If you’re wondering what is on Josiah’s face, he took a tumble off of his bike and landed face-first. 
Hannah and Josiah after we activated the gravity neutralizing photo synthesis.
Hannah coming down the slide 20 minutes after sunset. I had my flash on a stand just out of frame camera right zoomed to 120mm and I think it was at 1/64th or 1/32nd power.
Josiah coming down the slide 20 minutes after sunset. I had my flash on a stand just out of frame camera right zoomed to 120mm and I think it was at 1/64th or 1/32nd power.
Samuel, Josiah and Hannah on Mimi’s bench.
Josiah and Hannah hamming it up for me, retro style.
Hannah has a strange habit she has developed. Could it be hereditary?
It was so much fun taking these portraits of Hannah and Josiah! It was nice to have all of the equipment set up properly and only really have to concentrate on capturing the right expressions of my subjects. This is the first shoot I’ve done inside in a more “controlled” atmosphere. Boy did we have fun! We just moved the kitchen table out of the way (I kneeled under the table and turtled it on my back about 10 ft away which they thought was hilarious) which gave us room to shoot with my 50mm 1.4 lens. I’ll never forget this shoot with them. Yeah, I’ll say it.
Priceless.
And I only had to give them $1 each for the last few shots.
click picture for larger version
Kristi and John looked so good together. More pictures to follow soon.
Self Capture at Party by Mark Griffo
Did you notice that huge red and white button on the top right? Click it if you want to sign up for my rss feed. What this will do essentially is tell you right away when I update my blog on your reader. I use igoogle, personally as my internet homepage (it’s awesome, but then again what isn’t awesome that comes from google). What igoogle (or any legit rss reader) does is it scoops up all the latest headlines from my favorite websites and puts them all on my homepage. Ok, so maybe you know more about this than I do. If so, just check out my photos! If you don’t have a clue what I just said, be brave and click below.
Btw, if you want a super slick and powerful program, my brother Jake introduced me to dropbox (thanks Jake!). What dropbox does is it give you 2 gigabytes of space on their server to share with your friends, relatives or clients or whatever! You have a “dropbox” folder on your computer that you can drag and drop photos, music or whatever and whoever you are sharing with has access to what you dragged into the file. It happens seamlessly. It’s so much easier than emailing. As soon as they have it on their computer, you can delete it and you’re back to your full 2 gigabytes! Once you’re signed up through this link, you can refer friends and get an extra 250 mb of space added onto your original 2 gigabytes, plus you’ll get an extra 250mb just for using my link.
click here to signup
We found a great new spot for photo shoots–and it’s just down the road!
Baby Noah was very cooperative as I manuevered around him exploring his quiet peace and innocence.
Hannah gave me 2 1/2 minutes of her time as I snapped off a couple shots (She’s 2 1/2 year old). It was so fun. I was really disappointed she didn’t give me more time to shoot, but then I looked at what I had gotten! She has to be one of the most kissable little girls on this side of the Rio Grande. Shoot through umbrella and canon 580ex II camera right. On one of the pictures you can see an excellent reflection of the lighting I used.
Amber got me some new equipment for my birthday and I decided to try it out during a family photoshoot. Among some of the camera loot that I got were some Cybersyncs which allow me to shoot with my flashes wirelessly. I’ve been wanting to be able to do this for so long now. We had lots of fun and a beautiful sunset to work with as we all posed and primped and chased children. Kudos to Daniel Katz for his enthusiasm in getting his son, Samuel to laugh.
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- Getting ready shot
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- Who did you vote for!?
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- The End
Ahh, the beach, the glorious beach! We did a family photoshoot with all 11 of us… “in a van, down by the river!” Ok, so it was at the beach. This one picture is just a teaser. I’ll post lots more. There were so many good ones, but this one stood out to me because it was so different from the rest. It’s not every day I catch an expression like this on my honey! Credit for the funny text in the sky goes to Mark Griffo Sr.
Bonus points go to the first person who posts the answer to where the not so hidden quote comes from.
Eddie and April were so fun to do a photoshoot with. Thank you for the opportunity and your baby is so cute! She was a real trooper! We did this shoot at Sunset Cliffs in San Diego. It was a beautiful spot for doing a shoot and it was so fun bouncing the flash off of the cliffs for some of the pictures. I also gelled my flash some of the time to get a warmer look.
Two days ago, Amber was checking our checking account when she noticed some debits that were from Georgia. Since we live in Carlsbad, California, she thought this was a little fishy. Lo and behold there were 4 purchases totaling over $500 that were stolen from us! Ouch! Our bank was really good about getting us new cards and our money back.
