Hiking Santa Barbara's Trails...

...can result in some fun sightings.

I was hiking with some guys from the Faroe Islands this week and we were talking about the different wildlife you would see day-to-day when hiking the mountains of Santa Barbara.

Twice I got stumped... we were talking about how with birds, the colorful/beautiful ones are the males, unlike us awkward looking human males... and then we saw a Blue Jay, and one of the guys asked if that was the male... it got me to thinking... I've always just looked at Blue Jays and never really wondered as to whether or not it was one sex or another. (anyone know by the way, if there is a visual difference between male and female Blue Jays?)

Then, we saw this little guy that I took a picture of. I can't for the life of me think of the right name for him... anyone know?






















And finally, of course we saw some poison oak. There's a TON of this stuff out there right now. At this point though, I'm thinking I must be one of the 10% who are not effected by poison oak, because I swear I've touched this stuff a hundred different times and never seen the adverse results.















Being a wedding photographer I wish I was better at nature photography... but sadly I've attempted that route and didn't fair so well! ;-)

Photographer looking like a turtle...

Yikes! I've always found it funny how smaller photographers can easily become dwarfed by their camera bags.

Well, Cheryl snagged this quick shot of me in Santa Barbara shooting engagment pictures for Courtney and Doug this past week and it's amazing how a nearly 200 pound man can disappear behind a camera bag! YIKES! (I think this might mean I need to get a rolling camera bag! Any suggestions??)













Courtney and Doug are getting married at the Firestone Vineyards in May and I'm super excited about their wedding!!!

Epic Hot Engagemet Session at Knapp's Castle

I had the chance to shoot the hottest couple this week for their engagement session! We headed up to Knapp's Castle on East Camino Cielo for some fun/elogant pictures!

We battled a rather large crowd of hikers/photographers, but ended up with some VERY epic shots!

Kyle and Debbie were the most AWESOME couple and we had a blast shooting with them!





























































































































































Debbie has quite the fashion sense and was wearing some VERY fun stuff! Her dress is by Catherine Malandrino and she purchased it just for our shoot! Her shoes were by Christian Louboutin. (hehe, Kyle asked if I knew what any of this meant, I assured him I could appreciate the names) :-)

I have a new favorite picture

My pastor asked me recently to take pictures of our church to put on the new website that is being built.

I was shooting pictures of the pre-schoolers during their worship, and this little boy was just so poised in prayer! Wow!!

I'll try and share more when I get the pictures narrowed down more.

Santa Barbara Hiking

I am blessed to not only live in Santa Barbara, but also to be able to get out into the mountains and hike on a regular basis. (even more so now that I decided that in order to look like one of my my wedding photographer buddy's I need to be hiking every day to lose weight.) I've decided that as a wedding photographer it is important to be physically fit.

So, with this in mind, I've been hitting the mountains/hills of Santa Barbara for the past week pushing myself hard. I've made it my goal to hike up to the top of Cold Springs Falls/Tangerine Falls in the Santa Barbara Front Country several times a week. I hiked this three times last week, and made it up today.

I encountered one snake today (a TINY little thing, just a bit bigger than a pencil in diameter, and maybe 8-10 inches long) and saw what I just assumed were dog tracks. (but, I was reading on a hiking forum today about a recent mountain lion siting on the same trail, so when I hike this trail tomorrow I'll have to look a little more closely to see if maybe these were cougar tracks)



I hiked sans a t-shirt on the suggestion from my wife that I was getting to be a bit pale in color... YIKES!!

I love shooting for other wedding photographers!

Local Santa Barbara Wedding Photographer Andrew Van Gundy AKA - "AVG," AKA - "The Wedding Photog," asked me to shoot some portraits of him yesterday for his new website, and for his girlfriend.

We took a quick trip up to Westmont to shoot in front of a very cool dilapidated house on the campus, shot a few head shots Zoolander style, and then some quick pictures to capture a bit of his personality!

A Saturday Sailing Trip!

Saturday our awesome friends David and Danielle took us for a sail on their sail boat in Santa Barbara!

It was such a beautiful day! (I think they were giving me a test run to see if I got sea sick. They we're trying to convince me and Cheryl that we should go with them on their next sail to the Channel Islands! And trust me, we'll definitely sign up for that trip!!!)

I was able to capture sooo many beautiful pictures on our trip! I can't wait to do it again!!!

Here's just a few of my favorites! I think I'll be posting up a slideshow just like I do with my wedding photography because there are too many pictures to share here.














Oh, and for anyone who was wondering about these pictures, they were all taken with my Canon 10d which I had converted to infrared by my buddy Brody Dezember. As a wedding photographer I love using this camera when I shoot weddings because it gives such a surreal effect!!

Held my first wedding photographer workshop

I can't believe I forgot to post about this!

I had the greatest time this past Saturday holding a mini-workshop of sorts for two fellow California based wedding photographers, Doug Miranda and Alex Robb.

Both of these guys had contacted me seperately saying they wanted to spend a day hanging out talking wedding shop, so I decided it was the perfect chance to do a tiny photography workshop here in beautiful Santa Barbara!!!

It was really cool to see where both of these guys are at and where they're headed!

Alex Robb was my high school photography teacher in Tehachapi, and he's wanting to supplement his income with wedding photography so that his wife can stay at home with their very cute daugther!!

Doug is moving up to Tahoe in April to open up shop in one of the most beautiful areas of California!

Both Doug and Alex attended my alamater Brooks Institute of Photography, so it was really fun to get together and share our "war" stories.