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.
This was actually not my first time photographing an event inside the underground parking garage at Asilomar Conference Grounds! Another similar event with cars, a DJ, and artists was my first time one+ year ago. This time though, for Monterey Car Week 2026, it was an event called Night Rider, featuring low rider and classic cars, lit up colorfully. As guests moved between the cars, a DJ spun vinyl records, and car-inspired artwork was being created on site. The team at Asilomar created another unique event. Thank you for inviting me to photograph it!
Three Years of Photographing the Porsche Monterey Classic
This was my third year in a row (see the second time) attending the Porsche Monterey Classic, an event that for me has become the unofficial start of Monterey Car Week. After already photographing it twice, the challenge this year was trying to see the same crowded dealership, service bays, and rows of Porsches in a different way. At a car show like this, I am certainly not the only person walking around with a capable camera, and with so many people packed around the cars, making photographs that feel different can be difficult. One thing to be different was bring my Sony 24mm f/1.4 GM lens and shoot it wide open at f/1.4, which gave me a different way to work close to the cars while still showing some of the environment around them. I also kept looking for foreground elements, very low viewpoints, and compositions that you would not normally see just standing next to a car at eye level. Did I find completely new angles compared to last year, or even two years ago? I do not know, but trying to find them is part of what keeps photographing the same great Car Week event interesting for me.
It has been nearly a year since I joined the Rotary Club of Pacific Grove, and I have enjoyed finding ways to contribute to the club and the community through photography.
I was grateful to be asked to make this year’s cover photograph and excited to see it printed on the finished event guide. With Jaguar as the featured marque, three beautiful classic Jaguars were brought together in front of Monterey County Bank on Lighthouse Avenue for the photo.
The club also generously included a quarter-page advertisement for Jason Collin Photography inside the guide.
I will also return for my second year as a judge for the car show portion of the rally. Photography, classic cars, Rotary and Pacific Grove all coming together make this an especially meaningful community project for me.
Thank you to the Rotary Club of Pacific Grove for trusting me with this year’s cover photograph.
Watching a New Pacific Grove Dental Practice Come to Life
Dr. Jamie has become one of the clients I most appreciate working with. She always has great energy and enthusiasm and her team is also so friendly. From team headshots, to the grand opening, to teaching the staff dental photography, to now this combo drone + gimbal video, it is always a great experience collaborating. It was a bit of a challenge getting drone video of the exterior of her practice, as this is when I first learned how aggressive seagulls are in the summer in Pacific Grove! I was lucky to be able to get just one elevator shot up showing the dental practice’s proximity to the PG coast. Moving inside the practice, getting the handheld gimbal video was free from any avian attacks! Dr. Jamie had a plan for the scenes she wanted video of. We made the continuous following shot of her through the practice in to see a patient in only two takes! The rest of the team did great in their shots as well. Thank you so much to Dr. Jamie for continuing to choose me as your photographer, drone pilot, and videographer too!
I am always grateful when a client chooses to work with me again, and Waveform Electric has trusted me with several photography and drone video projects throughout the Monterey Peninsula, as well as making their team headshots and family business portraits! I was extra excited when they contacted me about a drone project in the Aurora Del Mar area of Carmel Highlands, as I had actually daydreamed about this specific area in the past, so to get to see it in person (it is a gated community so you cannot just go there) was a daydream come true, ha! Waveform wanted drone video of batteries they installed in a garage, and a shot going from in the garage up to the water view. This was a challenge on several fronts, starting with how to get the exposure to be bright enough for the garage, but not totally overexposed for the water and the sky. Then, it was a very tight space with trees in the way and getting any continuous shot smoothly takes a lot of concentration. After a couple of tries, I was glad with the continuous shot I was able to get for them and confident it was the best possible given the conditions and circumstances. Thank you to the team at Waveform for continuing to choose me as their drone pilot and photographer!
