The Dark Side

 

I’ve been thinking about expanding my portfolio lately to focus on studio portraits.  I figure it’s time to work on developing a more “commercial look” so I dragged my husband Aaron into my little experiment of creating a style that would have broader appeal.  Needless to say, I failed miserably at my task of creating “happy” “wholesome” portraits that scream American apple pie. 

I constantly find myself selecting and processing images that have a dark, brooding quality to them.  I can’t seem to break away from this particular style.  Everyone says a photograph says a lot about the photographer, and I wonder if my personal nature is much more cynical and darker than I care to admit. 

Or maybe, just maybe, people are really miserable creatures and I'm just capturing what's in their soul.  In Aaron's case, being married to me for ten years would probably dampen your spirits too!

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Close encounter with Governor Jerry Brown

I was honored last week to have the opportunity to photograph Governor Jerry Brown during his visit to San Francisco to discuss his proposed budget with the Bay Area Council, a public policy organization aimed at promoting the welfare of the Bay Area.  The Council,  composed of the Bay Area's top business leaders, including Janet Lamkin, California President of Bank of America (bottom, left), expressed their support for Governor Brown's proposed budget package designed to close the state's $26.6 billion deficit.

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Focus on Education

 I photograph a wide variety of things, but what’s most rewarding to me is my work with the nonprofit community.  Photography isn’t necessarily about making beautiful images, but rather documenting the people and the things that we find important, and helping to communicate that value to the rest of the world.  I work with many education based programs, particularly those that target low-income students of color to increase their access to higher education. I believe that an informed mind is one of the most powerful tools to creating a more just and equitable world.  My most recent work, pictured here, was with the Making Waves Education program which provides long-term academic support to high-risk students and their families.  Every year, I photograph the graduating students who have dedicated over six years of their life to the program.  It's flattering to walk into their office in the Mission and see dozens of my portraiture work on their walls.

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Forest Series - part 1

I have a knack for constantly coming up with new project ideas, but rarely completing a series of images focused on one particular theme.  I figure if I put it out there, perhaps the public will hold me accountable for completing my personal project.  This is the first of a series of images I'm working on that captures my fascination with the forest.

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Family Fun

 

 

It's been awhile since my last blog posting.  I've been working on several gigs and have been debating whether I should post recent jobs I've done.  I initially wanted to use this blog as a space for my personal explorations, but after much urging from colleagues and clients who want to see my latest work, I caved in and decided to post recent projects. These are photos from a shoot with the Poon family.....Yeeling, Paul, Ben and Tyla.  If I had kids, I'd want them to be just as goofy and adorable as these two.  The best thing about doing a family shoot is that you get to play with other people's cute kids and not have to worry about saving money for their college tuition.

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Re-examining Sutro Baths

There are lots of misconceptions about photography.  Most people have this misleading notion that it's difficult to find interesting things to shoot in one's hometown, and that one must travel somewhere new and exotic (like a third world country) in order to find entirely fresh, compelling subject matter.  I disagree.

I bring up this issue because of what someone said to me recently: "You have the opportunity to take great photos because you travel all the time."  OUCH.  That felt almost like an accusation.  So of course I had to prove to myself that much of my photography is attributed to hard work and a dose of talent, as opposed to sheer opportunity.  I needed to show that I could create interesting landscape photos without having to travel beyond three miles. 

So here it is, Sutro Baths, a tourist destination also popular among amateur and professional photographers.  The abandoned ruins of San Francisco's old bath house, nestled against Ocean Beach, is eerily beautiful, especially after the sun sets.  I was lucky to have a full moon this week, which cast a nice glow over the ruins and allowed me to reduce exposure time for these night shots.
 
I initially photographed Sutro Baths a little over three years when I was a photography student (images below).  This was a fascinating exercise for me because it allowed me to compare and contrast these two sets of images (taken 3.5 years apart) and examine whether I've shifted the way I see and compose things over the years.  Do you notice the differences?

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Red Rocks Adventure

Most people go to Las Vegas, Nevada to gamble away their hard-earned money at the casinos, but few ever venture off the strip to explore the Red Rocks Canyon located 15 miles from the city.  Too broke to travel abroad for Christmas this year, and too impatient to spend the holidays with family, my friends and I decided to spend our precious vacation climbing Red Rock's famous sandstone rocks. We encountered surprisingly warm sunny weather at the beginning of our trip, but a storm eventually moved its way in, bringing dramatic fiery sunsets.  With tripod in hand, I took multiple exposures for the sky and the land and rendered the images through an HDR program to create these "realistic" landscape images.  Why yes, the sunset colors are genuine, and I was lucky to have witnessed this rare occasion.

Okay, enough landscapes photos. 

I've mentioned rock climbing several times in my earlier posts,  but haven't yet posted any pictures.  So finally..... some climbing pics of my burly/badass friends Steve DeLuca, Thomas Gronkbukt, Skippy Gaunt, and Isabel Von Rittenberg at Stratocaster Wall in Red Rocks.  Facebook friends may have seen these already, so I apologize for the redundancy.

 By the way, have you met my husband, Aaron?  He's pretty dorky looking when he boulders/climbs, but I've always had a soft spot for dorks.

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