Jasmine y Mark - Engagement Slideshow

Click here to see the slideshow.

Engagement Session in Dana Point

As you can see... it's engagement season ;-) I met with Jasmine and Mark at the St. Regis Monarch Beach earlier today to shoot theirs.
They are getting married at The Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel and I'm really excited to shoot such a wonderful couple at that wonderful venue. We did a little scouting at the hotel and the ceremony site is just beautiful overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Jasmine & Mark are getting married in exactly -> CLICK

Here are just a few shots:

FREE PHOTOGRAPHY FOR YOUR DESTINATION WEDDING

I'll be shooting ONE destination wedding for FREE in 2007. The main purpose is to build my portfolio for this type of market and help a deserving couple along the way.

A few rules:
• You must pay for the actual costs of transportation and hotel (3 nights) for me and a 2nd photographer (if you want one). The cost to include coverage by a 2nd photographer is $1000.
• You must be getting married in 2007 outside the U.S. and have a set location and date.
• You must send me a few lines telling me why you want me to shoot your wedding along with a recent photo of you and your fiancé.
• You must agree to let me use the images for the purpose of self-promotion.

- There's no catch. I will provide you with hi-resolution digital files and online viewing/ordering on Pictage.com. You can purchase other products like albums, prints, enlargements, etc. from me but you don't have to... although I'd love to design your album ;-)

- After I receive enough requests I will decide based on my availability, location and type of wedding so MAKE SURE YOU INCLUDE DETAILS should you decide to contact me. I'll try to come up with an announcement date as soon as I get a feel on the number of requests I'll be getting.

Email me at free.destination.photo@gmail.com with the subject line "FREE DESTINATION WEDDING". THANKS A LOT!

-Rodolfo Arpia

Don't Get Your Mac Jacked

If you often work at the coffee shop like me and don't want to look like a giraffe checking on your MacBook Pro from the register every time you go for a fresh cup of coffee, here's your solution:



Download
Go to the download site by clicking here

Awesome!... let me know how you like it if you install it.

Casa Romantica

Yesterday I headed South to San Clemente with my friend Marlon (unveilus.com - coming soon) to scout a couple of locations... one of them was 'Casa Romantica'.















This paint is in the lobby of a very nice hotel in the area... do you know which one?

Not everyone's cup of tea...

I never thought I was going to say this but sometimes I get tired of working on extremely clean images. I'm starting to make an effort to change this by creating images like the ones on the slideshow. What do you think?

CLICK FOR SLIDESHOW



If I'm shooting your wedding and you like this type of images please let me know so I can create some for you... they look gorgeous in print.

Jennifer & David - Slideshow

Click to enjoy your slideshow!

Jennifer & David are getting married in exactly -> CLICK

Engagement Session in Laguna Beach

Yesterday I met with Jennifer and David in Laguna Beach to shoot some engagement photos. They're getting married in April in Yosemite and I can't wait to shoot their wedding at that awesome location.

It was raining a lot when I left home in the morning but we didn't get a single drop while we were shooting, just some threatening dark clouds... I love shooting whith this type of weather, the light is just great.

I have to thank David for taking me to this location, I'll definitely go back with future couples.

What are you looking at pal?

(Mantis religiosa)
It's been a while since I saw one of these... I remember they were very common in Argentina when I was a kid, you could see a lot of them specially during hot summer days.

Shot with a Nikon D2X and Lensbaby 2.0 with macro kit 10+, f4... 1 inch away or less.


Well hello...

Blink-Free Group Photos, Guaranteed

Don't you hate it when a perfectly good group photo gets ruined by one or two individuals blinking?


Thankfully, Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization have already done the heavy lifting. Their research calculates the number of photos you must take to virtually guarantee that nobody in a group will have their eyes closed.

Here’s their rule of thumb: For groups smaller than 20, divide the number of people by three if there’s good light and two if the light’s bad. That’s how many shots you need to take.

Click for entire article -> http://velocity.ansto.gov.au/velocity/ans0011/article_06.asp

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I attended Joe Buissink and Marcus Bell's seminar today at the LAX Hilton.
It was great to see how this two heavyweights in the industry think about photography. Looking at Joe's work up close was a real treat too. For those of you who may not know Joe Buissink, in a few words he's a "celebrity wedding photographer" (much more really).

Joe Buissink focused on the way he approaches photography, as art, with passion, shooting from the heart. He also shared a lot of images and a couple of personal projects and a lot of people were very curious about his celebrity weddings so he talked a little about that.


Marcus Bell talked more about the technical and business aspects of wedding photography. He shared the way he runs his successful studio in Australia and lots of Photoshop/Lightroom stuff.


Sean Azul and Jan Garcia

Joe Buissink Seminar

Joe Buissink is the reason for me becoming a wedding photographer and I'll be attending one of his seminars tomorrow... can't wait.

SEE HIM IN ACTION

The most advanced multi-touch system in the world

I don't know about you but I would get dizzy right away.


by Perceptive Pixel

Canon's Virtual Lens Plant

Ever wondered why lenses are so expensive?... visit Canon's Virtual Lens Plant => HERE



They're working on some balsa wood models to bring prices down ;-)

Slideshow - Photographer's Cut

Most of the times when I look at other photographers' images my head gets instantly bombarded with questions like: Why or How did he/she take that picture; What inspired the photographer to press the shutter; What lens/camera/settings did he/she use; What caused the subject to react that way???
As I learn more and more of the technical stuff, a lot of the questions are quickly answered but there's no way of knowing what was going on behind the scenes and I'm always curious about that.

While in this 'photographer's cut slideshow' there's a lot of techie talk mostly geared towards my fellow photographers, hopefully by letting you know what I was thinking at the moment I shot these images, I can also address viewers that are not in the photography business as well as clients and potential clients so they get a chance to know me a bit.

Don't be shy and leave a comment and if you create one of these send me a link, I'd love to see it.

Here's my attempt at sharing with you why I do what I do => CLICK FOR SLIDESHOW



More techie stuff: The slideshow with my commentaries is just another use I found for Showit Web. This is a great piece of software that came to life thanks to David Jay. His products are so useful and easy to use. I became a fan, specially of Showit Web and Showit Effects. DJ is a very successful wedding photographer himself so he knows what photographers need and he makes sure all the tools he creates fulfill our needs... and then some.

Some photos from the road

I love the almost square images I get from my BlackBerry Pearl phone... the quality is nice too. I'm so used to the sometimes extremely clean files out of my pro Nikon D2X cameras that sometimes I just need to see images that are not perfect quality-wise... I think I'm going to start shooting film ;-)

Shot these while I was riding my bicycle this morning:

this one is cropped