San Francisco Wedding Photography: Unbelievable

Photo by Jasmine Wang

I am fortunate to have met an artistic photographer who is now in San Francisco.

First of all, she has an amazing background - she has photographed for international newspapers in France and China, and then built a very succesful photography practice in Ann Arbor.

The Bay Area is fortunate to have her now.

She is Jasmine Wang. Visit her website.

I was so impressed with her work, that I had her come along to a few of my weddings.

You have seen one sample (above) of her work. Now visit her website to see this Fabulous San Francisco Wedding Photographer's work.

I am very impressed at how she works with couples and individuals to get artistic, creative, beautiful and evocative wedding images.

KFOGs Fireworks As Seen from the Bay Bridge

Wow!

My wedding photography job in Moss Beach (on Highway one, just south of San Francisco and Pacifica) ended at 8:30 Saturday, and I knew there was a good chance that I would cross the Bay Bridge during the display.

I had no idea how close to perfection it would be.

At first it looked as if they were being launched out of Pac Bell Park (Or Gramophone Park or Two-Tin-Cans-and-Thread Park, they keep changing the name). But as we all merged to get onto the bridge, I could see that the display was over the Bay south of the bridge. I had thought they were going to be at the Ferry Building.

I was in the right lane, closest to the fireworks, and traffic in my lane slowed to less then 5mph. By the time I was on the bridge, with the perfect view of the show, the part visible below the fog, it was about ten minutes before the end - they always end at 9:30.

About ten cars ahead of me (I eventually figured out) one driver stopped to watch. I was so lucky to get in a one-lane traffic jam that put me in the ideal spot for watching the fireworks.

It was awesome.

I was oohing and aahing out loud, and my mood, always good after a wedding shoot, was rising. I got so excited. I even called my wife, "This is incredible!" "I'm jealous," she said.

Sorry, no photos, no mp3s of the booms.

Closet Fairy

Our kitchen has a closet fairy. The invisible closet-door-opening spirit slips into the kitchen and opens several cabinet doors. It happens four or five times a day, at any time, even when I am in the kitchen.

My wife is the one who noticed. A fan of the orderly kitchen with closed closets, she bristles at open doors. At first we thought I did it. So I learned to close the doors. But, even as recently as this morning, I was making breakfast, and before I took the cup of tea into the bedroom for Anne, I checked to make sure I had closed the doors (I'm sure I had). But, the closet fairy had opened FIVE doors in just the few seconds it took me to get from the stove to the doorway.

If we can vanquish the Closet Fairy, then we can work on getting rid of the fairy that pulls all the blankets over to my side of the bed.

Trust Me - If You Own a House

If you are reading this blog, then you are really, really smart. You know that if/when you die, and you happen to own a house, the tax stuff (ramifications) will be humongous (substantial). And if/when you get half-way to dying, you will need someone to make medical decisions for you.

My wife and I have proof that we are aging. Even inCalifornia, aging has caused massive deaths.

We don't have a ton of money, but we have several tons of housing, and in California that means that we need to avoid probate. I don't know what probate is, exactly, but it seems close enough to "problem" and "probe" that I should stay hecka far away from it.

So we went to see Attorney Howard Neal. He wasn't able to reverse the "growing older every day" paradigm, but he did set up a "Probate Avoidance System," or a crust, or something like a truss or a thrust. I think it was a "trust."

We had had a simple chat with his assistant on the phone a few days before we visited his Montclair (Oakland, California) office. We told his assistant about my many, many children and vast real-estate holdings. When we arrived, all the documents to protect us were prepared and ready for us to sign.

(Seriously: ONE TRIP to the office. We didn't have to waste gas driving there twice! What a bargain!)

He must be one of the nicest guys you could meet. My wife, who fears lawyers in the abstract, and lawyers' offices in the concrete, liked the guy. So you know he's one of us Gentle and Nice guys (like my wife's husband).

After Neal explained what each document said and did, we signed in the correct places, in the correct way (bring your picture ID with you!). We are ready to die now! Or, rather: Now, we are ready to die, or to be very sick.

Update: In May, Howard commissioned me to do his portrait. It took less than half an hour in his office, and the proofs were online before we turned on the set to watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart that night.

You can check out the proofs at http://www.EKProof.com/howard.

You too, if you are in the mood for simplifying your possible demise, should make a will and trust appointment! Call Howard - he's in Montclair Village in Oakland, California: (510) 339-0233 or http://www.nealaw.com/. Like me and Montclair, he just has one "L." And he's one L of a lawyer, too! If you put in an extra L, you're just asking for trouble.


With Howard, estate planning is easier than falling off a log, and less painful - WAY less painful.

Here are a few more shots:

Five Star Chefs...

I photographed the annual Meals on Wheels fund raiser at the Greek Church in Oakland on Friday, May 2, 2006.

Here are some of the chefs working on the meal:

Another Photo of Mom

Happy 95, Mom

Physics Explains Underexposure

One of the most ubiquitous problems in photography has been the mystery of underexposure, or, in layman's terms, "The picture, she is so dark."

Causing lost shadow details and muddy highlights, underexposure is the number two enemy of photographers, second only to abysmal wages and poor math skills.

During the twentieth century (that means the 1900s) several hypotheses had been advanced and shot down. Joerg Hilti, the Austrian jurist, had proposed in 1919 that photons slowed down whilst passing through the lens, and thus struck the film with too little force to make an impression. Einstein eventually put the kibosh on that theory, but it remained part of formal photographic education well past 1940.

In 2005 astronomers reported that dark matter, which was first synthesized by Fritz Zwicky in 1933, is far more prevalent than ever. The ever increasing and menacing dark matter has been proven (extremely proven, in fact) to be the cause of underexposure in the photographic fields. To put it simply, dark matter gets trapped between the lens and the film (or sensor) and then lodges in the receptor sites during exposure. This blocks some of the lighter and friendlier photons. The cause of dark photos had been found

These effects of dark matter have been overcome with digital sensors. In mass production since early 2007, dark-matter-protected sensors eliminate the dark matter underexposure conundrum.

The new CMOS and CCD sensors feature receptor sites that are too narrow and foreboding for dark matter to enter, leaving room for even the weakest photons, thus boosting the effective exposure to what it should have been all along. Film, still made by hobbyists in the hinterlands, cannot be adjusted to compensate for dark matter. This may may relegate film to the ash bin of history.

With digital capture in ascendancy, the dark problem is essentially solved. As one bride in Ohio or Illinois said, "My wedding pictures aren't as dark as I feared." And she was right!