Just last week we were getting ready to have a yard sale. I opened up the back of the minivan to get the double stroller out and I placed it on the grass right next to it. Our front door was open about 15 feet away. We were in and out of the apartment putting things in the van. We didn’t notice it until a couple of days later, but after we had finished putting things in the van, there was no stroller to be seen! Someone had stolen it!!! Aaaah!!!
I guess they needed these things more than we did. I think it’s time to move…
We went to the farmer’s market in Carlsbad and had a great time. Casually we walked down Carlsbad Village Drive towards the beach. What happened next was hillarious! Autumn and Daniel’s son could not stay out of the water! He ran towards it with a vengence like a man on fire trying to put out the flames. Following are a few memories of that day:
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- Can he get away this time?!
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- e brakes
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- What’s wrong with this pic?
Her eyes look like sunflowers with a blue-green sky as the background. Click to see larger.
Ok, I must admit, I do have the most beautiful woman in the world as my wife. I am thankful for my sight.
Baby Willem was born on October 9, 2008. We can’t wait to see official pictures of him! Again, congrats! In the mean time, here are some photos of baby Willem’s parents just a few weeks before he arrived…
Ok, this is shocking. I looked at my blog this morning and we made the Fastest Growing WordPress.com blog for the second time ever! Last time we made 28th fastest growing blog (back at the beginning of August), this time I made 6th fastest! This might not sound significant, but when you consider there are 4,220,145 other WordPress blogs, it’s kinda cool. And it’s all because of you. Thanks for all the views. Hope you’re enjoying the photos. Stay tuned for more. Below is the proof.
Thanks for checking out my blog
This shoot was a blast. Things just flowed so well–we found a golden field 100 yards from where I was staying in Klamath Falls, Oregon and just started shooting. The pictures came out great….great subject, (she’s gorgeous as you’ll see) a beautiful assistant and excellent location. What more could you ask for? Ok, I’ll ask for one more thing. The Canon 5d Mark II. It comes out in November, just in time for Christmas, hint…hint. I also did another shoot with her and her husband. I’ll post those soon. Have fun looking! Thanks for your comments too!
I am on vacation. Well, sort of. It’s more of a vacation where I am going to be able to do some photography work. I just so happen to be up in Klamath Falls, Oregon, where my parents live so that I can #1, hang out with the family, and #2, I get to do 2 photoshoots! My sister and her husband are visiting as well, and she is 8 months pregnant with her first (a boy), so I have the awesome privilege of doing her maternity photoshoot. My pops needs some commercial photography for marketing materials for his electrical business (Abba Electric–only the best), so I get to do that also. Should be fun as there is plenty of cool terrain around here that I don’t normally get to work with in San Diego. The sun can be crazy harsh, so I’ll be hunting for shade where I can. Below are a few shots I took today while we were at this awesome new park by a lake here in Klamath Falls. I used high speed sync on my 580ex II speedlite coupled with my trusty 30d.
If you want to know exactly how I took it, read on. What I did is I balanced the exposure of the clouds by using fel (flash exposure lock) so that if I took a picture of the clouds they would be exposed properly. Specifically, I pointed my camera at the clouds and told the camera to expose the clouds properly (by pressing the fel button *. I also lowered the exposure compensation by 1and a third. I then put my 580ex II flash on high speed sync and fired away. I don’t remember, but I may have adjusted the flash output to better balance between the background because ettl flash doesn’t always nail it. My aperature was f/13, 1/320 sec. If this sounds complicated, it really isn’t. Hope that helps.
Here is the final post of the Venzara wedding. Enjoy!
We spent about 45 minutes down at the beach and took a few shots. The water was so nice! We also got to see some relatives we hadn’t seen in a while. I didn’t need to adjust any of the photos. The only one I adjusted was the sunset picture–and that just a little. I only adjusted the exposure level down a little and bumped up the black level a bit.
Josiah’s idea of surfing is to take a bodyboard (Uncle Daniel gave it to him–thanks bro) and toss it onto the foamy part of the end of the wave and let the water move him a foot (or inch) or two. Adventuresome is not how I would describe it, but hey, at least he’s getting wet, right? One of his classic questions at the beach is, “Dad, do you like sharks?” How do you respond to that!? I think the only exposure to sharks that he’s had is on Finding Nemo. (We always fast-forward the scary parts.) Any ideas on how to answer his next shark question would be gratefully appreciated.
Hannah, on the other hand, likes to play in the sand (until recently sand was a delicacy to her-she’d eat it by the fistful). She’ll keep her diaper on until it gets wet and at that point she gets buck naked. She loves to dig with her shovel and she really likes it when I dig a small trench near the shore and let the waves fill it up. Her own private jacuzzi! Bonus points go to the person that figures out why I put that link on the word “jacuzzi”.
