On Location: Wedding of the Year

Hash tag this, hash tag that, hash tag, hash tag, hash tag. The only hash tag that mattered was #weddingweekendactivated. If you have Instagram, please check it out. It was a weekend to remember for sure! People come all over the globe from the likes of Australia for this, high profile celebrity coming through. Everyone coming together for this special occasion of my very GREAT friends Aldrich Galimba and Jessica Nix. This moment has been long anticipated event for years.

These are not the official photographs of the wedding. Go visit Talia Studio for those. She has amazing photos. I just happened to bring my camera along for the ride, just like every other time. The only difference about this time, I have a new lens. A lot of my shots have been really tight, close due to my 50mm and 100mm lens, now I have a Canon 20mm f/2.8 lens. Pretty fun lens to have in the bag. Instead of editing my pictures through Lightroom 3, I upgraded to Lightroom 4. So much better than 3. So I played around with some photos, I know they're not perfect but it's the memory behind the photo that I enjoy.

Back to the weekend. It all started with the wedding rehearsal at St. Michael's church. I had work that day, but was lucky enough to leave early to meet up. Easy walk through. Took an hour, and yeah I snapped some pictures. Not too many.

Karl Strauss Brewery in Mira Mesa was the rehearsal dinner with had a bunch of family friends just enjoying ourselves. Then that's where I found out we had a celebrity within our presence. Country singer Zac Brown Band was among us. It's crazy, cause it wasn't the first time I've met the guy. I know him as Jason, the big guy who snores REALLY loud. Cool dude. I guess he's Jess' cousin. Out of all people, Aldrich had to tell me it was Zac Brown of the Zac Brown Band. NO SHIT!!!! Jess doesn't like telling he's a celebrity. She wants him to enjoy his vacation which I'm sure everyone would respect. It was great talking cameras among Jive and Zac Brown Band aka Jason. After hitting up beers after beers, it was time to round up the troops. The future bride and groom split their ways for the night to soon meet up the next day.

The groomsmen and groom stayed at a fresh spot off El Cajon Blvd called La Frette. It was like a condo that was haunted. It seemed old school with a couple flat screens. We just continued the guy's party there. People were starting to pass out. If you want to see pictures and videos of what happened, ask J Pang. Funny stuff. Time to get ready for the big day now!

The actual wedding day is here!! Saturday, October 27th, 2012. #weddingweekendactivated
It's a wedding. Beautiful. If you weren't there, you missed out. Me and Princess, I don't even know if that's her real name. We were secondary sponsors and had the honor to put the cord on the couple during the ceremony. I don't know what it signifies but its pretty important to the Filipino weddings. Weddings...they say "I do" family sheds tears and we're off the the reception.

The reception is where majority of the photos came from. Drunk-ness on my part. I took pictures, people stole my camera and took pictures. It was all fun. Open bar, great music, photo booth by TaliaStudio.com. We rocked the dance floor til midnight where things started to hit reality and no one couldn't party all night. Hahaa. Luckily I crashed at the Shearaton hotel with some other buddies. It's awesome to see so many familiar faces over the weekend. I know its hard to schedule everyone to see each other because of school, work, significant others, or because they live freaking in Texas or Oregon. But I'm glad to see my Oregon friends like Steph and Pete, Francis from Texas, and other the old school Escondido hommies. There are too many stories to tell on this entry. Let's just say we'll be talking about this for a while and it will be an anchor to many laughs and conversations.

I NEED TO PRINT these picture. If there is a certain picture I need to print, leave a comment. Cause honestly, I can't print all 250 photos. I'd like to take the top 50 to frame or add to a photo album. Maybe I should make a Costco hardbound photo book. I certainly have enough photos. I can't wait to see Talia's photos too!!! Leave some love for her at her site. Tell Amelia I said hi....shes too adorable not to hug.

This video is the montage that kinda messed up. I don't want to talk about it....here it is.
 
Al and Jess' Wedding Montage from Ryan Florido on Vimeo.



#weddingweekendactivated from Ryan Florido on Vimeo.

It's coming!!!

At the end of the month will be the wedding of the year (at least for me). My good friends Aldrich Galimba and Jessica Nix are going to be married by the end of the month. A long anticipated event for sure. I've known the couple for a while, I even took over their old room from Jessica's condo. It was a true pleasure to photography them as a couple. We decided to go to Balboa Park to do some photos. It was a busy Sunday. Actually, the first Sunday of the NFL season.

