I Heart Texas!
March 26th, 2009
For those of you reading from the North Texas area, hello! C Weddings is expanding to the Lone Star State. To celebrate this venture, book now for a travel fee of $100! (Cherry Blossom Package or higher)
It’s for a limited time, so if you’re getting married in Texas send me an email soon!
Why you ask? Because I love Texas. The people are friendly. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t friendly people in LA, but in Texas people, for the most part, are in less of a rush to get to places. I don’t hear the honk of a horn as much, and the roads are so much wider. The Barbeque is excellent. Yes, that’s a capitalization on the Barbeque because I’ve tried barbeque elsewhere (like Georgia) and I’ve yet to taste anything like Texas barbeque. I head over there multiple times a year and my goal is to try a new barbeque place every time. This past month I tried Baker’s Ribs and I loved it. I love the generosity of that place. You ask for more bread and their attitude is, sure! There’s unlimited soft serve afterwards that’s complimentary and I had two cones.
I grew up in Texas. I went to Holub Middle School in Houston and there was football and cheerleading, debate team and regional championship spelling bees. I lost in the regional spelling bee because I spelled fettucini wrong. Dictionary.com is telling me that I’m still spelling it wrong. Guess some things never change.
What else? I thought it was cool in junior high to carry a purse. So I started carrying one to school, even though I had a backpack already and I didn’t really know what to put in it. Due to the non-practicality aspect of the purse (I didn’t even have money in there, I just wanted to be cool!) I kept on forgetting my purse after every class, so almost every day for a week or two my after-school activity was backtracking and looking for my purse. I ditched the purse in the end, it was too much work.
When I went to junior high America was in the middle of the Iraq war. There were yellow ribbons everywhere. Everyone knew someone in the military or had family in the military, and we talked about Saddam and spelled it backwards. We thought we were hot stuff when we got a TI-82 calculator. We thought we were even hotter stuff when they upgraded it to a TI-83.
I have some great memories of when I used to live in Texas. And if you’ve read this to the end, be the first person to book me for Texas and your travel fee will be $0. No travel fee for you!
Though I am not a native Texan, if you think about it Hank Hill (from my favorite show, King of the Hill) wasn’t either. He was born in New York but I consider him to be every bit of a Texan because it’s all about the love. Besides, I have a brother who’s a Texan. Does that count?
Cristy and Neil, Engagement
March 17th, 2009
Spring is almost here! That’s what I realized as I hung out with Cristy and Neil this weekend in Corona Del Mar. It was nice walking around and seeing people up and about. The barbeque area was full of people and there were plenty of kids playing on the beach. The houses there had much character, and Cristy gave me a walking tour of the area as she grew up there. I look forward to photographing their wedding in May! Here are a few of my favorite pics from the session.
Charmaine and Brian, Wedding
March 10th, 2009
Go Bruins! This wedding was a great day with the Bruin family. We kicked off the afternoon with the television (and getting ready, of course) and watched UCLA beat Oregon in basketball. The weather was perfect, and Charmaine was perfect too. It was difficult for anyone to be really stressed out when the bride herself was calm, content and enjoying the day.
Then it was off to the ceremony and the reception, which was held at El Adobe de Capistrano, in San Juan Capistrano. Everything was very personal and intimate. The reception hall was surrounded by pictures from their travels, and of course, Charmaine and Brian kicked off the reception with the UCLA eight-clap, and thus the party had officially begun, Bruin Style. Brian did the robot and that was when the dancing got really serious. Some shoes came off, and then the ties, and then the buttons were loosened along with some soul.
It’s always fun seeing people from all walks of life, as well as different cultures, come together in celebration. I even saw people my mom’s age line dance to Tupac. If you’re not brave enough to do it in public like the cool people at Charmaine and Brian’s wedding, you should try it first in your own home: Ca-li-for-nia, knows how to par-ty! It made me realize that California Love is in a 4/4 time signature. Go figure.
On a technical note, these pictures were shot with the Canon 5D Mark II. I love this camera!
Fun with Medium Format Polaroids
March 2nd, 2009
I finally got a chance to scan these polaroids. These pictures were taken about a month ago. The brothers Han (Derek and Dennis) agreed to help me out by modeling for me on a Friday night. That’s quite a sacrifice, considering it’s the end of the week and they could be out partying. For those of you who are keeping up with my blog, they also helped me build that paper drawer, which is thankfully done and sitting right here by my desk. And for those of you who have been asking, yes, my office is relatively clean now, thanks for keeping up.
And to those of you who are wondering what I am doing with polaroids, last month I got to have some fun with medium format cameras, and since film doesn’t allow for instant gratification, I took some polaroids beforehand to take a look and adjust for the lighting, posing, etc.. Being kids of the 90’s, they got a real kick out of how fast the polaroids developed, and we got to have some fun as the boys coordinated some “looks” for their Facebook profile.
