FotoCielo and Arigato Sushi

One of my favorites cities is Santa Barbara. I don't know what it is, but I'm in love with the city. My stress escapes me when I arrive.

On my tour of Southern California I visited all my friends in Santa Barbara including the guys behind FotoCielo. They were having MokaDesign redesign their website so it was nice to talk through some of the ideas and proofs while I was there. I think that might be my only web design client that I've ever met with in person.

Ricky and Tim run the operation and Kiel is a photographers/office dude/nutrition expert.
(Tim, Kiel, Ricky, me)


They were super nice to take me out to my favorite sushi place, Sushi Arigato on State Street.


And I made a stop by David's place although he seemed to sneak away with a girl before I could get a picture so here is the view from his house.

Greg Bumatay

While in California I dropped by to see my friend Greg Bumatay at Bumatay Studio. He's a great photographer and it's been way too long since I photographed with him.

His wife and him recently moved their office into a sweet condo in Fullerton. It's in such a cute community. Here he is in the showroom.

Catalina, CA - A Vacation

It was time to get away from the heat in Arizona so my father, brother and best friend Troy headed out for a guys trip. We stayed at the small Coronado Inn on the island. It's the perfect location to walk down to the bay, downtown Coronado and the brewery.

The homes are all so quaint.


We headed down to Balboa Park and saw part of the Body Worlds exhibit. It's so crazy to see the human body in that form.

There was also this very interesting entertainment group on the pathway. They were a bit creepy. It sort of reminded me of the singing ghosts from the Haunted House in Disneyland.


My brother Darren


Troy


Me


My brother and dad


Oh yeah!




San Diego and the bay

Long Beach Engagement Session

I had a chance to photograph an engagement session in Long Beach with my buddy Kenneth Morgan a while back. Here are a few of my pictures that I enjoyed.

La Jolla Randomness

Sea Caves in La Jolla, CA






Around town

Sandra + Eric's Guestbook

Sandra and Eric's Guestbook just shipped out today. They're going to love it!


The cover has an image from Imperial Beach on Coronado, CA.


Inside are pictures from their entire session in San Diego, CA. Some from Balboa park, others from downtown.


There is still plenty of room for wedding guests to leave their wishes on these beautiful pages.


Thick pages will help ensure that this book lasts a long time.


Here is a close shot of the textured paper which is easier to write on then the smooth paper that is typically used.


You can view the entire guestbook design HERE.

Fourth of July on Coronado

I spent the 4th of July on Coronado island in California with my dad and brother. There is a huge parade each year on the island that we were able to enjoy.



This cute dog was sitting by us.


With a base being on the island there was a large presence of military in the parade.


Including the girl scouts with their Operation Thin Mint car.


In the San Diego bay there was a ship with a huge flag on it


The sunset was beautiful


Then the fireworks began with the San Diego skyline behind.



I hope you all had a wonderful and safe Independence Day! What a great country we have!

The Santa Barbara Crew

I've been in California since last weekend to shoot some engagement session photos for upcoming weddings. During the week I headed north to Santa Barbara, which is one of my favorite places to visit. I have a great group of friends whom are all wonderful photographers as well.

We all went out to lunch one day while I was visiting. It seems as though the out of town guy is the one that brings them all together for events.

(Ricky Mia, myself, Cheryl and Tim Halberg, Brett Bollman, David Jay, Katie and Chris Humphreys)


Later on that night I headed out for some wonderful sushi at Arigato on State Street. It's my favorite sushi restaurant ever!

While I was walking to dinner I noticed the smoke coming up from north Santa Barbara county. It helped create a beautiful sunset. But it also helped create a nice power outage during dinner.

Veronica + Stephen Engagement Guestbook

I loved this image from Veronica + Stephen's Engagement session in California. To see the rest of their guestbook design click the link below.

Check out the slideshow here ---> Veronica + Stephen Engagement Guestbook

Veronica + Stephen Engagement Session in San Juan Capistrano, CA

Here are a few more photos from Veronica and Stephen's engagement session in California. We started off the session in downtown San Juan Capistrano and and then headed to Newport Beach for a beach session.

San Clemente Exposé

A personal project of mine has been to capture some of the unique elements in San Clemente, CA over the last two years. My recent engagement session brought me back out here so I spent yesterday afternoon walking around downtown. Here are some of those photos.

Veronica + Stephen Engagement Session in Newport Beach, CA

Veronica and Stephen get a ton of points for being fearless in February. They wanted to get some great ocean photos while we were out here in California for their engagement session and so they got into the freezing cold water for the last part of our session. Here are a few of the photos from that evening.



Don't they just look like models






There are more great photos from earlier in the day that I'll post later.