our first family shoot :)

So this past week we where in St Croix, It was awesome...While we where there Mark planned to do a family shoot for our Aunt and Uncle. So the whole trip we where brainstorming poses and themes etc....little did we know babies have their own agenda. So all our ideas and poses got thrown out the window after our first attempt to make the baby smile...

So our 2nd game plan was just to go with the flow. Like most of you know, when you are shooting Babies they don't want to smile when you say smile, and they don't want to look at the camera unless you have someone like myself (Candice) jumping up and down like a crazy person screaming "wooop woop". So we just walked to different parts of the house with hopes that this "next shot" would be better the the last, and with no tears.

After the shoot was done, we were super pumped with the results! It was so fun to watch Mark snap his camera and watch his face light up when he caught the "perfect" moment.

Our Aunt and Uncle are such awesome people. They have the cutest baby boy, and their love and joy from him shine all around them. Thanks guys for letting us capturing the beginning of your family story!

Here are a couple of the shots we grabbed.

home from St croix

So today we got back from St Croix. We are exhausted, Both of us have been up for over 24 hours. But the trip was amazing (other then the bug bites all over our ankles)! Here are some of the shots we took of the house and of our last day on the island.

I am heading up to Mammoth tomorrow for an awesome wedding in the woods.... So stay tuned for that post. 

Here is a shot I snapped of the lightning storm that blew out the power for two days. It was RAD! Candice and I where sleeping in the top of the windmill and couldn't help but get out of bed at 3:00am to watch the storm. 
some fun shots form Candice's mom's "point and shoot"

a few fun detail shots of the house......

St. Croix 2.0

So i am sitting here blogging, while Candice and all of the women of the family watch the ULTRA-i think i might crap my pants-CHEESY Bachelorette! 

So, St. Croix is off the hook.  It rains everyday for at least 10 minutes and it can get kinda windy on islands so today for like two minutes it was raining sideways!!  how crazy is that! 

Today we drove through the Rain-Forrest!!!  (FREAKING UNBELIEVABLE) and Wednesday we are going to take a catamaran out to the best snorkel/scuba diving in the big VI!   

Some shots that my grandma took from her point and shoot. We went to a local beach near our house, it was awesome.

Here is my East Coast Family...and in the back ground you can see part of the Windmill.
(another shot from her "point and shoot" ) Tonight we had dinner to celebrate Grams and Gramps 50th wedding anniversary, HOLY CRAPNESS!!!!!

St Croix

So here we are in St. Croix! We had to take three flights to get here, (that smelt like Urine...Seriously we think someone peed in all the air conditioners as a joke. Every time the plane would start up everyone would start to gag. It was disgusting, but not as bad as the time there were cockroaches surrounding my feet on a flight to Hawaii.....) but we are having a blast! Like I mentioned in our last post we are meeting family here from all over the states, so it has been super fun to catch up with aunts, uncles, and meeting a new cousin (the baby in the picture below).

The coolest part about the trip is we are staying in a WINDMILL! yeap, you heard us, a wind mill. Back in the 17th century the house use to be a Sugar Cane factory....Well now it is a multi-million dollar resort house for large families like ours.

It over looks the ocean and there are 6 different rooms randomly placed on the property. Its kinda weird because the house is set up so you feel like you are outside, but really you are inside (lots of windows and openings). It rains once a day here but the weather has stayed over 90. Mark is fried (like a marshmallow that has been turning on its coat hanger for way to long)! and I am a golden brown(Like a perfect marshmallow). 

So anyways, we are staying in the very very very top part of the windmill, so our room is a 12 by 12 stone room with four super large windows. It is freakin radical, and we love taking bets on how long salamanders can hang up-sidedown for.  

Well we hope you enjoy the pics. We will be posting tomorrow also :)

mmmmmm........ coppertone......
Here are a few pictures of our room, our sister sleeping in a chair, and mark rocking his "I don't know what face to make... since I'm not taking the picture face", and a picture of our view. 

Virgin islands....

