On Tuesday this week, the 29th of June, 2010, I got to be part of a remarkable event of Eric Jarvis heading off on his first 200 plus mile road bike trip from Mendocino to Mill Valley with his good friend Rick Gunn. There is so much I could say here about how this came about, but I’d rather have Eric tell the story if anybody reading this post is interested! It’s a very inspiring one! It certainly inspires me!

I volunteered to shuttle Eric and Rick up to Mendocino, where after a wonderful salmon dinner created by Rick and a night of camping they packed up the next morning and cycled off on Coastal Highway 1. It was an incredibly proud moment for me and I’m sure Eric felt the same way once he got through the slight jitters of the first few miles!

I actually drove after them and got to see him ride his brand new steel Surly bike packed to the max along the highway with the breathtaking scenery of the Pacific Ocean behind! I have to say that that vision and being able to take photos of it was EPIC! (Unfortunately those images are not available right now for they reside on Jarv’s 5D. As soon as he is back, I’ll be posting them here!)

Two days later they had completed almost 50 miles per day and reached Bodega Bay and Gualalla.

Here are a few photos that were taken at our camp site accompanied by our ever-amazing bike companion Tazmin. Unfortunately he didn’t get to go with Daddy, but was able to run with him a bit on the campground road.

Once Eric and Rick were off, I started my drive back with Taz stopping in Red Bluff for one night to see his Vizsla mom, and brother Vino, aunt Suzie and friend Tazer. The doggies had lots of fun play time and I had lots of fun watching them! Thank you Joye and Chris for having us and more importantly for making it possible for us to have this truly wonderful little guy whom we love more than we can say.

On my next day of driving back to Tahoe Taz and I enjoyed lots of exciting stops on Highway 89 including Lake Almanor, Quincy and Graeagle.

It was a long drive, but I have to say that Taz made it very easy by being patient and easy-going. In return, I provided lots of fun hunting outings for him. Now I’m back in Tahoe with my two Best Good Buddies trying to stay away from the craziness of a holiday weekend in Tahoe.

Eric we are thinking of you and missing you hoping that every day of riding continues being a fun challenge and extraordinary accomplishment for you!

Happy 4th of July to Everyone!

Photo disclaimer: the images above were not taken by my pro camera so forgive the lesser quality.

This last few weeks we have photographed several family portraits around the lake. We are always excited to get these types of bookings even if they come in at a very short notice like two days before.

We have always enjoyed spending an hour to an hour and a half with groups of families who reunite here in Tahoe for a few days to enjoy all the exciting activities. And while they are here, a fun portrait session is certainly a nice way to further enjoy their stay!

From carefully posed to spontaneous, from big and small groups to individuals, more on this topic coming soon with lots more images from different sessions!

Anne and Jim…

A kiss for Grandma…

Barbara and her Family…

Julie’s granddaughter…

Girls on the beach…

My photo shoot last Saturday with this truly wonderful family was a great example why family portraits are not only fun, but always an amazing experience! More on Annie Klaus and her family is coming soon!

Congratulations Stacey and Brett! They got married on June 12, 2010 and we had a wonderful afternoon at Edgewood capturing some very special moments of their celebration! Even the weather cooperated!

I had a great time with Kelly and Charles while photographing their engagement portraits.

It was a chilly and windy day (I know, no more comments about the weather), but it made the view at the lake very dramatic as waves crashed onto the shore. The wind sure worked perfectly for Kelly’s hair! Fortunately her goose-bumps don’t show up in the photos…

As it mentioned in our Engagement Portrait article on the main web site, these sessions are a wonderful opportunity to practice taking photos with the bride and groom before their wedding day. The practice is for making them feel more comfortable and to give them a chance to fall into a more natural, spontaneous way of posing and being with each other really in front of the camera. All of this is very useful with most couples because not everybody is instantly relaxed when having their photos taken.

I am glad to report however that Kelly and Charles were! They fell into a fun, easy and affectionate way of being with each other in front of me from the beginning. It was a pleasure to capture the moments of their personalities. This will make it much more casual and easier for all of us on the wedding day to get great results for wedding photographs!

More images coming soon from their session!

Natalia had the right idea…

When she called me, she said “it’s been five years, I need new business images of myself!  My clients don’t recognize me any more based on my photo in my ads…”

I actually did her first portrait. And boy, has she changed since! For the better of course! She updated her looks and it was obvious that we needed to update her photographs too!

