Back at The Point for a Different Part of the Menu
This was my second visit to The Point Kitchen & Bar in Santa Cruz for another food photography shoot. My first visit was during the holiday season, so that shoot leaned more toward dinner items, drinks, desserts, and a restaurant branding video featuring holiday decorations. This time no holidays and the menu items photographed were for breakfast and brunch. Thus it was pancakes, eggs Benedict, coffee, salads, tacos, a burger, other lunch dishes, and dessert in front of my camera for overhead hero shots, close ups, and profile views. I also like to look for a little action when it helps bring a photograph to life, so for the pancakes we made a shot with syrup being poured. It was great working with the team at The Point and I look forward to a future third visit!
I took my camera down to Carmel just for myself to check out Astons on the Avenue. I like the mystique and aura of an Aston Martin car, which I find different than any other, especially the generation of cars from about 2010 to 2018. I got the chance to talk to a couple of very friendly owners as well, which I found informative and interesting. The headliners at this show were the examples of the new mid-engined car Aston put out this year, the Valhalla. The range of cars though went all the way back to the 60s, so there was an Aston on display for everyone.
Creating on Location in Real Time for Branding Portraits
It was great to collaborate with Nefertari for her branding shoot right in her therapy office for Heart & Mind in Monterey. She wanted to feature the office itself as the background for her branding photos, that also showed her as a friendly and welcoming experienced therapist. We found creative ways to show she works with children, by having a case of toys out of focus in the background, for example. We also went outside her office using some natural light areas in the building that resulted in a photo of her looking out into the distance that I really liked for establishing a therapist brand. Not looking into the camera for every photo is something I recommend to clients. Thank you Nefertari for choosing me as your branding photographer!
I always find it very curious how things work out in my photographer career. After nearly three years since I transplanted my photography business to the Monterey Peninsula area, I had never been to Carmel Valley Ranch. Then all of a sudden, twice in August I have two events of two evenings each within two weeks of each other! It was enough that the valet attendant now knows me. For this pair of evening events, Storck USA contacted me about photographing an incentive trip for 17 of their top sales performers. The first evening was their welcome dinner, which started with everyone mingling outside as the sun was dropping behind the hills. I took the opportunity to get a group photo of everyone just before the sun disappeared after making many candids of everyone catching up. Thank you to Rachel and Storck for choosing me as their event photographer!
AA Construction is still one of my newer construction photography clients, but I have already had the opportunity to photograph several of their in progress job sites around the Monterey Peninsula (including this aerial drone job site). The latest shoot for AA Construction was totally different because it was a finished, completed interior renovation, no saw dust to worry about getting on the camera lens! The renovated kitchen in this Carmel home required removing a wall and adding a clear glass divide. I showcased this new open space in a few photographs before showing off the work and materials used in the kitchen itself. Two renovated bathrooms were next to get renovation photos of with a huge glass shower in one and a free standing tub in the other to highlight. Thank you to AA Construction and Andrew and Mandi for continuing to choose me as their photographer and drone pilot!
Photo shoot inquiries usually come from my contact page or by a phone call, but this one started with frisbee! Felix is a long time frisbee friend, recent summer league teammate, and someone I have watched live music with around PG, and who I have seen him play live too! When the band he is in needed a new collection of photographs to promote and market themselves, downtown Pacific Grove gave us the setting to create group branding portraits that showcased the full range of personality in the band and among all the band members. I was glad to produce photos that they can can pull from for upcoming performances, social media, websites, posters, press, and wherever else they need to visually represent the band.
This was my second year (check out year one) in a row judging the Pacific Grove Concours Auto Rally, and this time as an official member of the Pacific Grove Rotary Club! One thing I definitely learned from judging the car show last year is that I needed to be much, much quicker at it. There is a limited time window for judging all the cars assigned to me, and then going and talking with the other judges for choosing winners. I did not do the math at all last year and never made it to all the cars. This year, I knew not every car needed a full, deep level consideration if it did not really fit one of the ribbon categories, and if I knew it would not be a candidate for any of the three overall grand prizes.
