Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Kristin & Jon's Wedding Day


Kristin and Jon got married on Saturday, May 24th at the beautiful Fairmont Penthouse in San Francisco.

They had a beautiful intimate ceremony with close family and friends on the outdoor patio and then had an awesome party afterwards.



I photographed this wedding on my own and I got some amazing images.

Kristin and Jon were a beautiful couple and the setting and city views absolutely sensational!!

I thoroughly enjoyed being witness to their Special Day.

Congratulations guys :)































Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Memorial Day Weekend


Our 2008 Memorial Day weekend was alot of fun and an extremely busy weekend for Jake and I. We had 3 weddings this past weekend.

SATURDAY
I headed off to the Fairmont Penthouse, San Francisco to photograph the stunning Kristin and Jon's Wedding Day.


While Jake was over at the St Regis photographing Eloise and Dennis's Special Day.

We got stunning images from both weddings, which we hope to get online for you all real soon :)


SUNDAY

Jake and I got together on Sunday to shoot Erinn and Chris, who had the most amazing intimate garden ceremony in Palo Alto.

These guys were a super cute couple and an absolute pleasure to photograph. We got sooooo many amazing images from their day.

We wanted to give you a sneak peak :)

CONGRATULATIONS ERINN AND CHRIS :) Have an awesome honeymoon in the Grand Canyon.























Friday, May 23, 2008

Conceptual Exposure

Jake and I did an Editorial Shoot together last week.

It turned out pretty sweet!! We are both super happy with our shots.....

I thought I would share some of the images.

Jakes image is part of his Master's thesis and was inspired by the painter, Edward Hopper. A style that is a 'slice of life' type photograph where the subject is having a 'moment' or is deep in thought.

In my images, I was going for the more cinematic look. My portraiture is inspired by a number of factors and my love of cinematography has been a huge influence on my style.





While we were outside, a police car turned up and the officer very kindly turned on the flashing lights for us, so we got even more fun colors going on, which you can see here on this bottom image.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Video Sneak Peak

Wow, today is blog crazy, so many cool things going on!!!

I just received this sampler from Daniel, our videographer and I could not wait to share!

Here is a sneak peak of the much anticipated video samples for our website.

We are super excited to offer the services of Daniel Carettoni of Nomad Productions. Daniel is an amazingly talented videographer that I have had the pleasure of knowing and working alongside for a few years now.

Daniel is originally from Brazil and has travelled the world shooting for various companies including ESPN and has a passion for unique and contemporary wedding videography and 8mm film.

His work is truly amazing and I cannot wait to get the full video up and running on the website for our Bride and Grooms.



You can meet Daniel and view his various videography work at www.nomadprod.net

He is a complete sweetheart!!

Enjoy!!!

Sex and the City


The much awaited Sex and the City Movie comes out next Friday!!! Make sure you get out with your gal pals and go see it!! :D

The super talented team of gals at Macys together with New Line Cinema put on an awesome event for the occasion and I had the absolute pleasure of photographing the party.

Georgeous models posing as Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda were all there with their character closets and guests were able to purchase character inspired outfits from their favorite characters.

The event was a huge hit and everyone enjoyed the party.

Luckily, for my husband, I left the credit card at home......there were so many amazing outfits and designers, it would have been easy to go crazy!!!

Which character are you? :)

Monday, May 19, 2008

Bay to Breakers 2008

The ING Bay to Breakers is one of the world's largest and wackiest footraces and has become an annual springtime tradition, attracting upwards of 70,000 world--class runners, costumed contenders, and weekend warriors.

After a 6.30am pre party, we headed out and hammed it up with the rest of the city. We made it as far as the De Young Museum in the Golden Gate Park which took us 3 hours to get to.....trying to keep all the peeps together.

Here are some shots from the day :)













Congratulations Gina & Brian

My wedding season doesnt officially kick off till next weekend so I was excited to be asked to second shoot for the lovely Mr Michael Corsentino (www.cphotographer.com)

Here are some of my favorite portraits that I took of Gina getting ready. She had the most beautiful eyes!!! The wedding was a blast and a nice opener to the 2008 season :-)

Congratulations Gina and Brian :)







Thursday, May 15, 2008

Purty Sky


The sky was looking nice outside of my apartment last night....If only my landlord gave us access to the roof!!

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Why Shoot Retouch Design?

Many people have asked and commented on the choice for the business name.

Shoot Retouch Design was named after 3 passions and 3 crafts.

I love to photograph, I love to retouch and I love to design.....and the name just came from that.

While it may not be the most romantic business name, especially in the Wedding Business, it is a descriptive name to the process of digital wedding photography.

On the topic with the videos posted below, this leads me to my latest blog entry: Retouching!!

Retouching here at Shoot Retouch Design has several meanings. The most important one being that we process the image our way! A digital darkroom, just like we do with film, we can expose a fstop under or over, or dodge and burn here and there, change color tones, add contrast, blow out highlights, etc. Photography is art....the negative simply a blue print that we then take into the dark room and process to reflect our style and as our art.

While our photographic eye, our composition and the way we see the world through our lenses is key, taking the image to the next level is a crucial part of the process.

Take 10 photographers to the same location with the same tools and you will get 10 very different images, give 10 professional retoucher's the same image and you will get 10 completely different outcomes. Photography is perception like any other art form but so is retouching, and two very different skill sets along with design, which I will talk about in a later blog.

When choosing a wedding photographer, it can some what TMI when understanding the latest terms and processing wording. Questions to always keep in mind in terms of looking at images are quality over quantity. Be sure to see a full wedding coverage, see a retouched print. Do you like the way they have processed the image? Is it to your taste? Do they do all the retouching and processing themselves? do they have a lab do it? Is there consistency?

While the term 'retouching' can and is related to the airbrushed models and celebs we see in the mags, it really is a universal term and like art perceived in many ways.

I enjoy the whole process from start to finish. From creating the blue print, to retouching and then design so you can be rest assured your final album and prints will be true art.



This was a beautiful autumn wedding and I wanted to enhance those beautiful colors to compliment the Brides georgeous red hair and really make this image POP with vibrant colors.



Whoops, we were so excited at this location, we left a camera in the frame....so that had to be removed, then some nice retouching was done with the dress and the flowers to make this dreamy romantic image.



This image needed little retouching, I turned it to black and white and diffused the window light to give this bridal portrait a very romantic classic look.



This is one of Jakes Masters Program Projects, and I love to retouch so I played around with this image to give it that colonial tattered vintage feel as if they were found relics.




This is a personal project of mine that I am working on right now, as you might have read the story posted previously. I am doing a past to present series inspired my childhood family polaroids shot by my parents. I thought I would post the before and after. I really wanted to capture the saturated aged feel that certain polaroid film gives