Hotel 1000 is an amazing venue. Its a gorgeous boutique hotel tucked into downtown Seattle.  Its modern warm and cozy!  I would recommend it highly for events or your stay in Seattle.  The staff is amazing, attentive and does their work with style.

The vendors pulled out the stops and made possible a great event for a couple dozen photographers.

A special thanks to vendors and models that made this wonderful event possible:

Emma- Organizer

Hotel 1000- Venue

SPA- When from Seattle Photographers Associates.

Models- Christy, Kristian, Natalie, Tyease, Warren, Kayla and Kiran.

Makeup-Sheila Birashk

Hair- BB and Brittany from Absolut Salon

Flowers- The Petal and the Stem

Cake- Sugar Rush Baking Company

Candy Bar- Emma

Event Coordination- Josh

For more photos check out my Facebook photography page.

Here is a sneak peek from  Jocelyn’s and Brandon’s engagement shoot last Sunday.  Volunteer Park is a special place  - this is where Brandon proposed to Jocelyn, and it’s a place they love.   Despite being an “in like a lion” April day we had a lot of fun during their engagement shoot.

Jocelyn and Brandon were college sweethearts and have known each other for seven years. They are planning for a June wedding in Ohio, their home state. I can’t wait to show them the rest of their images early next week.

WPPI was an incredible opportunity for me. I met in person several photographers whom I had first learned about or met online.   I took classes from some of the very top pro photographers out there today.  I was both inspired and humbled by the possibilities.

I  had the opportunity to participate in two model shoots.  For the WPPI “ Trash the Dress”  shoot there were 50 photographers registered and five models, three of whom I was able to photograph.  The TTD  shoot was as chaotic as it gets with 10 photographers per model.  My photojournalism experience paid off as I had plenty of opportunities to pose the model and get the angles I wanted.

Visually Las Vegas is incredible.  It is fantasy architecture and neon on steroids.  The challenge for portrait and wedding photographers is to include Las Vegas visually without distracting from your main subject.   But casinos are really just very large hotels, so there are many settings that are similar to what you find in many wedding venues.

See more Las Vegas WPPI 2010 Trash the Dress photos on Facebook.

Jenn and Rudy on NY NY “Brooklyn Bridge” Las Vegas Strip

The night shoot on the Las Vegas Strip with Jenn and Rudy was fast-paced, fun  and all too short. Jenn and Rudy were great sports – especially considering how quickly things cool down in the desert at night. They had lots of energy, and as you will see they kept the night sizzling.

Alfred Berfulo organized this event.  Alfred is good friend and a Wedding  and Portrait photographer from Diamond Bar, California  (near LA).   I was honored to tag along at a wedding he photographed in Bellingham Washington several weeks ago (look for these photos soon).

The Wedding and Portrait Photographers International convention (WPPI) had over 10,000 professional photographers together for a week of presentations, workshops, classes, a trade show  and hundreds of events.  It was inspirational, amazing and fun.

See my Facebook page for more photos of Jenn and Rudy.

I love photographing details. To me often it’s the visual details that complete the story of you or your wedding.

Several weeks ago I immersed  myself in the finer points of newborn baby photography.  I had fun learning the nuances at a workshop led by Keri Meyers.    Keri is an enthusiastic and talented portrait photographer  based in Duvall, Washington.

Here are a  few of my favorite images from the workshop.  Newborns are a lot of  fun to photograph. It’s a real joy for me to capture these  fleeting memories from a baby’s first days of life.

I was deeply touched and honored when my friend L asked me to take her portrait.   She has a simply amazing story.  A little over a year ago she was facing a medical situation that required her to lose weight.  L was a size 26 and had been overweight most of her life.

After a few months of dieting she realized that if she exercised, her daily diet could include a little more food. L took up bicycling and joined a gym and hired a personal trainer.  About a year later she lost over half  her weight  and is now a size 8.

She is planning to ride in the Seattle to Portland event this summer. I will be there to cheer her on as she truly is one in a million.