Rachel & Spencer :: Santa Barbara Engagement

Over the past year, Rachel and Spencer have become great friends of mine; Rachel is on the same RA staff as I am at Westmont, and Spencer is one of my friends and residents (fresidents?) in VK F-G-H. That being said, it was a pleasure shooting Rach and Spence's engagement photos, so I hope you enjoy looking through this preview of the shoot! Also, special thanks to Chloé, also on our RA staff, for helping out with the shoot and "ooh-ing" and "ah-ing" every couple minutes :)

Kendra & Jon :: La Jolla Wedding

Over winter break I had the pleasure of shooting Kendra and Jon's wedding in the beautiful city of La Jolla, California. Kendra and her family have been close friends with my family since before I could walk, and Jon and I instantly bond over our love for good music (read: jazz), so being their photographer was a blast. Here are some pictures from their big day!

It's been so long!

The goals for this blog post are three-fold. First off, I haven't put anything on here in almost two months, and that's just a shame. So I'm rectifying that preposterous error. Secondly, I'm giving you a bunch of excuses regarding why I haven't posted (just in case you were bored and wanted to hear me out). Lastly, I'm way behind on editing pictures, so I want to put up several pictures from our RA retreat just to keep certain members of our RA staff happy ;)

By virtue of the nature of the first goal, I've already accomplished it. Now for the reasons:

Actually, wait up. I was gonna give a whole list of reasons (and my computer science class would've topped that list for sure) [Jarrett: (listof reason)], but that seemed a little excessive. Rather, I'll just say that life is busy! But it's certainly good. I'll take the rest of your precious time by briefly elaborating on a certain aspect of that busyness: residence life. I'm a resident assistant this year in the lovely dorm of Van Kampen, and it's been a wonderful experience (except when my door decs plummet to the ground from their sheer weight, which happens more often than I'd like). I love the great group of guys men (sorry Stu!) I get to live life with, and am absolutely stoked that I get a whole other semester (have you ever noticed that we often say "whole nother" when we speak?) with them. The men in my section, VK F-G-H, are incredible friends, musicians, athletes, and scholars, among other things. There aren't too many dull moments this semester, as a typical stroll through the area can hold many surprises, from a random wrestling match to a near unicycle collision in the hallway :) Another great part of residence life is my staff, which you'll get to see in a few brief moments. The VK staff has been an incredible encouragement to me this semester, and every single person is a dear friend to me, even though I've known most of them only for these past several months.

Now, let me complete that last goal I mentioned at the beginning of this post! In October, our staff got to go on a weekend retreat up to Pismo Beach, and these following several pictures are from our Saturday afternoon on the beach.



Here we are! From left to right, we have random guy, random guy's dog, David (Dryvid Dave), Chloé (Chlo Chlo), Rachel (Rachy), Margo (Margot), Emily (Squirrel), and yours truly. If you're at Westmont and don't know someone in the aforementioned bunch, you should definitely get to know them (except maybe the kid on the right)! You won't regret it.



And these two beautiful people are Anna Fletcher, our resident director, and Jeremy Fletcher, her husband (and coordinator of student ministries and missions at Westmont). Anna and Jeremy are an incredible couple and it's been such a blessing getting to know them this semester. Ditto on the "get to know them" thing for you Westmont folk!



Here's one shot at 400mm. I've been obsessed with longer focal lengths lately. For one of my most recent photo projects, which I'll be blogging about soon most likely (the 2013 Westmont Brass Men calendar!), I think I shot every photo at over 100mm. Also, perfect moment for a shameless plug: calendars go on sale next week! They're only $10 and all the proceeds benefit the Westmont music department. You should buy two (at least)! Ok, shameless plug over.



Here are Chlo and Rachy enjoying the agua.



And here's Pismo Beach (and coincidentally me) saying good night.

And that's the end of this post! Hopefully this marks the beginning of better blogging habits...I guess we'll see soon enough. Good night!

Emily & Kyle :: Santa Barbara Engagement

Right before this semester began, Emily, Kyle, and I had the chance to spend a couple hours strolling around the wharf and beachfront taking engagement pictures. Kyle and I have known each other since freshmen year of college (and have a blast playing intramural volleyball together every semester), so it was a ton of fun shooting his and Emily's engagement. Here are some of my favorites!

