San Francisco Photographer – Bay Area Portrait Photography

Hello all my awesome friends & family!  It has been way too long since I blogged and reached out to you guys so before January is over, I thought I’d post something.

This past year has been an incredible journey.  I’ve meet and photographed so many amazing brides & grooms, families and individuals  and have been so grateful for each one of those experiences.  And with each time I go out and shoot I learn something about my subject, myself and human nature.  Photography is incredible that way!  I’ve learned a lot and have learned I have so much more to learn – I’m excited of what more is to come!

I feel so grateful for it all:  the hard work, the stress, the joy when my clients see their photos, the little sleep, the new friends I’ve made… everything.  And this new year, just one month in, has already started off rocking my world.

The first thing I want to share with you all is my time in Los Angeles with the incredible Jerry Ghionis.

Not only did I learn so much about photography, business and marketing but I made some incredible life-long friends from that week.  There is just so much to say about my experience there it really deserves a whole post for itself, well, more like 10.  But for now I’ll say that if anyone is at all looking to make photography into a business you NEED to go see Jerry Ghionis.  Not only is he incredible on all levels but all the money raised at his workshops goes toward building an orphanage in Cambodia under his Soul Society non-profit.  This guy is the real deal with a real big open heart!  Cannot say enough great things about Jerry, Melissa (his amazing wonderful awesome gorgeous talented partner and new wife) and all the amazing new friends.  Love you guys!

So here’s my first big news.  I’ll be changing the name of my business very soon.  Inspired by Jerry and many conversations, I’ll be changing my business name to something that is more user-friendly and easy to spell and say.  Ironically, when people say it with the new spelling they end up saying my real name the correct way.  Any guesses? So you might start seeing new spelling for my name soon.  I’m also working with a designer to do my re-branding.  So excited!

Next big news!  I have the incredible honor to have been chosen to speak at WPPI’s Photographers Ignite.  WPPI is the biggest wedding and portrait photography convention held annual in Las Vegas.  Last year over 12,000 photographer attended. Gulp!

Yes, I’ll be speaking in front a mountain full of my peers and mentors.  Excited, nervous, humbled and a little freaking out.  LOL!  Riding high from Jerry’s workshop, I decided on a whim to submit a proposal.  I actually didn’t think I’d get it, yes, I hoped for it but that is something different.  Amongst all the proposals they picked 15 people and I am one of them!  Each of us will speak for 5 minutes.  Exactly 5 minutes.  20 slides, 15 seconds a slide, automatically changing.  So it will be a huge challenge for me and I’ll need to practice, practice, practice,but I’m looking forward to it.  My topic “How to sing like Jerry Ghionis” (yes!  he’s a fabulous singer as well) – Wish me luck!

Another awesome bit of good news is that I was recently informed that I won Wedding Wire‘s Bride’s Choice Awards for 2011.  That means that my studio is ranked in the top 5% of wedding photographers in the nation.  Wow!  I’m excited and honored.  Thank you to my awesome couples for allowing me to capture your awesome memories on your special day.  So grateful!  Gracias!

And if 2011 wasn’t already awesome enough, I’m just about to embark on a whole new amazing journey with the badass photojournalists of Foundation Workshop the people who run Fearless Photographers.  I literally have been waiting for this workshop the entire year.  It sells out every year and I signed up right away when registration opened.  Now I can’t believe it is time to go!  Starting 2 days from now, I’ll be spending a week with pulitzer prize winning photojournalists whose goal is to make wedding photographers better story tellers.  How awesome is that? It will be an intense week of learning, critiques, shooting, no-sleeping, more critiques and growing.  I expect to be broken down and rebuilt stronger, wiser and more creative.  After recovering, I’m excited to use all my new -found knowledge with my clients this year.  Yeah! Can’t wait!

Thank you all for your keeping tabs on me, leaving comments, and following my photography happenings.  I really love and need the support.  Looking forward to a super incredible (bet you thought I was gonna say ‘awesome’) 2011.  Love, Light and many Blessings to you all!

 CONTACT ROSAURA to shoot your wedding FIND ROSAURA on Facebook FOLLOW ROSAURA on Twitter!

Zack Arias‘ OneLight Workshop was 15.5 hours of discussing, learning, playing, shaping and creating light all packed into one day.  Yes, it was a long day but it flew by (well, except for the ‘I’m freezing’ part – it was 20 degrees colder than forecasted and I was not prepared)!  What I really appreciated about this workshop was that it was very hands-on.  But hands-on in a way that really made you think, pre-visualize and make your own settings so you really ‘get it’ and have those ‘a-ha’ moments.   Zack was around to help you think through it if you got stuck but essentially, after the lecture part, let you play with all the equipment and most importantly learn to KNOW the limitations of the equipment.  That part of it was super huge for me.  I’ve tried some cool lighting set-ups before and sometimes getting some cool results but not fully understanding why or confident that I could reproduce it.  This workshop helped me feel confident about the how and why so I can concentrate more on being creative and having fun.