 I love my camera. However, I wanted to do wider shots. I kinda stuck with my 50mm. It's the widest lens I have at the moment. Not very wide at all. It's considered a standard length lens. Great for portraits and "walk around lens" so things aren't distorted by the lens. But after working with some ultra wide angle lens, I can appreciate them. They can make anything look cool. During this trip with the future Galimba couple, I wanted to work on separation and do some wides. I didn't want to get too close. I think pretty satisfied with my work. I find it hard to be blown away. I know my strengths and try to work on my weaknesses. Let's just hope I keep on improving. It was fun shooting at Balboa, so we ended our day at one of the coolest bars in San Diego (IMO). West Coast Tavern in North Park is a hip spot. It was kind of dead, so we took advantage of the lack of seating and did our own little impromptu photo shoot. I really like how you can see "North Park" sign on some of the photos. I feel like I captured them at their true element, enjoying each other's company over a drink. I feel like they can do that all day if they had a chance. It's hard to find Aldrich being photo ready, so when I captured his smile, not a fake obligated smile, but a genuine smile means a lot to me and I'm sure to Jess too. CHEERS to the couple. The reason for the white boards were for the table arrangements at the wedding.

Bates Nut Farm

I haven't posted in a while, long over due. But I think I have my new favorite model. Baby Joss!!! As I was listening to Rick Ross feat. Nicki Minaj-You the Boss!!! Joss is the BOSS!!!!

I come across a lot of interesting people, I guess a camera brings a lot of attention to yourself. I love talking anything photography, but I always have to stress the fact that I am not professional, strictly an enthusiast. People ask me, what would be my dream photography job. If I had a dream job, I'd want to be a traveling photographer and do National Geographic work or travel with a close family. The Galimbas is just a glimpse of that dream. I am following this little girl, Joss throughout her young life. When she grows up, if she picks a debut or a car, she shows off pictures of her childhood, I know my photos will be there. Capturing moments in a fraction of a second. That's real time traveling.

Funny story, when i say funny story, it usually means I was drinking. Anyways, a good friend, Jess was reminding how much of an honor it is to shoot Joss. I am one of the few lucky ones where I am able to photograph their pride and joy. Because Joss is an angel, adorable from head to toe. The Galimbas and future Galimba aka Jess were pumpkin searching. I came along to photograph Joss' first fall season. It sounds like fun in theory except EVERYONE decided to go to TODAY!!! I think it's because the Chargers are on their bye week. So it took us literally 2 hours to get there.

As soon as we arrived, we went straight to business. Enjoying the scenery. We just basically walked around the property and posing Joss. I had Jess be my assistant. She was holding it down. Handling the reflector like a pro, providing shade and a good fan for the model Joss. She made my job a whole lot easier for the given situation. It was not a cool day at the farm. But by the end of the day, I'm happy with my photos. I never appreciate the pictures til later. But I definitely had fun, from the car ride with Aldrich watching youtube videos, photographing the Galimbas, and ending the shoot with some shaved ice. Success!!! Joss is very fortunate to have great parents, awesome uncle and aunt, and a great photographer. Hahaaa.

Photograph Info: Canon 20D with Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens with Canon 430ex bare. Most photos shot at f/8 or f/11. All edits were in Lightroom except for the Trio picture, that was in CS3 (I know, OLD!!!).

Like always...thanks for looking.

On Location: Grand Ave.

Ok, I admit, a good diet is everything! After watching "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" I have a whole new view on my body and how I treat it. It's like gas for your car, everyone wants to think they have a high performance car requiring only top fuel, 91 to get the proper performance but some people put 87 cause it's cheaper. NAH BRAH!! So Al and Jess bought this bomb ass juicer, so legit, fuck Jamba Juice, it's all about The Maxx!! So the engaged couple decides to hit up the local Farmer's Market on Grand on a warm Tuesday afternoon. Jess hustlin' these venders, bargaining, whatever. They left with a bunch of awesome fruits and vegetables like kale and oranges. Here are some of the photos from that evening. Ohhh yeah, we ran into the famous Tim as he was getting crickets for his dragon lizard. DRAGON!? I thought those were only in fairy tales and stuff!!! Hahaa.

And always, thanks for looking.