Velez Family

Here's a sweet Merry Christmas picture for the Velez family.

This was the day after Ray and Leilani's wedding. Yes, that is the groom and that's what he wore to the wedding. He and Lani went out riding with me the day after and we got some great "trash the dress" shots.  This one was just one of my favorites because I love dirtbikes...and wheelies.

We went rock climbing and as always, I brought my camera along.  This guy was a big time rock climber and he was just out with his girlfriend on a Saturday getting some practice climbs in.  He asked if I would get some shots of him climbing and that he might be interested in having me shoot for him on other climbs.  We had a lot of fun climbing and shooting. I love shooting all kinds of sports, but the personally challenging independent extreme sports are the most fun. Snowboarders, skiiers, rockclimbers, skaters... come get me. I'll shoot for you any day.

JOHN - So as everyone probably knows, this is my litle brother Joshua. Joshua is a football freak just like me. He is about to start his long career in this sport. He was so exited the day he got his gear. He actually slept in his gear untill try outs. Before tryouts, he has to practice so he drags out his big brother John to huck some footballs at him. After a while, we have a bunch of kids helping out the "superstar". These extra kids gave Joshua a chalenge and gave me a chance to step away and get my camera. He had played football for a few hours now and was finally getting tired and as a result, he started to get tackled a little more often, and the picture above shows the result of a beaten Joshua.

and this is a result of a well rested superstar.

JOHN- Haha Mom's going to shoot me for this. Well , we were almost done with Jake and Suzannah's after wedding shoot. My mom had this great idea where each of them were going get there favorite ice cream, smash it in eachothers faces, laughs, messiness, and woohoo some great shots. The only problem was that we couldn't find any ice cream shop.  Meanwhile, I wanted to take advantage of the time looking for other funny shots while they kept looking for ice cream stores, "Thanks Mom". I saw an old, dirty, nasty statue of a pig that looked happy for some reason. I didn't know why it looked so happy, but I have this gorgeous bride with me, why not have her come and kiss him on the cheek while her husband smiles unknowingly on the other side. Who wouldnt be happy!

Oh, and we never got the ice cream shot.

JOHN-So this is right after the wedding of Ray and Leiloni. During the wedding, it was raining so we were not able to do anything creative, after the wedding we knew we had to do a second photoshoot.

Sure enough, they want some more shots, and we were proud to take them.

The next day I take Ray and Leiloni to the railroad right by the Truckee River, This was actually the first set of pictures from this shoot. I sit them down and set my camera up. I ONLY WANTED TO GET RAY AND LEILONI IN THE SHOT, but that dang dog wouldnt move, what do know, it turns out to be my favorite shot of the day.

Noelle's Buddies

After a long hard day of painting apartments with Dad it's finally time to go home and relax for the rest of the day.... Nope! As I was getting in the car, I get a call from my sister. "JOHN! Hey whats up, Whatcha doing?". She had to want something, she's never that nice to me. "Me and my freinds are ready to get some fun shots on the mountain so be ready at 6:30". Yeah, not even a "please". Oh well, they are probably pretty cute girls, so I was game. So I got home, got ready in about fifteen, and we were on our way. After a few shots with the river, trees and rocks I was starting to run out of light. I had to take a still shot (since there was not enough light to have a fast shutter) and make sure no one moved. This was not working out very well, every picture I took was blurry. I didn't have lighting with me, so I set their shoes on the road and had them walking in the background and intentionally blurred, getting the still shoes perfectly crisp since they cooperated and didn't giggle or move.  We had a great shoot and I think we got the most out of it, but I didn't get a date.