April and Clint

A few days after Christmas I met up with April and Clint for an engagement session while they were in town. They're both living in Cincinnati and were in town for the holidays and an engagement party. I'm sure they're going to have a blast at the wedding also. Everyone is headed this June to a small village in Scotland where Clint's family is from.

Kirstie and Steve Engagement

This is going to be a cool wedding. I've worked with Steve twice now, no he hasn't been married twice before. First he was one of the groomsman for Amy and Luke and then he officiated for Kari and Kevin's wedding.

And now it's finally his time to get married!


Kirstie and Steve are all smiles when they're together as you can tell.

Lynette and Jon

A few months ago we took some photos and part of our plan failed so we met up again for a few more photos, this time at the Mesa Arts Center.











Lynette and Jon on April 9th!

Engagement Sessions

I just realized that I forgot to post about a few engagement sessions that I did over the holiday season. I know a bunch of you enjoy seeing them so I'm going through all of those photos and I'll have some posted here shortly. :)

Uptown Bridal Photo Shoot

The owners of Uptown Bridal and Boutique asked me to come down and photograph for their new ad campaign. So we pulled together a bunch of their girl friends and spent a Sunday together down at the store.

We all had so much fun!


Kelly, one of my newest to-be brides.


The girls playing mannequins between tons of laughter in the Bridal Salon


Marissa and Kelly


The Grand Entrance


The girls had a blast dressing up for the day


And finally the newest mascot wants to check out the dresses as well.

Lovin' Gelato

I tried the a new gelato shop, Gelato 64, a few nights ago with my friends and family. We all enjoyed being able to sample any of the 64 flavors. I finally decided to go with Sour Cherry and Mandarin Orange which were both very tasty.

You can also submit your own idea for a flavor and I was trying to think of something that they didn't have yet. How about a jalapeno lime flavor? :)

Megan and Brian Engagement

Megan, Brian and I hung out yesterday to take some engagement photos for them. We started out at a park and then ended up in old town Gilbert, AZ.











Megan posed in an abandoned Chevette for a great shot.

New Office Studio!

I'm so excited to finally announce our new office location in Arizona!
This has been in the works since October of last year and we're finally open!

I love my Apple products as large as possible so I picked up a 50" plasma to connect it to.


Come in and hangout while we talk about your wedding day or after your wedding when we'll check out your wedding photos on the large plasma tv.


And when you come in I'll make some espresso or we'll open up a bottle of wine to enjoy.


Most of all I want you to experience what I believe differentiates our business from others.


It's easily accessible at the intersection of Guadalupe and the 101 freeway.

Our new mailing address is:

Jefferson Todd Photography
2659 W. Guadalupe Rd.
Suite D-211
Mesa, AZ 85202

New Presentation at OSP West

Last week I had the chance to give my new presentation to 70+ photographers who are part of the OpenSourcePhoto.net forum that my friend David Jay started a few years ago.

The most amazing thing about this group is that they all want to learn and share with each other. We had photographers from all over the country fly in to help guide photo shoots and to teach different sessions.



I've given a number of presentations before but this was a new one that I had just written. It hit on the topic of marketing through every little part of your business. I included a bunch of tips that can be done for little or no money but will result in a more definite brand for your business.

So far received a ton of great comments already but I would love to hear from more of you. Feel free to post a comment on this blog if you found any of the information helpful and also how you plan on implementing it into your business.

Thanks so much for such a wonderful time!

Share the impact:
I'm submitting this talk for Pictage's next PartnerCon conference, so if any of you are interested in helping out you can email Lisa at lallen@pictage.com and let her know how much the presentation impacted you.

Scouting out Sassi

Today I traveled around with Kim and Jason to scout the locations for their upcoming wedding. Its been about 5 months since we shot their engagement photos in Oceanside, CA and it was great to see them again.

We stopped over at Sassi which is where their reception will be held. I'm definitely excited to shoot there. I love the Italian villa theme.

Pictage User Group w/ Davide Greene

Last night the Pictage User Group in Phoenix got together with a special guest. Davide Greene flew down from Toronto to talk about his business.
What I really appreciate about Davide is just how honest he is about everything. He's straight forward with his clients. He's passionate about his photography. And he truly loves what he is doing.



I have such a similar passion for every aspect of my business. This is work is truly fun and exciting and there is nothing else I would rather be doing. My clients give me so many fun opportunities and at times I forget that this is actually work. My friends always give me a hard time about always having a camera in my hand, but I honestly love taking photographs. They help me reflect on parts of my life and excite me about the things to come!

A few of us went out to dinner and they were mentioning how Davide and I look like brothers now that I'm back to blond.


I might just have to agree and I may have to get a set of glasses as well.

Delayed

Delayed
Originally uploaded by Jefferson Todd Pals.

I was delayed by traffic in Burbank so I won't be in the office today. I'm on the road right now andhttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif home sounds really inviting.


While I was headed to my friends place when I noticed this sign and I totally agree.

Being on the 101 freeway can definitely change your luck. My trip started off great and then got entirely screwed up while I was sitting on the 101 freeway.


Update:
I did finally get back on the road the next day and it was a much better ride. No crazy traffic to deal with at 6:30 in the morning as I headed out of the city.


On my way back through Phoenix I called up Stuart Thurlkill, who has become a great friend and we headed out to lunch.
This was the best photo I took of him and I'm sure he's probably pleased with it. :)

Off to Phoenix

Off to Phoenix
Originally uploaded by Jefferson Todd Pals.

