Subscribe to RSSI've been away a while. I know. I know. It's been too long. Instead of groveling and trying to explain my absence I thought I'd make a list about what's gone on since I've last blogged... events, trips, gifts, purchases... whatever. If it's awesome and it's happened in the past couple of months its on the list.
(These are not in order of importance, just the order that they came to me.)
Cyndie and I went to New York... again. I don't think I need to explain to you again my love for New York City and more specifically Manhattan. Now I know I haven't seen the whole world, but, I've seen a lot of it and I can say with some degree of certainty that New York is my favorite place. I know it's not for everyone but for me and Cyndie there's nowhere better. The city, central park, the shopping, the restaurants... I love it all. This was actually the first time that Cyndie and I had gone to New York just for fun. Every other time I've had work there and while we always have a good time when I'm not working it was nice to not have anything but fun on the schedule for our trip.
Also it was our 10 year anniversary.
TEN YEARS!
I can't believe we've been married that long! Here are a few pics I dug out from our proofs from our wedding photos. Don't judge, it was 1999! Sorry the scans are so bad.
And here we are now, this was in December in New York.
Which brings us to food. Our favorite thing to do, aside from going to New York, is go to really great restaurants. In the past two months we have eaten some incredible meals. I could go on and on about them but there's probably only a few of you out there that would care so I'll just list a few of them.
DBGB. Super Chef, Daniel Boulud's less formal restaurant near the site of the famous old CBGB club in the East Village. Incredible burgers, amazing house made sausages, great beer list.
Jean Georges. Wow. One of New York's five Michelin 3 Star Restaurants. Incredible
Gramercy Tavern. I've heard about Gramercy Tavern for years and in December while we were in New York we totally lucked out and scored what is one of Manhattan's toughest reservations. It did not disappoint.
Animal. A sweet restaurant in West Hollywood that is a vegan's worst nightmare. Luckily I'm no vegan. Pork Belly sliders, chicken liver toast, veal breast, rabbit legs... even the desert had bacon in it! Mmmmmmeat!
A16. San Francisco's famous restaurant that specializes in not just Italian food, but food from the Campania region of Italy. You have to respect a restaurant that is that focused on what they do. Its easy to try to be all things to all people and end up doing nothing well. A16 does and few things and is the best at them.
And finally the culinary version of Mecca... the place all foodies aspire to eat... perhaps the most famous restaurant in the world...
THE FRENCH LAUNDRY! This was Cyndie's Christmas gift to me. I had a wedding last weekend up in the Bay Area and Cyndie thought ahead two months ago and scored us a table. It was without a doubt the best dining experience of my life. Trying to come up with enough superlatives to describe this meal is futile. I'll probably devote an entire blog post to the meal so we'll save the details for later.
Christmas! As I said, we've been married for 10 years now and this was Makenzie's 6th Christmas and we've always been with our extended family. And while that's always been great we chose, this year, to spend it alone and create our own traditions. So this year it was just the three of us and it was awesome. We definitely missed our families but it was so much fun making things up as we went, creating traditions that will hopefully last for a long time.
I got a new camera. Not really that exciting but its always fun to get new toys.
I got a Sous Vide Supreme! This is way more exciting than a camera... at least to me. We've been getting into cooking amazing food at home and this machine has allowed us to take dinner to a whole 'nother level. We had some friends over last week for a dinner party and I made shortribs that had been cooked for 72 hours! Oh my gosh, they were amazing.
Weddings in San Diego, Hollywood and Dallas and San Francisco. Those blogs are coming up soon, I promise.
Finally, I got a book that is so incredibly inspiring. Its not a photography book, or a business book, it's about a chef named Ferran Adria who is, by many accounts, the best chef in the world. What's inspiring about this book is that it takes you through a typical day with him. He's someone that has dedicated his life to being creative. Not just making food, but creating something that's never been made before. His restaurant is only open 160 days a year because he needs the rest of the time to create. Every day the restaurant is open the first 9 hours of the day is dedicated to creating new dishes. His diners are served between 28 and 36 courses and every course a diner is served is put into a database so that if they come back to the restaurant in the future they will not be served the same dish. The have hundreds of notebooks filled with thousands of dishes they've created, not one of them something the diner will have ever seen or been served before. The 205 days a year the the restaurant is closed is spent developing new processes to make food. Inventing machines and tools if necessary to facilitate the making of whatever dish the have in their heads. That kind of commitment to creativity is just astounding to me and is really inspiring as well. I want to put that much effort into being creative for my clients.
So now you're caught up! I promise it won't be 2 months before I blog again! :)
Last week I had a birthday. It was amazing. Best birthday I can remember. There are only a few things that make me really happy... two of them are amazing food and being surrounded by friends. This year I got both.
Monday night Cyndie and I left Makenzie with some friends and drove up to LA. We got a room at The Roosevelt Hotel, one of the coolest hotels ever, and had dinner at Spago, Wolfgang Puck's signature restaurant in Beverly Hills.
I've wondered for a long time if Spago was all hype or if it really was all it was cracked up to be. Let me tell you it did not disappoint. Instead of ordering off the menu we decided to do the 10 course tasting menu. After three and a half hours we rolled out of the restaurant... stuffed from one of the most amazing meals we've ever had. The meal cost more than the rent on our first apartment but I have to say it was totally worth it. Also, we sat right next to Sidney Poitier and his family. Awesome.
The next day we hung out at the hotel for a while then headed back to the OC where we were having a bonfire with friends out on the Balboa Penninsula. There were probably 10 photographers there so I was thinking that several would have their cameras but only one person did. Jory brought an old Canon AE-1 and one roll of film. He just blogged the images from the day so I stole a few for my blog too. Thanks for the images Jory!
Yours truly.
Jory and Val, Jasmine and JD Star ;)
Steven Taylor, Victor Sizemore
There's a blurry Jessica Claire, Jasmine and Cyndie back there.
Over the past months I've done a few private workshops with people from across the country. I haven't really advertised it but I've been getting so many emails about this lately I thought I'd go ahead and let you guys in on the info and open it up to everyone.
The workshops can cover anything you want... shooting, posing/directing clients, processing/photoshop, blogging, pricing, pricing for destination weddings, dealing with clients, wedding day time management... its totally up to you. We can sit and talk for the whole time or we can get outside and put your new knowledge to use in a shoot... again, its up to you.
These sessions will, for the most part, take place here in Orange County but if you're scared of flying or have a group or would just rather me come to you let me know and we can work out the travel.
Click here to register for WOODSHOP!
It's late and I just lost everything I typed... again. I shot Makenzie in Central Park and the stayed to watch the filming of Law & Order Criminal Intent. Here are some pictures.
I'm off to shoot a wedding this weekend in beautiful Tulsa. I'll be out of the office from tomorrow (Thursday) through next Friday. I should have internet access throughout the time I'm away but it might take me a little bit longer than usual to get back with you. Please be patient during this time, I promise to get back to you!