Sometimes when I look through our local real estate magazines, or even newspaper ads, I see outdated photographs of businessmen and women that look like were taken in the 70s. I guess some of us out there just simply don’t change in appearance, or don’t start looking older… If that’s the case, anybody should keep that solid image they once had taken. If not… why not get a fun new one? No one should have to hear the subtle line from a new client upon introduction: “oh, you look different from your  photo!” which let’s be honest, could mean anything.

I believe that most of us out there choose businesses or services based on the look of the ad or photos. So ask yourself: is your photograph inviting, inspiring and captivating, at the same time professional looking? If the answer is “not really”, you know what to do!

My promotional portraits are affordable and a lot of fun! I encourage everybody to bring a few different outfits to have variety in looks. At the end, there will be amazing new images of you that will get more attention in your ads and potentially bring more business.

Thank you Natalia, it was such a pleasure to capture your amazing energy and personality!

Linda and Drew are getting married in October at Edgewood. We got together just a few days ago for their engagement portrait session.

The weather was rather fascinating that day. A spring storm was moving through with mild temperatures and lots of low clouds sending light drizzles of rain down on us. The light was simply spectacular! A photographer’s dream. Soft, even, yet highly contrasty with a nice punch for the photos.

My clients enjoyed just strolling through the Tallac Historic Site area pausing at some of the wonderful locations. They both were very relaxed and good at just simply interacting with each other, something I always love to capture.

These images have not been retouched or given any kind of effect… Because of the magical lighting conditions, they were instantly beautiful! And yes, this was one of the rare portrait sessions when I didn’t even think about using my flash when shooting towards the lake.

I picked these images to reflect the pleasant strolling we had..

Thank you Linda and Drew for the wonderful outing! It was a pleasure to capture the two of you! We are looking forward to joining you for your upcoming celebration!

Today I had the exciting experience to go on a mountain bike ride with Eric! It was a spectacular summer day we have been waiting for for a long time. Sunny, 70-something degrees, light wind, high fluffy clouds.

Eric has been training and riding for a couple of years now with his great friend Rick Gunn. For those of you who don’t know Rick, he just a couple of years ago completed an astonishing ride around the World, riding something like 25,000 miles.

No ride is complete without the company of Tazmin, one of our Hungarian Vizslas. Taz is an amazing bike-ride champ who recently completed a 20-mile ride with Eric & Rick.

Now that the snow is mostly gone,  Eric has been enjoying one of the most fun and challenging trails in Tahoe, the Corral Loop. He’s out there just about every day getting stronger and faster.

I got to witness that today, when he took me on the Power Line Trail and kept leaving me behind in a cloud of dust while I just about died from all the uphills and thrilling turns… It was a good kind of dieing though! The ride was fantastic and I felt truly invigorated from it even though at the end I was ready to collapse.

Here are some images of Jarv looking sooooo good! Skiing and biking are what keep him living in Tahoe!

And me on an easy stretch catching my breath…

The view off of the trail is quite spectacular!

To learn more about our friend Rick Gunn, please visit his web site www.soulcycler.com.

There is one basic rule on using flash when photographing portraits at Lake Tahoe with the lake and view behind: IT’S A MUST! It simply is not possible to have the same amount of light on your subjects as you have in the background without a flash. Strong flash. Good, powerful equipment.

And that’s what people want. Them in front of the lake looking really good without shadows on their faces and the lake looking perfect behind them.

Knowing how to do this kind of photography is sort of what makes you a bit old school and traditional, but this is also how you become an expert portrait and wedding photographer in Lake Tahoe. Believe it or not, very few of the modern, savvy photo journalists know how to do this. We’ve been seeing it, or should I say haven’t been seeing the lake and the view in their images?

Eric and I have been photographing portraits and weddings together for a long time. Because it’s the two of us, we decided from the beginning that we can do both style photography. Because Eric is brilliant especially with the science part and equipment, he takes care of the flashing. And I shoot mostly available light but in the meantime I’m always fully prepared to slam my flash onto my camera if conditions call for it.

What the bottom line is going to be here (on the bottom of the post): Why not use both? Give your customer the best of both worlds. That is always what I shoot for too during my portraits. I love to use available light, because it’s forgiving, it’s pleasing, it’s soft and dramatic at the same time. It’s flexible. But once I’m down at the lake, I put my flash on and give my clients the view they want to see!