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- My daughter, Hannah
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- My daughter, Hannah
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- My son, Josiah
It was a beautiful sunny day outside as we dove for cover at one of my favorite places to take pictures. Both babies were amazing during the shoot, you have such a beautiful family Brandon. Thanks for choosing me to capture these moments.
Amber, my beautiful wife and assistant on photoshoots. Hopefully she doesn't "shoot" me when she finds out I posted this picture. I can just hear it now--"But I wasn't smiling!". =)
This was a test shot with ttl off camera flash in the shade. I thought it looked great, and I plan on using it a lot more often. Let me know what you think. Amber is a great help when I’m doing a photoshoot. She gives ideas, holds reflectors, she’s an excellent model and is an awesome vafs (voice activated flash stand). Her organizational skills are nothing short of amazing. I love her, I always have…
Can you believe this? Yesterday I logged on to my blog and lo and behold, there was a link that referenced my blog. I clicked on it and discovered that on Aug. 8th, my blog made 28th on WordPress’ “Growing Blogs” list! This is something totally unexpected and I wanted to thank YOU. Keep on clicking! What is amazing is that 257,163 blogs were created in the month of July, and we made 28th!? How crazy is that! If you want to see the Growing Blogs list, here’s a snapshot 
and here’s the official link http://botd.wordpress.com/2008/08/08/growing-blogs-833/
Speaking of growth spurts, (ok, I know that wasn’t the smoothest transition) we were all eating breakfast around the table this morning. Amber, Josiah, Hannah and I were finishing up when Hannah (who turned 2 in June) asked me, “More eggs?”. The only one left was the one on my plate, so I began to cut it and feed it to her. I thought maybe she would take 2 bites, but she ended up finishing my only egg! We all left the table and I came back a couple minutes later and Hannah was sitting in Josiah’s chair eating his egg that he didn’t finish. She ate 3 fried eggs, 8 oz. of plain yogurt, and a sippy cup of water! She is definitely growing. Maybe it’s the perfect southern California weather, or the water?
btw, does anyone think she looks like a famous actor who played in Batman?
This wedding was so much fun to be a photographer at! It was such a warm day. Amber was such a big help–she helped organize groups for the formal shots and she was my second shooter. Nathan and Sarah looked so great together. It was a blast to look at all the photos when we got home. I was clicking through the pictures and we went back and forth saying, “oh I took that picture” or “that’s a great shot”. Well, on one of the pictures, Amber said, “I took that shot”. I said, “No, I think I took that one”. Upon closer examination we noticed that she was actually in the shot! We both laughed for at least 2 minutes. Feel free to comment and don’t forget to click the pictures to see them larger.
First of all, I have to say this…What a cutie! I love how these shots turned out. We had perfect lighting, (the sun was on it’s way down) Tristan was adorable, and we were about to eat one of the best Italian dinners this side of the Rio Grande. Tristan’s Mom cooked up a scrumptious pesto dinner for us and we had some really nice wine as well. We had a great time. Thank you.
Tristan was a great sport as Mom and Dad hooted hollered and warbled to get his attention.
Daniel was a lot of fun to shoot. We walked around the block and shot some in his front and back yard. These were for his 6th grade graduation! Congratulations Daniel!
Amber’s 26th birthday celebration was spent at Medieval Times in Buena Park, Ca. We enjoyed the knights and their competitive tournament while dining on some roasted chicken, bread, soup, pork ribs and coke and strudel. What more could you ask for? (Except for maybe a 300mm 2.8L lens; or this: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/800557508-USE/Canon_2527A001_Super_Telephoto_1200mm_f_5_6L.html)
Amber gazes at the horses in their stalls.
We posed for a family portrait (by a complete stranger who offered to take a shot of us). One of us hasn’t quite fine tuned their smile. Guess who?
Our Knight that we were assigned to/rooting for was the red knight. He ended up being the best knight in all of the competitions for the evening. He was very skilled and had a certain charm about him. You could tell that he enjoyed his job. In this picture, the story is unfolding more about the king’s son.
Our Knight.
The king for whom our knight performed.
Our valiant knight threw carnations to the ladies on their team who we were rooting them on.
Amber caught a flower that our knight threw to her.
I want to take this time to wish you all a merry Christmas. Merry Christmas! Hey, you know what drives me nuts sometimes? It’s the phrase “happy holidays”. I know people mean well, but it makes me want to get confrontational. “Oh, you mean Christmas?”! We have to be pc enough these days!
Anyway, I hope that you were blessed this year and were able to be a blessing.
btw, don’t you just love how in this portrait (that I set on timer mode and then ran to sit down with the family) that Hannah is busy doing her own thing? No amount of coaxing or waving in front of her face helped. Believe me, we tried. Funny stuff. I love this 1.5 yr old girl! I think her looking down at the leaf she found (or whatever it is) adds character to the picture. She is in a wonderful discovery mode.
