San Francisco City Hall Weddings CAN be beautiful!

They say "beauty" is in the eye of the beholder....however, most photographers know that portraiture is subjective and although subject matter really does help, it helps even more when whatever you see through your viewfinder BECOMES beautiful when we capture the right moment.

Amy, a sweet and grateful bride-to-be, dialed Weddings 9-1-1 and hired us to cover her City Hall wedding in San Francisco on December 19th. The first thing I thought was, ugh...I use to work there, I do not recall any kool photo op's other than the cool railings and the kinda cool statues that adorn the Rotunda wall on the 2nd floor, and of course all the crowds that run through the hall on a Friday, just was not inspiring at all. But, when we arrived yesterday early morning, we found a HUGE bountiful and gorgeous Christmas tree at the center of the Rotunda, and THAT made our day! And....all of the sudden, we noticed, a SPOTLIGHT...yes...to the left side of the tree and we thought, THERE IS LIGHT!

It got even better, when I got a call from Amy saying she was already there at the Hall, I then immediately noticed a gorgeous statuesque blond in a wedding gown..we both had cell phones in our hands and we immediately said, "hey is that you!?" We met and hugged and she gave me such a warm welcome, her, the tree, the welcome, this is a photographers dream! I then followed her to the ceremony check in and met her lovely 5 year old daughter Zyra, who was just an angel of beauty, and I also met, the groom, we can't forget him! David was a Dapper Dave, and they all just looked amazing! I'm sooooooooooo ready to shoot!

Amy and David had mentioned that Zyra was very much a part of the ceremony. During the Ring Ceremony, David, presented her with a beautiful ring of her own, and Amy presented her with a lovely tri-circle necklace, symbolizing their union as a family....just LOVELY!

We had some challenges and here is a note to help you avoid these simple little BIG details.

1) Make a list of poses, 2) Check your battery power, flash and camera, 3) Get there at least an hour before the shooting begins, we arrived 30 mins. before the ceremony and ran around like crazy! 4) Double check for White balance settings, to make sure you clear your last shoot's settings, and as always RELAX!

But now...meet Amy, David, and little Zyra Marie, we wish them a life full of love and best wishes!

And again and again MERRY CHRISTMAS to you and Happy New Year!

Our First Anniversary!

Hi everybody! We did it! We survived our FIRST Wedding Annivesary without killing each other. Actually we are so in love that, well, let me spare you the details, it's far too mooshy for all of you KIDS!

We trotted out to Skates on the Bay in the Berkeley Marina, this is where we had our Wedding Luncheon that followed our ceremony. It's a lovely 4-star restaurant overlooking the Berkeley Marina with breath taking bay views. The food, SUPERB, the service, wonderful. We walked in and they immediately escorted us to a lovely table for two on the window, just as I had requested. And, they remembered us from our wedding...perfect, this means we will probably get FREE dessert to celebrate, and we did!

It's so funny however, I took out my almost NEW Canon SD1100 Pink, stuck it in my handbag and off we were.....Boy, I had no idea how soon we forgot how to use a darn point and shoot. It just was NOT as fun anymore, I am so used to my Canon 40D, it was hilarious. Anyway...we had a great dinner hung out in Berkeley on 4th Street for a little while, then we dashed home. We popped open a bottle of bubbly and fearfully sliced our defrosted wedding cake's top tier, yea, from our wedding last year, and to our surprise the darn cake was AWESOME!!!!!!! Here we thought one year, one bite and one toast, but we at a whole slice each! YUM, and marriage so far...HOW SWEET IT IS! We are so blessed to LOVE what we do and do what we LOVE....Cheers!

Here's our point and shoot gallery....enjoy!

Our BLOG....IT'S ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well good morning everybody...just 11 days to go for our First Wedding Anniversary!!
And.........This is the day that I finally start our blog! Besides the fact, I can't sleep, so, what better time to do this? So much to say and so little time, but we are excited to be officially blogged, and we look forward to your posts and/or comments.

We want to wish you and yours a Happy Holidays and a Happy and prosperous 2009!!!!! Let's go out with a BANG! Hopefully my hubby gets me the Canon 5D Mark II, I am salivating as much as he is for his Nikon D700! LOL! Santa Daddy!!!

And in the spirit of the Everyday Holiday here are some Free goodies FOR YOU from http://www.autofx.com/, download their "Dreamy Photo" PS plug-in, FUN!

Make sure you also check out Matt's Lightroom Killer Tips, he has a multitude ofF R E E, yes I said FREE presets, including the fabulous Matt's "300" Look! Go get it and more at http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/, tell Matt I sent ya.....;o)

Our friend Nancy

I wanted to share this fabulous photo by a great friend of mine, Nancy, her spirit and energy are just beautiful and it shows in her ways and mostly in her art form! I commend her for her desire to learn, her ability to produce and her excitement about just getting out there to SHOOT! Here's a photo she captured at her son's Football game....GO CONCORD HS MINUTEMEN!!!! Mama.........I am SO PROUD OF YOU! Now get to work on your blog! LOL!

Check out Denise Olson as well, she's another mom THAT ROCKS!!!!!!! http://sportsstylephotography.blogspot.com/

And here's how she did it!

(Photo by Nancy Porfirio; edited by Denise Olson using Lightroom v1.4 and a combination of Matt's 300 Strong and Sin City Dark and whole lot of magical touches - cool, huh?)

A photo of me and Nancy at my Bridal Shower October 2007.....

Photo by: My niece Vyanka Castro, another aspiring lil' photographer....