I have been so busy this summer that it has been hard to stay on top of blogging everything quickly. My friends Natalie and Dan got married at the beginning of the summer at the Santa Barbara Mission. Their reception was at the Maritime Museum. It was an amazing day from start to finish. Here are some photos from one of the funnest weddings I’ve ever shot.







The Mission is probably one of the most distinct landmarks in Santa Barbara. The inside is so beautiful, and it made for a distinctly Santa Barbara wedding ceremony.




Natalie’s parents were married at the Santa Barbara Mission, and had a photo from their wedding near this palm tree. It wasn’t quite this big yet though.



The bridal party got dropped of by the trolly on the Wharf, and they took the Little Toot as a water taxi to get them to the other side of the harbor for the reception at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum. Do I even need to say that it was an epic entrance?








I have a lot of great role models in my life including my parents, uncles, aunts, and friends, but throughout the wedding day I found a new one: Natalie’s dad, Jeff. There is something unique about the relationship between fathers and their daughters that is very special. After tearing up in a major way during Jeff’s toast, I realized that I would be very proud to become a father like Jeff Petrini someday.

Weddings are a long day on your feet. I’m always impressed by brides who do everything including dance all night in their heels. This was a quick moment where the feet got a short break outside from all the dancing.


This photo sums up how much fun the dancing was all night.



You can see more photos in their slideshow if you’d like. Cheers!

A huge thank you to all of the rad people who made everything awesome. Jessica Zavala – Merriment Wedding Planning, was essential in so many ways and also very easy to work with. Joey Molina, Cana Flowers, made the creative floral arrangements. Country Catering served the food. Dawn Peters at Decadence made the beautiful wedding cake. DJ Joshua Jones, Goodbeat Productions, played music that kept everyone on the dance floor all night. If you are planning a Santa Barbara wedding, you should get these people involved.

Amy and Josh were some of the first people that I met when I moved to San Francisco. We met through some other mutual friends, and I was able to hang out with their Bible study group, The Jesus Fan Club, on numerous occasions. I also rode bikes with them one afternoon across the Golden Gate Bridge and into Sausalito. This ride inspired what would later become the “bike ride of destiny” where I rode with Alexis across the bridge and proposed when we got to the other side. All that to say that I think Amy and Josh are an awesome couple! They are both super smart, and artistic. I was so excited when they told me they had gotten engaged. I can’t wait to be a part of their wedding at the UC Berkeley Faculty Club in September.
For their engagement photos, we started in San Francisco at Golden Gate Park down at the end by the windmill. Next, we chased birds at Ocean beach, ran in the sand, and finished up our shoot at Albany Bulb in Berkeley. It was a fantastic afternoon.












Albany Bulb used to be a landfill, so there is all sorts of random things everywhere. People built a makeshift library, and even stocked it with books. Artists built and left the sculptures out there. Albany bulb was full of interesting places to shoot at. It would be fun to go check it out on a weekend just for fun too.



All of the sculptures at Albany Bulb were great. Amy is an artist, and we wanted to get some art involved in the framing of these photos.



Not only do I love all of the photos that we got, but we celebrated after with some amazing pizza at Zachary’s in Berkeley. Little Star in SF better watchout, Zachary’s was SO good! I haven’t met any Chicago deep dish pizza that I didn’t like though. Cheers!

These are photos from a bachelor party weekend. It was for me, my best friend, Brandon, and my brother Mikey. So many weddings going on this year! I guess it’s like that for me every year, but not always with family and close friends. We went to Rock Creek, near June Lake. It was so nice getting to hang out with my Santa Barbara crew for the weekend. On the way home I camped in Yosemite with my roommate, Matt, and we hiked Half Dome. I had been wanting to do that hike for a while, and I was stoked that it worked out for us to do it. Yosemite is an amazing place! I can’t believe somewhere that beautiful is just a couple of hours away from us in San Francisco.



We found this awesome rock to jump off. When you do something that scares you, you feel alive. It’s a great feeling. Oh yeah, the photo on the right is of me in my underwear… I just did that. Boom.


A photo with my brothers, Mikey, me and Daniel.

This is a view of one of the waterfalls from the valley in Yosemite.





The hike up to the base of Half Dome is like many other hikes. When you get to the end though, there are these cables that you use to go up the super steep face to get to the top. This would be another one of those scary things you do to remember that you are still alive. The view from the top was amazing!!! I would recommend doing this hike at some point in your life if you are into this sort of thing.




I would like to mention, that all of these photos were taken with my new point and shoot camera, the Canon S90. If you are looking for a great point and shoot camera that does it all, you should get one of these.

Here are a few portraits that I did for the brother and sister band, Annabel Lee. They have been working on recording their debut album which will hopefully be done sometime this fall. These photos were shot in Golden Gate park in San Francisco.