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Below are some of my favorite shots.  These first 2 shots were taken in the back parking lot within minutes of each other but with very different approaches and outcomes.  This first shot I call my ‘rock star’ shot.  Love the flare on the glasses and the blue sky with Emily rocking the pose.

Taken minutes later at a different part of the parking lot.  Doesn’t Kati look like a super hero contemplating the world?  🙂  I love how the clouds frame her too.

The models were so great.  It was literally freezing with crazy wind and snowing at times.  You can’t tell but Kati’s shivering to the bone.  We had to get our photos in quick!  This was taken on the roof top of ZumaPhoto, owned and operated by the very talented Mitch Burt & Pepper Nix, our gracious hosts for the workshop.

Pepper was super great and gave me permission to use the guitar as a prop.  Little did I know that Nate was a musician and just started playing.  Can anyone name the cord he’s playing?  I love this ‘moody musician’ shot I took of him.

Oh, and we had some fun with grids too.  This was shot at night in a dark little alley.  We went off in small groups and photographed each other.  This is Aubrey, one of the participants.  Funny, I didn’t even realize the wall was red until we lit it!

Same set up as above but taken from a different angle.  She looks like she’s just about to go on stage.  It is sooo amazing what you can find by asking yourself, ‘I wonder what it looks like from here?’ and playing!  🙂

I highly recommend attending this workshop if you can get in.  Zack is an open book and gives you everything he’s got.  He literally will not leave until everyone has every single question they have answered.  The earliest he’s had a workshop end was 11am and the latest was 5am.  For us it ended at 1:30am.  Even when we thought we had it, he made us go out and practice some more and that of course raised more questions.  It was super cool.  One last thing I’ll say is that even if you buy the OneLight DVD, which I did, the workshop is still worth it.  The DVD for me was was like learning that E = mc(squared) and the workshop was the practical application of that equation.  And just like physics, there is always something to learn about lighting – the practical applications are limitless.  I’m super excited to continue to explore the possibilities!  Thank you Zack and thank you Meghan (Zack’s wife) for sharing Zack with us.

March has really rocked my world, both professionally and personally.  I have so much to share that I think I have to break it up into parts.  Earlier this month I attended WPPI (Wedding, Portrait Professionals International) in Las Vegas.  I was really excited about it.  How can I not be excited (and a little intimidated) meeting up with about 14,000 photographers from all over the world?  The convention coincided with my sister Maria’s birthday and also the 2nd anniversary of my father’s death.  I knew that I needed and wanted to do something special to commemorate them, especially my father.  So when I saw that Jesh de Rox announced that he was going to be doing his ‘Upward Spiral’ event, not knowing exactly what it was but knowing it would be special, I changed my flight and hoped I could find a place to crash that night.

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Well, I have to say that making that last minute change was one of the best decisions I made in a long time.  I had never met Jesh but knew his philosophy of life through his twitter/fb posts so I was excited to meet him. And wow, what a way to meet him.  His event was an interactive concert.  Him telling stories, playing music, and challenging us to explore what holds us back from living & loving fully in the NOW without any caveats.  He had us draw our fears/what holds us back, he had us wish the hardest and most sincere wish we could ever for our neighbor to to let go of those fears, he had us sing like no one & everyone was listening, and laugh and be human with each other.  All of this surrounded with his lovely voice and original music.  And all of this building up to one of the last experiments.

Photo by John Michael Cooper

He had us partner up with someone near us, a stranger, look into each other’s eyes and say, ‘you are not alone’ to each other.  Each time saying it in slightly different ways.  It was incredible how deep it was to sincerely look into someone’s eyes and say this.  Really mean it.  Really feel it.  Really accept it.  Even more incredible was how a slight inflection, change in spacing, in emphasis, in softness can change the impact of the message.  It was a lesson in being present, in letting go of fear, in language, in love, in community, in being human.  I was lucky enough to do this experiment  with Jesh.  This is how I met him for the first time.

Photo by John Michael Cooper

So this is what set the tone for me for WPPI.  I felt love and accepted and more calm because of it.  In a sea of 14,000 people it is ironic that you can feel alone, isolated, a newbie who doesn’t get invited to all the parties or dinners.  Yes, it can feel a little like high school.  But with this amazing experience I was able to just relax and be in the moment and enjoy my first WPPI experience.  Not worry about what others are doing and be present with the people I was with.  Just talking to Jesh was a good lesson in being there.  Being locked in.  Even after the concert, he hung around and talked and loved people.  And even though there were tons of people waiting and wanting to speak with him, he never looked away.  He never lost connection.  He was locked in and engaged no matter what was happening around him.  He makes you feel special.  He made me feel special.  I am so lucky to have meet a new friend, Lucia Castaneda, who was also there at the concert and took these 2 photos of me and Jesh just talking.  And we talked for a while.  We talked about music, singing, the lose of my father (well, just the physical lose, we are still connected)… it was amazing!

