Man Date 2.0

For the first time in awhile, I took some photos.

Nick and I met up at my place to hang out and shoot photos. My neighborhood has a lot of industrial buildings, so we went in search of some gritty urban locales.

I took a toy along with me in case I found a fitting location for the film noir themed toy "Inspector Cumulus". Here is the final image.



Also, while we were out, I had to give the ol' bokeh panorama (aka Brenizer Effect) a go. This is when multiple shots taken on a telephoto lens are combined to create a wide shot, with flat, shallow DOF features. Pretty happy with how it came out.

It Happened.

After Jenny and I made an offer on the loft unit, we were waiting for months with no end in sight. Based on finances and other complications, things weren't looking so great.

As I was heading home from work one day, I got the call that our loan had been approved. It didn't feel real. After months of waiting, we finally had an answer. I couldn't wait to go home and tell Jenny the news. We were waiting for close to two and a half months for this call. Felt good to finally get an answer.



The next day we started moving in all of our stuff. Luckily we didn't have a whole lot of big things to move in. It still took the full day. After all of our things we moved in, it was time to show the pugs their new home. They love it!



Aged brick, sweeping windows, modern furniture, and an open floor plan. I am in heaven. I know eventually my tastes will change, but for now, I love this place. Jenny and I feel very safe and at home here. The complex is extremely dog friendly and rich with amenities. There's a gym, a bike kitchen, bbq pits, a park across the street, train station, and a ton of other things that make this place perfect. To say that I'm stoked is an understatement.

Things are still coming together, but here are a few pictures of the place in it's current condition.





That's it for now.

Bored.

I figured my facebook profile pic needed a change. Yeah... I'm one of those kind of guys. It was more that I was sick of having a picture of me where you couldn't see my face. It's like, "Oh hey, this voyeuristic creeper with a camera covering his face wants to be my friend... oh sure I'll add you." Hmmmm, no!

Change is good. Went way overboard with the editing on this one (I know). Here it is.

50mm @ f/1.4

Shallow depth of field during high noon is next to impossible, that is unless you have ND filters. I recently came across some ND filters in my camera bag I had bought a while back. Jenny and I were about to take the dogs for a walk so I figured I might as well bring the 5D along. Having the ND filters on my 50mm allowed me to stop my aperture all the way down to a ridiculous f/1.4. For those that don't know, shooting at f/1.4 on a lens means you are getting the most shallow focus (out of focus areas behind and in front of the subject). This is why only the heads of my dogs are in focus and their bodies are blurred. The trade off of shooting f/1.4 is it lets a lot of light in. This is where the ND filters come in handy. ND filters are like sunglasses for your lens. So by blocking some of the light from the lens, I am able to shoot at an f/stop lower than normal.

Also, my pugs are cute.

D+J Wedding.

My team and I [Bokeh Pictures] had the exciting opportunity of capturing Dominique and Joshua Hanson's wedding day. Jenny was on photo duty and Eric, Ben, and I were on video duty. Much planning went into this day, but in the end it was all worth it. We walked away with some truly memorable shots. We also learned a lot in the process.

Here are some photos from the event.

















And without further adieu, here is our highlights video from the day.



If you like what you see, or you know someone who needs their special day captured, my team and I would love to help! Contact us at hello@seebokeh.com

Let's Make a Splash.

I have wanted to do a photo like this forever. About time.



The story behind this photo is pretty simple. Get a mug filled with coffee, set up a flash, and have a friend drop in a piece of cookie. the hardest part is timing. To get that creamy foreground/background bokeh, I shot on a Nikon 200mm at f/2.8. This is as shallow as hey get. To sync with the flash remotely, the highest I could shoot at was 1/200th, which explains the slight blurring of the liquid. I wish the liquid was a tad sharper, but for a first try, I done good.

Here are some [better] coffee splash photos that inspired mine.







In the art of attempting new things, I decided to give another technique a try as well. I call this one the "hidden flash"



No, I did not hide a flash just outside of the frame. Rather I had the flash in plain sight. Then with another photo I shot a picture of the same location but without the flash and subject. I then merged the two in photoshop erasing the flash/stand and cleaned up the shadows. Once again the image is a bit soft (downside to shooting wide open), but this is definitely a technique that I want to have another go at.

Also because my ladies were being cute, I could not help but capture this moment.

Man Date.

My life has been consumed with work, video projects, house stuff, and dogs. I can't remember the last time I went on a trip somewhere.

This past Wednesday, Nick (a fellow co-worker) and I decided to take a spontaneous trip to San Francisco. Over the last few weeks I've been talking to Nick about the world of vinyl toys. He sounded interested, so we decided to make the trip up to Kidrobot on Haight Street in SF. This way he could see firsthand what all the hype was about.



We got to San Francisco just in time for the store opening. Walking into Kidrobot is like walking into a toy museum with hundreds and hundreds of different characters and figures on display. The stuff in there is always changing, so it's cool to see what new stuff is on the market. We both ended up splurging a little bit, but all in all we made out pretty good. For Nick's first visit, he pulled some pretty rare figures. Congrats to him.







After toy shopping, we headed over to Light Waves to get my girlfriend's 120 film developed for her. Because medium format is so rarely used in today's ever growing digital world, it's hard to find a place that still develops these outdated formats. The only catch was that the roll of film still had two more exposures on it. This meant Nick and I had to get a little artsy fartsy and shoot some photos.

Also, for those that don't know, this camera (Mamiya RB67) is a beast. The camera is probably the size of my head. The preperation leading up to the photo is probably the most strenouus part. With film, every picture you're paying for, so it really makes you stop and think.

So without further adieu, here's our last two photos from the roll...





After we dropped the film off for developing, we just walked around downtown SF. First, we checked out the SF Apple store. Woah. That place is nuts. After working at a small store like Oakridge, I can't imagine how crazy the SF store must get. Next we headed to CB2 (modern furniture store) to check out their collections. Nick just moved into a new place and I'm moving next month, so furniture is definitely something we both need right now. After meandering around a little while longer, we decided to head back in order to beat the traffic.

Our last stop on the way home was IKEA. Mostly because we were both hungry and wanted to find a cheap place to eat. Nick also ended up getting a few things for his apartment. So that concluded our outing. It was definitely a much needed break away from work. Hopefully we'll be able to do it again in the very near future.