Wedding: Jennifer and Richard at The Victorian in Santa Monica, CA

Jennifer and Richard had a fairy tale day at the gorgeous Victorian in Santa Monica, my hometown! It was wonderful to capture all the elegance for them at this amazing venue. They both had many lovely details that made this day extra special. It was a fun day and night! Thanks, you two, for having me be a part of it! Without further ado, take a look at all the amazingness:

Venue: The Victorian

Catering: Duck Duck Mousse

Florist: Accent on Design

Wedding Coordinator: Catherine Conkle

Cake Artist: Pasadena Baking Company

Celebrant: Julie Laudicina

Hair and Makeup: Trim Salon

New Orleans: The Magical Carousel Bar

I had the pleasure of visiting New Orleans last week for the Imaging USA 2012 conference, and whoa did I learn a lot there! With 3-4 daily sessions over three days (starting at 7AM – yikes!), a huge trade show, and fun parties, it was an experience. I was beyond thrilled to be able to stay a few more days and explore the city, too. I have a million photos to share, but one of my favorite places was definitely the Carousel Bar.

The history in New Orleans is incredibly rich, and the Carousel Bar fits right in. It is in the French Quarter, but is eons away from raucous Bourbon Street in style and atmosphere. I felt like I was transported to another time as soon as I stepped through the doors of the Hotel Monteleone and into this gem of a bar.

The bar really does rotate! It took a moment to get used to, but then we were happy to be there for the ride (it takes 15 minutes to make a full rotation, so it’s not like you’re being whipped around!). I had a lovely Pisco Sour crafted by the most knowledgeable and genial bartender I’ve ever met, Marvin. It was delicious! He also let us try a bit of the bar’s famous Sazerac, the official drink of New Orleans. Marvin’s version has more absinthe and cognac instead of whiskey, and it was incredible.

I was reading Erin Morgenstern’s fabulous book, The Night Circus, at the time (loved it) and stepping into the Carousel Bar fit with her circus theme so well. I just loved this place! I highly recommend it to anyone visiting New Orleans.

More NOLA fun to come …

Ralph’s Diner – Creative Project

Happy new year! I’ve been spending some time going over the last year’s work, and I stumbled upon one of my favorite creative shoots that I never blogged, so before I recap my winter break shenanigans (coming soon, I promise – many a photoshoot was had in California!), I thought I’d share this one. Now, still life is out of the norm for my business (though there is a lot of it in wedding photography, actually), but I absolutely loved this project; it allowed me to be so creative and really follow my eye. Fun!

A filmmaker at my school, Lindsey Warren of Warren Farm Films, invited me and other photographers to assist her in a project. The only parameters: shoot buttons with the crew’s names on them in various locations of our choice at Ralph’s Rock Diner in Worcester, the site of the film. These stills were going to be used as the credits in her movie.

I was in! Ralph’s is such a crazy place; the decor is everything wild and neon and mashed together.  I loved it there and really got to run with the project. Here are some of my favorite shots:

I mean, how could you NOT take awesome pictures in this place? It was a wonderful collaboration across disciplines that our school enabled and encouraged, and I was really lucky to be a part of it.

Take a look at Lindsey’s finished product, and see what made it into the credits!

Wedding, Hurricane Edition: Cynthia and Patrick

A few weeks ago, Hurricane Irene came up to visit us here in the Northeast, and she didn’t take into account the fact that there were lovely weddings planned for that weekend! How dare she. And so, I have this story to tell you, and it is one to remember!

Cynthia and Patrick flew all the way from my hometown of Los Angeles for their wedding, only to be completely foiled by the weather. The morning of the wedding, I got a tearful call from the bride: the caterer had canceled (something about how they can’t work when Massachusetts declares a state of emergency), and then the venue pulled out as well because they only work with the one caterer. That I do not understand at all (couldn’t they have bent the rules just this once? It could have been bring-your-own food, even, and it would have still worked!). It was barely raining out and just a bit windy, hardly a hurricane. Boston got very lucky and was barely touched!

Yet, we were without a venue or a caterer, and the DJ and planner were connected to the venue, so as far as vendors went, it was me, and the cake. That was all we had to go on.