Let me show you a few examples on when flash is needed, when it’s not and when you can get away without it.

These images right here are the classic must-have-flash samples:

Here the first one of Kera was flashed, because she was in the shade and there was no way I could have had the view and the clouds behind her so vibrant without blasting her. (Unless I was going for a silhouette effect)

Then I discovered this pleasantly soft, but strong enough sunlight to match the light of the background to put her into. That way I didn’t need my flash and I still had good light on her and fairly good exposure on the lake. An entirely different look!

Here Eric and I are shooting at the same time… He’s flashing, matching the light on the couple to the brightness of the sky and I’m exposing to have the couple light enough, not worrying about the background. Now, did it work both ways? I say yes, IF you give your customer both versions so they can have the view as well.

Same thing here… The first one is Eric’s and the second is mine. Once the sun is gone behind the mountains, you might get lucky with amazing overall ambient light that allows an even effect. So both work here too!

Sunset silhouette photos are exceptions of course. No flash required for those.

On this wedding party shot Eric’s color image is perfect! Mine shot at the same time is back lit, glared, I lost all the colors in it… Yuk! But… Because the expressions are great, I tried it in B&W and it worked okay. So yes, you can tweak sometimes and have images of precious moments with no view as long as you have the perfect one as well!!!

These three are similar examples. Who wouldn’t love Eric’s impeccable image? Mine next to it, not so much… It just simply doesn’t work with the strong back light, shadows on the faces and washed out colors. I adjusted the third image a bit to make it work in B&W. (Oops, forgot to retouch the utility box in the grass…)

So YAY to available light if you know how to use it properly and you still have the highly desired view images as well.

We still believe in providing both styles and that’s really where we have offered an extended and outstanding coverage and will continue to do so. We have also experienced that where most of our customers instantly fall in love with images that are captured spontaneously, more often with available light, at the end, they end up choosing the ones that show off beautiful Lake Tahoe.

May 31, 2010, Memorial Day. We didn’t exactly take the entire day off today, but we tried to break away from work for most of the afternoon.

Walking the dogs twice today and a little yard work was the perfect therapy for the day. Then it was time to think about dinner.

I’m not sure that my cooking really belongs here on my Blog, but I am so excited about this holiday dinner I created that I just have to share it. I figured that if I take photos of it, then it’s appropriate to post here.

You need to know that I love to cook. If there is anything I’m good at, that’s cooking! I alter and reinvent recipes to my own style of cooking. I improvise a lot… It’s almost like a sixth sense a good friend keeps telling me… It’s a gene thing… You’re born with it. My parents both had it, my sister has it. I never had to learn to cook. I’m so grateful. Now I just need to figure out how to make money with it.

So I ended up with Cod, sweet potatoes and fresh pears. Here is the recipe just for the fun of it. It came out incredible and the flavors were very complimentary.

Potato Chip Crusted Cod with Oven Roasted Sweet Potatoes

Red Onions

Pan seared pears:

The fish: Four pieces of cod in a casserole dish salted on each side.

Coat one side of each piece with mayonnaise. Mix parsley, tarragon, cayenne pepper and black pepper with crushed Cape Cod Kettle style potato chips. Lay this mixture over the mayonnaise and press it down a bit. Pour a bit of white chardonnay  around the fish, make sure it doesn’t soak the chips. This goes into the oven at 400 for just 10 minutes then 5 minutes of broil on low. This way the chip mixture on top stays crispy.

The potatoes: Peel sweet potatoes and cut them into half inch slices. Season with olive oil, salt and pepper and red pepper flakes. Mix together with thinly sliced red onions. Place the whole thing in a shallow pan and bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees, then broil on high for 5 minutes!

The Pears: Cut the pears into halves or quarters and simply place them into a pan with a touch of olive oil. I sprinkled them with a squeeze of orange juice! Amazing!!! Sear on high heat until softer.

The cayenne pepper in the fish and the red pepper flakes in the sweet potatoes work super well with the sweetness of the potatoes and the pears.

Try this! It’s really easy to make and is delicious!

This is so exciting, I might be sharing more of my creations in my future posts!

After a relaxing evening with good food and wine, it’s back to work big time tomorrow.