Plugging Dane Sanders....

So Dane Sanders is a good friend of mine, and is seriously one of the smartest and most gifted people I know. First of all he's an INCREDIBLE photographer. Check out his awesome stuff at www.danesanders.com

Second and really more importantly he's an inspiring teacher. I've been sitting in on his leadership class at Westmont and it's been so life changing. I think it'll end up being one of the most helpful classes I've ever taken at Westmont...and I'll have taken it when I wasn't even a student! :)

Thanks Dane for giving so freely of your time (he sits with students over coffee all the time), and for really believing that the world can change one person at a time. :)

I got the chance to take some pics of him during our class today. Check it out!

Jessica Ballew

Last night I so much fun shooting senior pictures for Jessica Ballew. Despite shooting at Chase Palm Park for the 3rd time in about 5 days, we came up with some really fun images. Usually, I don't like shooting at the same place so many times, but this week it's been really good to try to come up with new angles and fresh ideas! I kinda hope the next client asks to shoot there as well so I can keep working on this exercise of coming up with new shots! :)

Here are some of the images from last night...

TWO Engagement Sessions....

We had SUCH a busy week last night preparing for the class and editing I'm a little behind posting up here! We've had TWO great engagement sessions 2 days apart from each other. Both couples were smart enough to pick an awesome location (Chase Palm Park) and that gave me a chance to really try to keep creative and keep things fresh. I end up shooting there a lot, so it's always a good exercise in trying to be creative and come up with new things.

Katie and Hani were SO much fun to hang out with. I couldn't believe how natural they were! I'll admit I was a bit nervous shooting these guys. I had taken her sister's engagement pictures a few months before and they had turned out really well and her whole family (they go to my church) has been telling me how great those look, so when her sister came to me wanting do some engagement pictures and at the same place as her sister I felt a little pressure. :) I shouldn't have though, because Katie and Hani were so natural it made it easy to come up with great images.






They were also really open to trying new things. A few mins after the sun set it was starting to get kinda dark and I suggested we use State street to get some cool night city shots which they were up for so I grabbed my monopod and we headed out. I had a lot of fun experimenting with dropping the shutter down and getting some cool motion from passing cars and people. I've never had the chance to shoot stuff like that before and it was so cool taking a step outside the box to try to come up with something new. So much fun! Thanks you guys!!






Drew and Nick were just as fun to shoot with on Saturday night. The weather wasn't as nice as we would have hoped for, but we made it work and grabbed some great images. Again, it helps when you have people who are SO photogenic! I can't believe their wedding is a month away in San Diego. They were telling me some of the details about it over coffee before we started shooting and it's going to be so beautiful.

Comments...

After getting a lot of comments about people wanting to leave "comments" on the blog I decided to turn them on. (Actually, I didn't even know it was turned off till I checked.) So now if you want to leave a comment about something feel free! :) If you have a question about how I got a specific shot or exposure info this is a great place to ask it! :)

Look forwad to "chatting" with ya'll. :)

Thomas and Rachel!!

It's rare I have this much fun when I'm soaking wet. :)

As most of my friends know I'm not a big fan of swiming in the ocean, but I had such a great time shooting with Thomas and Rachel late last week...in waist deep water. :) When Thomas told me they wanted to go shoot down at the beach I don't think either of us were thinking the tide would be as high as it was, (basically all the way up to the Biltmore wall for those of you from SB.) We all just smiled tossed off our shoes and got in! Thomas and Rachel were such good sports with getting wet I couldn't believe it. They just charged right in! I think I definetly speak for all of us when I say we had a blast! :)

Mariaelena And Jared!

WOW!! WOW!! WOW!!

Katie and I just finished the several hour treck back from Palo Alto to Santa Barbara and I'm still on a bit of an adrenaline rush from the wedding last night. This was probably one of the most rewarding ones we've shot all year I think. The best part was when we got to show Mariaelena and Jared the slideshow. As soon as the first image came on the screen tears welled up in her eyes. After about 10 images she came over to me and gave me a huge hug and through her tears she told that seeing the images from her wedding in the slideshow was "the best part of her wedding day!" She I couldn't believe it! That just about made my month!