I have been doing the graphic design for Alpha Pregnancy Center, a San Francisco non-profit, since 2009 when I offered to help them as part of a design class while I was still in school. I really appreciate how they are focused on loving women and families in the Bay Area who find themselves in the difficult place of an unplanned pregnancy. Chastidy, the executive director, and the other volunteers there offer a supportive ear, and provide tangible help through the donated resources they receive. The flyer I designed above is for their annual “Walk for Life” event. I am sad that I won’t be able to make it to the event since I will be shooting a wedding on the same day, but here is the event information: The walk will be on September 25, 2010 at 10am, starting at Alpha Pregnancy Center (5070 Mission Street, San Francisco). Walkers will drop off care packages at some of the families homes who receive support from APC, and then end at John McLaren Park for a community BBQ. Feel free to give them a call if you are interesting in hearing more about the work they do for the community, or to register to be a part of the Walk for Life (415-584-6800). You can see a larger version of their summer 2010 newsletter here if you would like to check that out.

This summer has been so awesome! Lots of good people, good times, and so much fun. I can’t wait to share more of these photos with you all.

Alexis and I had a really nice weekend in hanging out with family and friends down in Santa Barbara for the 4th. We also got to be guests at our friend’s, Teresa and Hany’s, wedding. It was such a blast! I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn’t at work. It is an honor to be a guest at a wedding (and lots of fun)! I hope you had a good weekend too. Here is a photo I took of the 4th of July fireworks in Santa Barbara.

This year has been going by SO fast! My brother, Mikey, will be getting married in less than a month!!! Does this manly endeavor mean that I will have to start calling him Michael instead of Mikey? It seemed like just yesterday that I was taking his proposal photos. With their wedding just around the corner, he wanted to do some proper engagement photos. We definitely had a good time, and I really enjoy how fun these photos are. I feel that they are fitting for Mikey and Ashley’s easy going and fun personalities. People who smile and laugh a lot are always having a good time. We started out just down the street from our parent’s house at the Goleta Pier at Goleta Beach.




We then did some more engagement photos in Old Town Goleta. For real.

As we were driving by, I saw the shadows from the trees on the roll up doors, so we pulled off for a couple of quick photos outside of the muffler shop. I love Goleta!


Sizzling hot makeout session in old town Goleta by the Sizzler sign. I bet that’s a first. On a side note, we used to love when our parents would take us to this Sizzler when we were kids.

In true Goleta style, we then took some engagement photos in a lemon grove.



Mikey and Ashley are so great together! I am very proud of Mikey, and super excited that Ashley will be joining our family! I can’t wait to shut the dance floor down at their wedding. You can see more of this Goleta engagement goodness here.

I got to be involved in Christopher and Jacquelyn’s beautiful evening wedding in Modesto. It was actually my second weekend in a row being out here for a wedding. They live in Georgia, where Christopher is stationed in the army. Their family and friends helped put every thing together for such a nice wedding. Big thanks to Carol Anne Miller for both connecting me with the couple, and for opening up her home and design skills to help make this awesome. I really enjoyed how intimate this wedding felt. Good friends and good times. Here are some of the photos from their day:




Their reception was slightly different since their ceremony was in the evening. Instead of a formal dinner, they had a really nice desert bar. Mmmm…







I love this shot in the almond trees at sunset. The light coming through the trees was so amazing!




It was such a fun evening! Thanks so much for letting me be a part of it. You can see more photos in their slideshow too.

I had a great time doing engagement photos for my friends, Tarik and Erika. They are such a cute couple! I can’t wait for their wedding in San Francisco this December. Tarik and Erika moved up to San Francisco to help start a new church, Reality SF. My fiance, Alexis, and I have been going there, and we love it. It is so great to be involved in a community of people who live close and have the same goals as we do for making a difference in the city. Before I moved up to San Francisco from Santa Barbara, I had been helping with the high school youth group at Reality SF’s sending church, Reality Carpinteria, so the Reality family has always been very close to me. Here are some of the photos that we got on this beautiful Sunday afternoon.

San Francisco is such a big part of their lives, so we wanted to get some photos with the Golden Gate Bridge in them. Baker Beach is one of my favorite views of the bridge. I remember being blown away by the awesomeness of Baker Beach the first time I went there. I still feel that way when I go there actually.

Tarik had Erika’s engagement ring custom designed so that it would mimic the shape of the Golden Gate Bridge. SO awesome!


While I have been to Baker Beach many times, this was the first time I even noticed all of the old military bunkers there. We had some great light at the bunkers, and I love the rustic/industrial feel of this scenery.




An outfit change and a couple of espresso shots later, we went downtown to get some evening and night portraits. St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in the back of this photo on the left is such a cool building. I love that it is right by the Contemporary Jewish Museum too (below). I’ve found that all of the interesting architecture in this area makes it a great place to take photographs.


Thanks for such a good time! You can see more photos in the slideshow too.