Brynn & Trent :: Santa Barbara Wedding

At the end of this summer, I had the joy of photographing the wedding of two wonderful friends of mine, Brynn and Trent. Both Brynn and Trent are Westmont grads, so naturally a large percentage of the wedding party and guests were from the Westmont community as well...translate: it was a fun day :) Here are some highlights from the wedding!

Jamming with The Pedestrians

A couple weeks back I had the opportunity to shoot The Pedestrians, a folksy-rocksy (sorry, I may not be so good with describing genres) band made up of Westmont students John Miller, Tyler Lisea, Rob Limkeman, and Trey Lindsley (mentioned in order of appearance). Lemmetellya, setting up lighting equipment with solid live music playing in the background is substantially more enjoyable than the quieter alternative. I lit this with two SB-600s (triggered with PocketWizard MiniTT1/FlexTT5s), both fired from camera left. There was a creek right in front of us, making the setup on the bank a little precarious, but sandbags paired with light stands work wonders...



If you want to give The Pedestrians a live listen at a great local venue, check them out at SOhO on the night of September 27th from 7 to 8:30!

Metalworking with Santa Barbara Forge & Iron

Hey all! It's been quite a while since I've blogged. These past three to four weeks I've been swamped with resident assistant orientation at Westmont, but now that things are settling again I'll hopefully be able to resume with putting up blog posts here and there.

This post is a continuation of the photo project I was doing this summer (which you can read about in this post if you're interested). Santa Barbara Forge & Iron is a local business that I've come to be very impressed with recently. Joel Patterson, the Chief Operations Officer at SBFI, has been a great friend and mentor of mine for the past three or so years, so I asked him if I could do a feature on their business and ask a few questions about their work.

For those that'd like to know the technical details behind the photos, I was triggering three Nikon SB600s with the Pocketwizard MiniTT1/FlexTT5 system. Really love these triggers, especially when paired with the AC3 zone controller; you can adjust the power of your strobes from your camera instead of having to constantly walk back and forth between each flash unit...so helpful. Anyhow, on to the pictures and interview.



Production assistant Joy Brenneman puts the finished touches on an iron handrail.

Mark: Joel, tell me a bit about the creative minds behind SBFI. Your brother Dan started the business, is that right?

Joel: Yes. Dan was a sculpture major back at Hope College in Michigan. After college, he worked with a sculptor in Santa Barbara, and then later moved to New York City to work with a high-end furniture maker. He eventually admitted that metal was his first love and got his Masters from Transart Institute in Berlin (by this time he had already founded SBFI and the company was in full swing). My younger brother Andy has always been a true renaissance man, and a fantastic artist in his own right. He got on board a few years after the business started as SBFI's Chief Production Officer, and then spent some time apprenticing with a master forger in Baltimore before coming back to Santa Barbara with a whole new set of skills. The three Patterson brothers have always built things and have always fed each other's creativity. We work very well together.



Owner/CEO Dan Patterson threading the arms of a 1960s-influenced sputnik lamp.

Mark: Can you fill me in a little on the creative process behind your projects?

Joel: Usually a client comes in with an idea, anything from a scribbled drawing on a napkin to a picture they snapped while on vacation. We start by getting to know them, ask a lot of questions, and then begin to form a shared creative vision based on the client's personality, artistic sensibilities, and where the piece will be displayed. The process is very organic.



Mark: I hear there's some interesting history behind this shop and some of the machinery you use here. Can you tell me a bit about that?

Joel: Yes; the building we work in is the historic Craviotto Bros. Ironworking building, and has been a working shop of some sort since the 1920s. The Craviotto family is a wonderful local family with ironworking in their veins, and this location drips with history. It's something that you really have to experience firsthand - come by for our First Thursday Open House: 5:30pm to 9:00pm, every first Thursday of the month! We're right on the corner of Anacapa and Ortega in the middle of downtown Santa Barbara.



Mark: To end my post, I'd love to hear about this: what's the most outlandish/coolest project SBFI has ever worked on?

Joel: Well, there was this hand-forged goat head we made once for a person we strongly suspected of being a vampire...

:)

If you're interested in seeing some more of SBFI's work, check out their website at www.sbforge.com or their YouTube channel.