Its time to leave Santa Barbara which is always difficult for me. I have so many friends that live here and we always have a blast hanging out. I also plan on moving there which also makes it much harder to leave. But I've got to get back to work.

JT

Edit: I'm actually going to crash in Burbank tonight because the traffic was really bad. So, I won't actually be back into the office tomorrow like my auto-response says.

Leaving Santa Barbara

I got back down to Santa Barbara last night and had dinner with friends at a great sushi place called Arigato on State Street.


I was heading out of town this morning and it really hit me that I'm way behind on emails from this last week. I know many of you have been waiting for a response and I just haven't had the time to sit down. So I pulled into my favorite coffee shop, Finestra Caffe in downtown and I'm gonna try and jam out on some emails before I hit the road on my 9 hour drive back.

Bridal Shoot at Robert Hall Winery

It's been crazy here at the Opensourcephoto.net west coast conference. On Friday we all headed to the Robert Hall Winery for a photo shoot. There were 50+ photographers split up into different shooting groups.

Robert Hall Winery


Down in the Barrel Room


I dragged a group of the photographers out into the vineyard to take a few shots and I noticed that Juliet Nicole took a shot of all of us out there.



Here's the shot I got while were were out there.


Another shot from Juliet of me with Mike from Bigfolio, a web design firm.


Shaun Austin snapped a photo of me as well.

Hanging in Pismo Beach

I'm down in Pismo Beach now and it's been a blast meeting the people that showed up early. Here's a few photos from today.

View from Santa Barbara


Driving up to Pismo Beach


I headed to dinner with Greg Coates, Shannon and Serena.

Driving to Santa Barbara

Driving to Santa Barbara
Originally uploaded by Jefferson Todd Pals.

I'm on my way to SB today and then off to Pismo Beach where I'll be meeting up with aroung 80 wedding photographers from the west coast. I'm jazzed about meeting so many people that I've interacted with online. I'll be teaching a session on marketing on Saturday. Its a new talk that I'm working on and I'm excited to share some new thoughts.



I will still get email but it may take me slightly longer to respond. Feel free to email my studio manager Heather if you need anything. Her email is heather@jeffersontodd.com



Later!

JT

Amy + Brian

This weekend I shot Amy and Brian's engagement photos in downtown Scottsdale, AZ. We had a good time and got some fun photos of the two of them.





Brian has been working hard on creating their own wedding website and I have to say that I was blown away by how cool it looks. You can read about how they met (from each other's perspective) and look through their photo gallery.

Check it out here: Amy and Brian's Website

I love this photo on the website. Great job Brian!

Dear and the Headlights Concert

Thursday night I headed into downtown Phoenix to see my friends Ian and Joel play at the Modified Art, a small art house that holds concerts. Their band, Dear and the Headlights was releasing their first recorded CD and I wanted to be there to support them.

The concert was great!








At the show I had a past bride Tracy come up and say hi. It caught me off guard since I shot her wedding with a friend of mine in Newport Beach, CA and here she was in downtown Phoenix. I guess they were friends of the drummer which helps show how small of a world this is.

Cruisin' to Cozumel

Many of you were asking to see some of the photos of my cruise and I finally got around to editing some of them and put together a slideshow.

Last month I took a cruise with a small group of wedding photographers. We all had a great time taking a break from work especially since we didn't even have our phones or internet working! The week was filled with relaxing, wine tastings, cigar time and just a lot of fun hanging out.

Trying to make my life jacket fashionable during our drill.


Our cruise ship the USS Ecstasy a Carnival cruise ship.


I couldn't believe how blue the water was in Cozumel!


A few of us went snorkeling out at the reel in Cozumel. We could see 60 feet down to the ocean floor. We saw a 5 foot long shark and I also held a non-poisonous jelly fish that had really neat flashing dots on its body.


When we left Cozumel a storm was blowing through and the winds were super strong. We headed to the front of the ship to play around. Here I am being held up by the wind.


The trip did have to end after 5 days of fun. And believe it or not I got back into Phoenix and it was 45 degrees out, but the sky looked so beautiful.


A big thanks again to all of my cruise buddies! Bruce Steffine, Chris Uglanica, Janice, Shane Snider and wife Amy, Timco and Mary Beth Conner.

Check out the slideshow link below to see more fun photos from my trip including our stops at Progresso and Cozumel, MX.

Check out the slideshow here ---> Cruisin' to Cozumel

Bridal Store is Open!

Like I mentioned on Friday, is opening their doors in downtown Chandler today! It's located right at the corner of Arizona Ave and Boston St.

I dropped by to setup a slideshow on one of their large screens and to take a few photos to show you how it all looks.











Let them know that you heard about the store from my blog if you drop in.

Uptown Bridal & Boutique Opens in Chandler, AZ!

I headed over to see Tonia, Nicole and Dianne over at Uptown Bridal in downtown Chandler, AZ. They're finishing up all of the final touches on the place and getting ready for the Grand Opening tomorrow.





I was lucky enough to photograph Nicole's wedding at the Ocotillo Golf Club in Chandler on New Year's Eve 2006!

Nicole and Tonia, twin sisters


I'll post more photos tomorrow from the opening!

I also ran into Chris and Tammie from Largo Photography. They were doing a shoot in the area and dropped in to see what the craziness was all about.