her and her husband Toby in London last summer for a day.  Well, this time, Jennalise came to America to visit her family and friends, and she also got to attend the WPPI Roadshow in Seattle.

During the last segment of her visit to America, Jennalise and her mom, Jenine, came to visit me in San Francisco for a few days!  We went to the Ferry Building and walked through and tasted all the fun things in there, took lots of pictures, had lunch at Asha at the Embarcadero and then hopped on a trolly!  We then walked down to Union Square and something said to look down, so I did and there was $10 cash in an envelope laying on the ground.  So, I picked it up!  We went to Union Square, took more pictures and went for Starbucks with the $10. What a treat!  Matt picked us up and then we to Lombard Street for our engagement shoot.  Jennalise took beautiful photos of us.  Locations were Lombard Street, Crissy Fields, and the Cannery near Fisherman's Wharf, oh... and In N Out!  Matt and I refuse to spend lots of money on fancy restaurants.  We both love In N Out, and so we go there for all of our special occasion dates.  Well, at least we went there the night we got engaged and Valentine's Day this year and we decided we're going to make it our little tradition!

The next day, Jennalise, Jenine and I drove out to Sonoma and Napa and visited Viansa Winery, V. Sattui, and Castello di Amorosa.  Our only wine tasting occurred at Viansa Winery.  The Pinot Grigio was YUMMY!  It's funny, because I love wine tasting, but I don't actually like to drink wine.  Is that weird?  Then we had a yummy lunch at V. Sattui.  We went across the street to Dean and Delucca's for coffee and dessert (I had a lemon bar!), and then we decided to go up to Castello di Amorosa.  We were so happy to have driven up to Calistoga.  It was gorgeous!  And, this was the same winery that the Bachelor Jake stayed at with Vienna and Gia.  Ahh!  I'm somewhat of a closet reality tv junkie!  Anyways, here are many images from Jennalise and Jenine's visit!   It's in a slide show.  It goes in chronological order as I described in this blog.  There are just too many images to post!

My lil Biskey

Biskey and I spend every day and almost all day together.  She is going to be 6 in October.  I adopted her 3 and a half years ago.  During my days at Boeing, for about 2 years, I worked virtually for the company.  I really liked it, but I was so lonely!  I had contemplated getting a dog, but didn't want to get a puppy.  So, I started surfing the internet and found Biskey on Craigslist.  I jokingly say that she was my first successful online match!  Her pictures were so cute because she had a stuffed animal or toy in her mouth in every picture.  She was a rescue dog.  The family before me had rescued her from an abusive situation.  The reason why Biskey was up for adoption again was because the family were dog breeders and had one two many dogs already with a liter of pups about to be born.  When I went to meet Biskey, I fell in love with her right away!  I took her home with me that night.  She's my sweet little Biskey Baby.  She's a great dog and she really has adjusted well to San Francisco.  She went from having a big yard of her own, to having to go to the park every day where she gets to play with so many other dogs.  It also guarantees at least three walks a day.  Lucky girl!  People often wonder what kind of dog she is, and I think she is a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever mix.  She kind of looks like a cross between a golden retriever and a lab, but a petite version. 

Napping on top of the chair.

Here are some photos I took of Biskey last week.  I found her lounging on top of the chair in the front room where she enjoys hanging out.  She thinks she's a small dog.  And she loves to look out the window.  Biskey enjoys cuddling, traveling, going for long leisurely walks, napping and she really loves Matt!  When she's happy, she scoops up a stuffed animal or flip flop or five pound hand weight into her mouth and wags her body like crazy.  She's not much of a barker and she never jumps up on people.  I know I am completely biased, but she is sooooo cute and I love her so much!

All photos were taken with my 50mm 1.8.

Practicing using ambient lighting.

Just resting away.

Anticipating and waiting for Matt.

Cute paws...

Just yapping away!  Not really, she was yawning.  :)

Gazing out the window.

She's just so sweet!  

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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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