Even though I just met them for the first time that morning, I really feel like they are close friends of ours now and that's such a great feeling. It's such a privilege to be trusted to capture someone's wedding day and when a bride rewards you by crying at the slideshow it's one of the best feelings ever! (at least for a wedding photographer!) :)

Here's a few images from the weekend...

Thanks for Visiting....Come Again! :)

Wow! As the owners of most websites do, I periodically check our webstats to see how many people are coming to our site. The trend this year has been a steady increase month by month. This month we broke our previous "record" of unique visitors by 25%.

Which prompted me to go check out our site. (I admit I hadn't even been there for a while!) I realized our galllery section was SOOO old! Almost all from last year. So, I went through and updated it and I'm really pleased with the results.

Go check it out at


www.chrishumphreys.com


Just click on the gallery section.

Enjoy!

As a teaser, I'll let you know as well that this is a "temporary" fix in our minds. We've got some plans for the upcoming weeks/months that will TOTALLY change the way the gallery section on our site works. Stay tuned! :)

~chris

Easy Ways to Take Better Pictures!

Thanks so much to Judy Braun for bugging me for so long to actually get my act together and get this organized!

Over the last few months, I've gotten quite a few resquests to teach some sort of a class and I'm happy to announce that it is finally going to happen later this month. So for those of you who are in the Santa Barbara area read on!

This 3 hour class is designed for photographers of all skill levels; we will cover topics ranging from exposure, composition, lighting, to basic techniques as and will discuss topics that come up from your questions.

The goal of the class is simple...to help ANYONE, no matter what their skill level or experience, to take better pictures! Regardless of whether you have a point and click film camera or a digital SLR, if you take your camera out once a week or once a year, my goal is that you will leave the class with a few practical tips that will help you end up with better images!

If you've always wished you could take better pictures of your kids, or wondereed why your pictures at family outings never come out quite the way you had hoped, then this class if for YOU! :) If you've been shooting for years or been too scared to take your camera out of the box this class is for YOU! :) Basically, ANYONE who wants to just sharpen their skills is more than welcome to come. On that note, if you have friends or know people who might be interested feel free to pass this along to them as well.

The class is tentatively scheduled for the morning of September 24th. Please respond by sending an e-mail to chris@chrishumphreys.com to let me know if you are interested. There will be a $25 fee for the class.

Also, let me know if you would like to take the class, but can't make it on September 24th. If a lot of people want to take the class, but aren't available on that date, we will try rescheduling the class for early November.

Happy Birthday DJ!

Gosh, sorry I haven't posted on here for a while! I've been so busy with a bunch of small stuff!

A few days ago though, I got the AWESOME honor of helping throw David Jay a birthday party at Bogarts, our local hangout place. I really didn't do nearly as much work as most of the other people in the group, Dane, Sarah, Amy, Deyl, and Tim were the main players. I just cheered 'em on. :)

For those who don't know, David is one of the most talented photographers I've ever met. This wouldn't be THAT impressive if it weren't also for the fact that he's one of the smartest business people I've ever come across. This wouldn't even be all that cool, if it weren't ALSO for the fact that he's one of the nicest people I've ever known. The combination of all three of these traits and you see why David is quickly becoming one of the best wedding photographers in the United States. If you haven't checked out his stuff go to www.davidjay.com to see it. (He's also got probably the coolest website I've ever seen!) Whenever I think I'm good and need a good dose of reality, I check his stuff out and it puts me in my place!

The night was amazing. His mom sent us all this stuff from his childhood, Ninja books as well as a bunch of magic stuff, all things that he was into as a kid. I think the highlight was a video that he made when he was real young. Something about a magic gene. I'm not sure, I was laughing too hard through most of it! :)

Here's some pics from the night. If you look hard you'll see me in the first one. My buddy Dane took that one.

Notice the Krispy Creme cake. Espessially fitting for DJ. I think everytime I'm over at his apartment he's got at least one box sitting there in his kitchen!





What a night!