Here are a some images from an engagement session I shot a few weeks ago. We started out in the Meatpacking District, on the High Line, then headed over to Dumbo and Brooklyn Bridge Park. We found some really cool spots over there that I'd never noticed before. I love the light here in winter. There's something about it that is so amazing and so different from anywhere else I've shot. Hope you like them!

What was supposed to be a perfect fall day in New York turned out to be a record setting snow storm here in Manhattan. Luckily Allison was on the ball and noticed the forecast a couple days prior so we shot their session one day early, still not knowing exactly what kind of terrible weather we had escaped. Due to an unusually warm October we didn't have the fall color Allison and Tony traveled across the country to see but I think we got some great images that day. Here are a few of my favorites.

Angela and JT are awesome.

Ely Roberts is a photographer from San Luis Obispo and when he brought his girlfriend to New York to propose to her he wrote and asked if I'd shoot an engagement session of them while they were in town. I've said it before but I love shooting photographers, haha. They're up for anything and whether they are or not they at least act like they're comfortable in front of the camera.

It was a blast hanging out with Ely and Abby that afternoon and I love the images from the session. Here are some favorites.

If you're a photographer or even just blogger you really need to check out BlogStomp. I've been using their actions to prep my blog images for about a year and a half but they just came out with an App that doesn't need Photoshop to resize, sharpen, create collages, add your logo or watermark, resize and save for web. It's unbelievable. Check it out.

I love this series, haha. Ely was playing around and jokingly got down on one knee reenacting the proposal... I wonder if anyone has ever done that for engagement pictures before?! Haha.

You might have seen on here before that I offer private workshops for photographers affectionately known as WOODSHOPS. I don't put on huge group workshops because #1: they're a whole lot of work and #2: if that's what you're wanting there are already tons of them out there. If, however, you (or maybe you and a couple of friends) want to spend a day, afternoon, or lunch together picking my brain, listening to me talk about how I work and shoot, I'll happily oblige you. I usually do one per month.

A few weeks ago I had a WOODSHOP with a photographer from LA named Gary Coelho. We spent the afternoon together talking about how he could improve his photography and at the end of the afternoon we went out for a shoot to give him a chance to put his new knowledge into practice. We had to postpone the workshop a day because of rain so I was scrambling trying to find a couple to model for me. I put out the word on Twitter and within a few minutes my good friends Jake and Jessica Mariano graciously volunteered to be our subjects for the afternoon. We went out into the hills of Ladera Ranch for an engagement style shoot and had a great time trudging around in the mud. We had some beautiful light and got some really wonderful images.

If you're interested in a WOODSHOP check out the information page and shoot me an email.

Here are some favorites from that afternoon:

Here's an engagement shoot from the fall I shot out in Orange County. You can almost bet that you'll have good weather in Southern California but every now and then you get "lucky" and get a beautifully overcast day like this. I just love the tones from this session and can't wait to shoot their wedding in Malibu this summer.

We shot these in downtown Laguna Beach and then drove up to Crystal Cove in Newport.

Several months ago I was hired to shoot what I thought was going to be a pretty typical engagement session in New York. Time passed and as the date came closer I got in touch with the couple to firm up the details. They told me they had some ideas about the shoot and then said they wanted it to have a 1950's theme. They wanted to shoot outside a diner, they were having a '56 T-bird there for the shoot, they were dressing up in 50's attire... in fact, it wasn't going to be typical at all.

One of the things they told me is that they wanted to shoot with the car outside the diner and have the sunset behind them. Well if you know anything about photography you know that in order for that to happen you're going to have to use lighting. I guess I could have done some HDR stuff but its not 2006 anymore. :)

So I rented a Profoto set up and drove out to New Jersey to the diner. The diner was awesome but it was also surrounded by cars, not from the 50's, which to me kind of kills the whole thing. So we positioned the car in the middle of the parking lot and I shot from pretty much the only angle that blocked out the rest of the cars and still showed the diner. I felt pretty good about the images as we were shooting but I never get too excited because you really never know what you're getting until you open them up. I even turned the strobes off at a couple of points and shot natural light just in case things weren't turning out as good as I thought they were.

When I opened the images up to begin working on them I just fell in love. Its so different from what I normally do but man they're so freaking cool.

While I typically work with natural light, when I was first getting started I never wanted to be in a situation where I felt unprepared so I learned as much as I could about off camera lighting. I'm by no means an expert but knowing this stuff has helped me get good images out of bad situations.

So here are a few of my favorites. I put in some of the natural light stuff as well. I think the difference is really interesting. Let me know what you think.

I was going through a shoot from a couple of weeks ago tonight and thought I'd put a few images up. I had such a great time with Chu and Antonio. They're such a great couple and this is actually not the first time I've taken Chu's photo. I shot her sister's wedding a couple of years ago and she was a bridesmaid.

One of my favorite images ever came out of their "pre-wedding" "day after" session:

Enough about them though, back to Chu and Antonio... :)

Here are a few images from my time with them.

I love these ones on their beach cruisers!

Here are a few of my favorite images from Kenny and Bri's engagement session last week in Santa Monica. They are so much fun to hang around and I CAN NOT WAIT for their wedding this summer at the Viceroy in Anguilla! It's going to be so awesome.