As a professional wedding photographer, there are many organizations you can join. Some take any photographer while others are very selective on who they allow to become “members”. I just received an email a few days ago from the Artistic Guild of the Wedding Photojournalist Association (AGWPJA) saying that I qualify to be part of there elite organization of wedding photographers. I did not think they would accept me and honestly thought it might be a mistake…. in my favor . Anyway you slice it, I am excited to be part of this group. Several of my colleagues are members of the AGWPJA (Jason Q. Tran, Erwin Darmali, and Ed Atero) and they are the reason I even applied. You can find my listing on this page…I am way at the bottom. Now I need to work my way up the list and start making some award winning images. Anyone want to help me? If you are one of my clients, this is what I am shooting to do…to make the best images.

Pomona, CA:  A good friend of mine Dan Roditi runs an annual flag football tournament at Cal Poly Pomona for the LA Church of Christ.  He asked if I could take some photos of the game so I headed down to Pomona to see what I could capture.  I am by no means a sports photographer and do not have the equipment to do it well, but since this was a no pressure shoot I was going to give it a try.  It was a lot of fun watching the game and seeing the girls cheer on the guys in the game.  Dan’s team ended up winning the tournament for the 2nd time in a row which was very exciting.  Congrats to the O.C. Flag Football Team.

I joined the Wedding Photojournalism Association a few months back.  It is a very selective group of wedding photographers.  I actually applied three times before I was accepted into the WPJA.  The WPJA does a quarterly contest in several different areas’ of the wedding day ranging from getting ready to creative portraiture.  I submitted several photos and this photo above won an award in the category of “getting ready”.  I am so excited and honored to have one of my photos place in this very competitive competition.  The photo is of a boy playing in his suit.  He was such a cute kid and I got a ton of great photos from this wedding.  I hope to learn a lot more about wedding photojournalism in 2010 and hopefully get some more exceptional wedding photos.  Thanks WPJA for the award.

Los Angeles, CA: I had the pleasure to shot with Ari, Jason Q Tran, Conrad Lim, and a bunch of other photographers down in the heart of LA. Ari planned it all out with models, makeup artist Christina Chen, and even got his wedding photography professor Greg Bumatay to help out. We were able to shot down by some railroad trains and all over an industrial area of LA. Big thanks to Kristine Rae Payongayong, Michelle Honey, and Elizabeth Hernandez for modeling for us. We had them climbing on things, making them pose for hours, and getting them even a little dirty and I did not hear them complain once. Thanks again to Ari for setting it up and for the real pros like Jason, Greg, and Conrad for leading the group.

Sometimes you do things that you would not suggested to your client to do. The word I am looking for is hypocrite, but I have learned my lesson…let me explain. I got married a little over 3 years ago. I decided since I was a “photographer” that I would not pay the extra fee to get a wedding album made and do it myself. Fast forward 3 years and I finally got around to getting it done. This is a lesson for all you “do it yourselfers” out there that it might be worth the extra money to get it done in a timely manner.

Okay, enough with the lecture. I just started using a new album company and they produce fantastic wedding albums. I am so pleased by the quality and style of the album that all my future wedding albums for my clients will be done by this manufacture. I have yet to see an album of higher quality at any price. Check out the picture below for a closer look.