you might have noticed that i mix alot of my own personal stuff into my blog here as i want to show who i am and one thing is my relationship with Jesus. i think the resolved conference is one of those christian conferences that i love because it is all about upholding the word of God to its highest and to “unleash” the truths of it. there is nothing here to butter up Gods word as its the word delivered at its rawest. this one is my 3rd one and its been totally awesome to help me continue the fight for my soul here on earth. i am no where near perfect but its only by the grace of God that i am alive and still fighting.

ill be posting some random shots as well as vids on facebook too.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2414263&id=3205527&l=891467b9e1

not much to take shots of but lots of goodness to hear.

and most of you probably know already that i am a landscape photographer at heart. some may think its boring but i think its totally exciting being able to capture the majesty of god and his creation. that sense of awe and marvel i get is unexplainable and feeds me to do more. i think its just god wanting me to check him out and glorify him!

all these were taken with my 24-105mm lens if you are wondering. i never bring more than one lens on a trip. it not only allows me to travel light but forces me to be creative with only what i have on hand.

the desert is actually a pretty nice place! the views from down here on terra firma are gorgeous. good thing it wasnt too hot.

the sky from down here is definitely amazing. like i said before, totally gods canvas!! the mountains even look like paintings from this distance!!!! ok i took these outside the car window as we were heading back to LA on the 10.

my best friend said that these windmills are scary. i guess they are if they break and own you but watching them go round and round slowly seems peaceful. i wonder if one of those can power my house…though that be an ungainly sight in my neighborhood

and you probably have noticed that i love flying too. the views are also gorgeous up here too and i hope these shots can show you a bit of gods awesome creation even in the sky. gahhh every nature thing on earth is gorgeous! its already pretty amazing that a piece of heavy metal like a plane can fly too!!

there was a medical emergency on my flight when we landed so as i was confined to my seat i snapped this shot of the busy southwest ramp! planes and vehicles everywhere! its kinda like watching ants go about their busy day.

when i move back home, i aspire to be one of those guys on the ramp servicing planes. i hope i have the time to do so and apply for a job at SFO! those guys are buff stuff though, im skinny bones, dont know if theyll hire me

very very peaceful, serene light/glow of the setting sun. i LOVE it.

and here is a short series showing Gods hand at work on his canvas…LIVE! these shots were taken only seconds apart (use the mountain in the background as a reference to how close these shots were taken apart from each other) yet they show the dynamics of the clouds in the sky!!!!

naw im not gonna quit. that would be insano.

other than wppi, i attended scott robert‘s vegas workshop too. it really takes a person a couple of workshops before one gets comfortable. comfort is no problem now since its my 4th so i just hung back a little in this workshop (fun getting to know the seasoned folks a bit more!) and let the newer people have their chance. but i remember as a newbie last year it was quite intimidating because not only does scott open himself to you and give you a wealth of info to absorb but when youre in the midst of seasoned workshop people who aren’t afraid to grab and pose a model fast, it really makes for a upbeat setting. perfect setting if you want to be a wedding photographer =).

well anyways here are some pics from the scott robert workshop and wppi. i got bored with my previous way of showing finished images so here is a study of a new one both in presentation and post processing. workshops are a place of experimenting and so are the images!

imma try to start melding my design stuff and typography in my future posts too

f1.2!!!! i love it

i dont do many candids in workshops but more posing but heres a candid

if youve ever followed along jessica claire’s website, heres serena and jeremy.†and low and behold (i didnt even know at the time) this is serena behind†http://serenagrace.com/!†

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this is me trying to post process like scott sort of. but of course the master will always be the master! good to practice all sorts of post processing techniques though.

album styles?

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i love to work on my portrait skills in workshops

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thousands of photographers!!! wow

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i come here to be inspired by the best: scott robert, yervant, jerry ghionis….you guys should check out ghionis’s flair…oh man its so crazy. i love his presentations…so full of bling.

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i like this image for some reason. you can see me, you can see my setting (a suite in the mgm at scott roberts party) and you can see my location: vegas. like a story in a pic.

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postcard image

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goodbye vegas, i wont miss you but i will miss my photography friends! until next year

For this event shoot I had to wake up at 4:30AM to prep and head down since it was a lengthy drive. What made it worse was that my body decided that it would only sleep for 2 hours the night before. But that is ok! As I stated above, being a photographer is rewarding because of all these different places you get to go to and be a part of!

The event was sweet in that so many kids from all over the world came to participate. I love being surrounded by people who speak Mandarin too! It felt like Taiwan, it felt like home.

These kids are so amazingly fast and skilled with their abacuses. During the test itself the room was quiet except for the thundering clicks of the kids using their abacuses! Some even did the test with what I call an air-abacus (not using their physical abacus instead just using their fingers on the table!!!). I was wowed no doubt at their skill considering that as a kid all I did with my mom’s abacus was use it as a toy vehicle/toy truck (if you turn the abacus upside down you can roll it along the ground like a car with many wheels)! 

I’ll just be posting a couple of pics so you guys can see what it looked like. I’m glad I woke up at 4:30AM for this =).

Ah the proctor was cool. Everytime he would yell “STOP” when time was up during the dead silence, I would see all the kids startle and jolt in their seat hahah. He even scared me a couple of times too.

So I was cautious coming to this party. But to my great surprise, shooting for this party was entirely different as there was none of that! This Rho Pi Phi Formal was entirely enjoyable. There were performances and slideshows that kept everyone entertained and the people there were nice and fun loving, easy to work with (those are the best clients hehe).

These kinds of parties I’m growing to love because they are ALOT like wedding receptions. The low light, the dancing, the speakers, the people eating, the nice location, etc! This gives me a chance to practice for my future receptions, not to mention a great chance to try out Scott Robert‘s “Signature Reception Lighting” and my Pocketwizards.

I’m going to just post some of the shots I got using my Pocketwizards (well, except for two).
The rest of the photos (as I am able to edit them) can be found on my Facebook Album here

Elisa did a peacock dance, never seen anything like it! Cool!

A dance with a tie, I have no idea. Hehe

I haven’t felt much accomplishment at my day job and in life lately so I knew I needed a quick change and what greater way to do it than through my blog! The old blog was too drab anyways and I had itchy fingers to design something other than what I do for work. A creative mind needs constant creative fuel to run.

I pretty much suck at html and coding so I hired James to help me out a bit. He was the person that graciously helped me install WordPress last year since I didn’t know how to. This round, I designed the site and had him do the code for me and he did a wonderful job and knew what he was doing! Not to mention he was patient with all my requests! Many thanks!

Now I have a site that I truly love! You’ll find:
- new navigation grouped just above this post on the gray menu bar
- a flash based header that I made which will allow me room to put more interactive content on the site in the future like music, pics, games maybe. I will try to code it so it can randomize images later
- a couple of advertisement links under each post so that you can find me easily
- best of all I now have the space to post BIGGER PICTURES!!! I just hope my pictures are worth looking at bigger!

I still have a little bit of cleanup work to do but sooner or later I’ll get them done.

How about I test how big I can post a picture with one of my shots from yesterday’s Rho Pi Phi Formal. I got to practice for the first time in a real setting use Scott Robert‘s “Signature Reception Lighting” technique for this shoot (whether I got anywhere near to call it that is another story)! More later. Testing 1, 2, 3! BIG!