Photos by Lucia Castaneda

Can I tell you?!… I”m also majority excited about his Beloved project and how he’s applying this philosophy of life to photography and helping couples reconnect and make their love even stronger.  More on that later.

Oh, and I _did_ find a place to crash that night.  Not only did I meet Lucia, but I also met Kirsten Lewis.  Wow, what another twist of fate!  She’s an amazing photographer and person with a super contagious smile and laugh.  She got me excited about The Foundation Workshop and so much more.  I could go on and on about her and her friends that I also met, Kathryn, Oliva & Beth but I will stop there.  Just know that they are good people and I feel so grateful to have met them!  🙂  Wow!  This was only day #1 and I was already flying high.  🙂

Big thanks to John Michael  & Dalisa Cooper of altF for opening up their rocking studio for this fantastic event to happen

So every year, photographers from all over the world attend this conference in Las Vegas:

This year I’m super lucky to be able to attend WPPI in Las Vegas for the week and learn, mingle and party with the best in the industry.  It will be my first time and I can’t tell you how excited I am!   Along with all the classes (and parties!), another great thing about this convention is the trade show. I get to check out first-hand all the great and varied new products there are out there and deciding which ones to offer to my clients.   Seriously, it is _the_ major event for photographers every year and I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to go.

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With so much going on, I will not be in communication much for the week but I promise to get back everyone once I return (and have some cool photos to show too).  Gracias & Viva Las Vegas!

So this year for me is one of continual growth and exploration in photography (actually which year isn’t? LOL!).  I love learning and I especially love learning photography from such down to earth people as The Bui Brothers, Lan & Vu.    Yes, they are brothers and yes, those are their real names.  They hail from Southern California and are fantastic photographers, videographers, social media masters and educators.  This particular workshop was organized by Gustavo Fernández, awesome green-certified wedding photographer and organizing guru of SF East Bay Photography Meetup Group and many others.  The goal of it was to explore light both natural and artificial and really put into practice that you can take a great photo anywhere (after a little location scouting).  We focused a lot of headshots and they taught us their formula for the perfect headshot.  So be warned, this post is very headshot-heavy.  🙂

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We started off just talking about different angles of shooting and scouting out locations that at first you think will not work but they do!   This was taken in a regular backyard:

Next came exploring side lighting – love this kind of lighting!:

Then we got to play with lights.  They showed us a 2-light system.  Once with a fancy Profoto set-up and then the exact same set up with regular hot-shoe flashes.  I loved their minimalist approach!

Then we got to play with overpowering the sun for this really awesome effect.  For this we had to use the more powerful Profoto set up at full power – it was suuuper bright out!

Thank you Lan & Vu for spending the day with us and for being an open book.  Thank you Sara & Chris Goetz for hosting the workshop at your house.  You guys rock!  🙂  And thanks to the models for the day, Madison, Crystal, Sam, Marissa & Goldie – you guys did great!

I had the great pleasure to attend Jeffrey Neil’s fantastic first ever workshop with the amazing Elisea Johnson of Photogen Inc. and fabulous Jonathan Metcalf of MetMedia. It was a jam-packed day filled of inspiration, branding, photo critiques, laughter, music, awesome live shoot in small groups and great food provided by Jason’s Downtown Restaurant in Santa Ana.

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And on top of all that, the awesome ladies at Utterly Engaged and Treasured Petal created a super beautiful table scape for us to practice our detail shots on.  The setting was very unique and made with the males in mind and will be shown in the March edition of Utterly Engaged E-Zine.   Check them out if you haven’t already.  For a sneak peak of the table, see either Jeffrey or Elisea’s blog, we’ve been asked not to blog them until the magazine comes out.

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One of my main goals for this workshop was to conquer my fear of the tilt-shift lens, and I’m happy to report that I DID!  🙂  For the couples shoot, I forced myself to shoot only with my 45mm TS.  Tons went wrong and some went right.  I really appreciate Jeffrey & Elisea’s one-on-one feedback and advice working with the TS.  Thank you guys.  Also, thank you Jonathan for your encouragement during the shoot and tips on post process.  You guys all have such big hearts and I’m so happy to have met you.

Below are my fav photos from my day with the TS at the workshop.

One of the other great things about the workshop is that I got to meet some really great people and fellow photogs:  Gina Zeidler, Cami Poblete, Lara Holmes, Jon Dunning, Robert Tran, Maya Tasaka, Melissa Oholendt, Lindsey Besthorn and Kelly Aguilar.  It was a super cool mix of people and I loved meeting each one of them. Thank you guys for making the workshop that much more enjoyable!  🙂

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