Cynthia handled everything with such grace, I was truly impressed. She made the decision to go ahead with the wedding, even though it was not going to be at all like she and Patrick had planned, and had the sunniest attitude on the gloomiest day of the summer. In only a few short hours, family and friends pitched in to relocate the event to a cousin’s bar in Quincy. It was so touching to see everyone band together to pull it off for this amazing couple.

Cynthia prepared at a nearby motel and managed to laugh at the turn of events.

Cynthia gifted her bridesmaids the most adorable matching kimonos, so we had to get a shot of them all together:

While the ladies got ready, friends and family were simultaneously prepping The Commonwealth Restaurant and Lounge for the ceremony and reception. Now, it may not be what the bride and groom planned or wanted, but getting married in a night club is pretty amazing, and SUCH a good story:

The hurricane pretty much passed Boston by, though there were a fair amount of trees down, including one in front of The Commonwealth:

And in the end, it truly doesn’t matter where you get married, because hey! You’re getting MARRIED! Cynthia and Patrick’s ceremony was absolutely lovely. I’ve never before heard a bride say that she hopes to rock her husband like a hurricane in her vows, and I will probably never hear it again!

After all the drama of putting the wedding together in four hours, we made sure we had plenty of time for Cynthia and Patrick to relax and get some portraits made to remember this day. Luckily, The Commonwealth is full of interesting areas to shoot in!

As unconventional as the circumstances were, the program for the evening progressed as usual, going from portraits to dances to speeches and cake and all. It was so great to see Cynthia and Patrick have a fabulous time, after all the day threw at them.

And when it was time to boogie, boogie we did!

All in all, this wedding was a good lesson in planning, and how sometimes it just doesn’t go as planned, and going with the flow, and all that good stuff. I had such a wonderful time with Cynthia and Patrick and their friends and family – everyone was so amazingly sweet and happy and glad to be there. And boy does everyone have a good story to tell!

See more of Cynthia and Patrick’s hurricane wedding here: http://www.juliesterlingphoto.com/Cynthia_PatrickSlideshow/index.html

The song is Florence and the Machine’s “Hurricane Drunk” because even though the lyrics aren’t totally appropriate, I couldn’t help myself …

Location Portraiture #1

After two weeks of in-studio portraiture, we moved out into the real world to further hone our portraiture skills.

My main takeaway from this module? Natural light portraits on-location are just that, natural, and fairly easy. Adding in lights on-location? Not as easy.

But, I worked really hard and managed to persevere and make photographs I’m fairly proud of, so it was a winning week after all!

We started the week photographing a pianist, Shinichi, doing what he does best:

It was a bit of a rushed shoot, with one subject for the 10+ members of our class, but it was an excellent exercise in lighting. We used the school’s audio studio (for the audio production program’s students) as our location and rolled in the grand piano; we set up multiple lights to highlight Shinichi and his craft while he serenaded us with amazing pieces, all from memory. We decided that a blue highlight in the background would bring more color into this mostly black, white, brown and red shot. A hastily bought red carnation for his lapel brought the colors together even better.

My instructor really liked the angle and crop I chose on this piece. He told me it would make an excellent CD cover, so I’m working on collaborating with a graphic design friend to drop some text in there and give it to Shinichi as an option for a future album. So much fun!

Can you spot the Photoshop-induced anomaly in the photo? First person to find it and identify it in the comments gets a prize! (Not really, well, maybe! We’ll see …)

We were let loose after that morning session to make our own location portraits in locations of our choosing. Hillary, Mariana and I went to Hill’s house to practice in a domestic setting:

We also used the time at Hillary’s house to practice and plan lighting and poses for a boudoir shoot we had scheduled and completed last weekend. Those photos will be coming soon, and the shoot was very successful! It was quite a departure from our usual portraits, but so so so much fun.

Later in the week on a snow day, we braved the weather and ventured to our classmate Donna’s house to use her newly acquired light kit and take more photos. Here Donna is, channeling Martha Stewart:

Donna’s house has beautiful architectural elements, so I tried to utilize them as much as possible, like this one with Mariana in the foyer:

We finished up the week with a field trip to a local bar, The Skellig, and shot in its dark back room. Hillary and Nicole humored me and fought over the last dregs of their Guinness (their pretend Guinness, as it was about 10AM ):

All in all it was a challenging week! I am continuing to learn a lot about lighting and getting pretty strong arm muscles from dragging my gear all around town. Win-win AGAIN!