In three hours from now Mark and I are jumping on a plane and heading to St Croix, Virgin Island! we are super super excited! 

Has anyone ever heard of Trade to Travel? Well its this program where you can list your house on a website and people can stay in your house a week while you stay in theirs. And you get points for every time someone stays in your house. Well My grandparents have a house in NY that is in a Hot locations so we are swaptin' with someone in the Virgin Islands.

I am soooooo excited! I bought brand new pink water shoes and a pink snorkel (these items should look good with my bathing suites) and I found someone to watch Jeffrey (our dog). Everything is good to go. We leave Thursday night and get back Jun 28Th. So please be patient if we don't have Internet or phone service. We have lined a few shoots up while we are out there. So we will be posting them when we get back. 

I want to see colorful fish!

Lacey and Ren :: Picture me... engaged!!!

D-land aka Disney Land..... A place of dreams, color, and a vision.

Yesterday we were able to hang out with Lacey and Ren. They contacted us last week wanted to do an E-session at a place that meant the world to them. I guessed a few places before she spilled the beans that it was D-land. At first we (mark and I) where a little confused why D-land was "special", but now it all makes sense.

Lacey worked in the costume department and Ren was a pirate in the theater department. Every day Ren would check his costume out by this cute small blonde. She was madly in love with him from the first time he spoke, "may I please check out the pirate uniform"? He thought she was cute, but nothing was said or pursued. Well on Lacey's last day at work she mustered up enough guts to slip Ren her digits...

And here we are a few months later. They met at D-land, they got Engaged at D-land, They are having part of their ceremony at D-Land, and they are going to Walt Disney World for their honeymoon. So you can see why D-land is so special.

Congrats! We are sooooo excited for you both. We cant wait to work with you again soon.

Click here for the RAD slideshow!!!!!!!!!!!

Click here for the RAD slideshow!!!!!!!!!!!

Boutwells New Actions and the [b] School

We have been getting many emails asking about how we do our post processing, lighting, coloring etc... So we wanted to let you in on a little secret :) We use the Boutwells Totally Rad Actions.  They are honestly out of this world!!!!! Doug warned us when he was making them that they would be awesome, but he honestly blew our socks off with these ones. He should re-name them to "Totally Rockin, Rad, Badical, Actions.

Here is a slideshow of a few Before and after shots. they are jpeg file brought straight into Photoshop!....watch the magic.

The [b] School: A few weeks ago Mark and I where able to do a little sneek preview of the [b] school! Everyone knows that what ever Becker touches is successful...but when we saw the School it blew our mind, I literally kept telling him "this is crazy cool". It is going to be the goddess of all networking, online forums, clubs etc...We know the school is going to be our one stop shop in all our photography needs. Becker mentions in one of his tutorials that there will be clubs. Well when we found this out a couple of weeks ago we decided to start brainstorming of the club we wanted to run. So..... right when the [b] school launches we are going to launch our "The Family" club. So....

We will do Monthly Family dinners, Monthly family networking events, monthly family videos to help out those who have questions, and consistent online chats with all the family members.....Its going to be one big happy family of photographers. We are super excited to be apart of the [b] school when it launches, and do what ever we can to help out our family members. O.k. so who wants to be the Dad? J/k

Brianna and Joel :: Picture me... In LOVE!

So this past week We did a photo shoot in Newport Beach Balboa Fun Zone. It was awesome! Brianna and Joel are friends of a few of our past clients. They are not yet engaged(but we have a feeling that it will be super soon), so we did an "In Love sessions". We have a section of our Website specifically for all those people out there that are feelin the Love. 

Brianna and Joel met in High school during Choir class. For Joel it was Love at first sight, but Brianna took a few years to see the light. When Brianna came home from college Joel asked her on a date...they talked.. they held hands...they feel in love. 

We love hearing our clients talk about their life (because it is usually way cooler then ours). Brianna and Joel are practically professional Pool Table players. They have their own custom pool cue and everything. And they drive a super fast Mini Cooper (like us). So honesty all around they are Radical people. 

Slideshow is coming tomorrow!