Lilit and Stephen....in the rain. :)

I'm always up for an adventure, so when Lilit and Stephen called to ask about rescheduling their engagement session to a when it wasn't monsooning outside I told 'em no way! :) They were SUCH troopers to go out in the pouring rain, I couldn't believe it! They really wanted to do beach shots and while these weren't your "typical" Santa Barbara at the beach shots they turned out so well and I'm certain it's a day non of us will ever forget!

The funny thing was that I JUST got my Canon Mark II N back from Canon for some service and so of course literally just hours after I got it back all tuned up from the factory I go out and trash it in the rain! :) Of course, that's what these cameras were made for (I guess it's the equivalent of "off roading" for photography). :) It performed beautifully though, and we got some amazing shots.

Check 'em out. :)

Bears Win! :)

Ok, while I don't talk much about it at least on here, I'm a huge Chicago Bears fan. Now must of my friends will point out that Katie and I don't have a TV and I live halfway across the country from Chicago so it might seem odd slightly odd that I would call myself a huge Bears fan, but I follow them the only way that I can....through the play by play feature on the NFL website! :) (it should be noted that Katie and I don't own a TV for personal reasons, not cause we can't afford one!) :)

Anyways, so the fact that the Bears beat the Saints today and are heading to the big game for the first time since I was 3 is a pretty huge deal. :) My mom called me up the minute the game finished and we had a mini celebration....it was kinda funny cause she said that she was at a church retreat that was supposed to start this afternoon, but because of the game they decided to send everyone across the street to a local bar to watch the game?! LOL!

After the game ended I was surfing around different sports sites and was super thrilled to find
one of my friends images up on ESPN's site.


Jerry and I have known each other since high school. He stayed in the midwest and went to Northwestern to pursue a pre-med program but somehow along the way got hooked into photography and is now shooting for US Newswire as well as a few other organizations. He shoots tons of pro and college sports games and even shot the world series this last season. It's so funny that we both left high school knowing next to nothing about photography and are both now shooting at the professional level, (obviously however in totally different areas!) :) Of course, Jerry is doing all this AND still is still somehow in med school! I try to make it out to Chicago at least once a year to shoot a Northwestern game with Jerry, but now that Jerry is getting into the big time I'm gonna have to push him to get me into a Bears game. :)

Check out Jerry's blog soon and I'm sure he'll have some sweet images from the game up soon!

Chef Chris Part II

So I made my way back into the kitchen today for round two of Chef Chris! :) I did a similar dish to the salmon last week. Today was pan roasted steak sirloin. I brought back the wild rice since it went so well the last time and for the side I added a little roasted chicken, onions, and bell peppers to the mix. Add some coarse sea salt and rosemary for flavor and we were in business. :) I told Katie I really want to keep pan roasting things for my next few dishes just to really get that technique down. Think Like a Chef really has a lot of good simple recipies, that span a lot of different cooking techniques, but I think the best idea is to probably master one, before I move onto another.

Anyways, here's a few images from tonight's main course. :)




And of course some ice cream sandwhiches for dessert. :)



On a photography related topic, I had to bust out my old Canon 10D for these shots. Both my Mark II N and my 20D are in for service for some maintence at the moment, but I'm hoping I'll have 'em back at some point this week.

Becker's Party of 5

This morning I got up super early and drove down to Becker's place for his Party of 5 workshop. I met Becker a number of months ago at a Poker game and have totally enjoyed following his career. He's been in the industry for about 10 years now and runs an amazing business, so I jumped at the opportunity to hear him talk a bit more about he runs things over at his studio.

He took us on one of his engagement shoots and we tagged along around him. It was a lot of fun getting to "2nd shoot" an engagment session and try to get a different take on the shoot than Becker and the other 4 people shooting. Here's a couple of shots that I grabbed of the session,

Check out Becker's blog to see some of his killer shots from the session.

Love these shots of Becker in action! :)




And of course his beautiful couple! :)

Kate and David!

Yesterday afternoon I got to go to Katie and David's wedding here in Santa Barbara! Kate and David are friends of ours from our church and I was just shooting the ceremony because Kate's dad is a professional photographer as well. I can't wait to see some of his images! Not only that, but I think most of Kate's family and friends were photographers as well! When I pulled up to the church I seriously saw probably 5 or 6 people walking around with pro cameras!

Here are just a few of the images I got....

I love the cool crosses outside St. Barbara's.


Kate was SO beautiful coming down the isle. My wife Katie was there and seriously cried!



Loved this quick moment when Kate looked at David during the ceremony



This moment happened immediately after the ceremony ended and they walked out of the church. I'm not sure if they knew I was there or not, but it was a great moment! :)

Chef Chris!!

Ok, so for those of you who really know me or who have lived with me a while you know that I'm not a cook. For most of my life cold cereal has been my specialty dish. (i'm not kidding!)

Katie and I have gotten hooked into this show on Bravo called Top Chef and we really like the main Chef on the show Tom Colicchio. Unlike myself Katie really enjoys cooking and is really really good at it so for Christmas I got her a cooking book by Chef Tom called "Think like a Chef" it's got a lot of recipies in it, but more than anything, it's really a book that teaches you (like the title says) how to really think about food the way a chef does. I ended up reading most of it and thought it looked really good and down to earth. Plus, all the recipies in the book are SUPER easy (literally like 2 or 3 steps) so I figured the odds of me not messing it up couldn't be THAT bad, so with Katie home sick today......

I decided to run out to the store and try making a pan roasted salmon (the original recipie called for striped bass, but the store didn't have that). To make a long story short, I made the meal and it turned out SO well!!!! You really don't know how big of a thing this is for me, one time when I was a kid I made pancakes and threw up. (Again.....not kidding!) :)

Not only did it turn out so well (Katie kept raving over and over while we were eating it how good it was), I really had a lot of fun cooking it and now that I've done it once, I'd have even more fun making it again now that I kinda know what I'm doing. :) I was so impressed that I didn't burn it in the pan I took some pictures of it. :)

Enjoy!





Men, for those of you want to relieve your wife/girlfriend from cooking every night (she'll love it) go out and buy this book! It's seriously is easy AND kinda fun (or at least rewarding when you're eating the meal!). Or of course, if you're a bachelor and you're eating frozen pizzas 4 times a week this might be a good step in the right direction too! :)

This didn't help much....

But it was kinda funny! Google it turns out amongst other things will translate stuff for you! Google Translator

However they didn't do too good a job with the above text! I think I understood it better with the Russian!!

"But if global free yes, it is their pens and then hosts the pay is ... Incidentally menalto galeri practically the same, only without the flush, who, in the willingness and knowledge of known words can be worked out Incidentally, polistal several of the galleries who have installed livebooks, so they are exactly the same per person, just as with any other template. By the wedding photographers : how will such packages?"

??? WHAT ???? :)

Anyone know Russian?

So I was checking my webstats earlier today to see how many people had been hitting up our site and it's cool cause it even tells you where people are linking in from and I see that like 30 or 40 people had linked in from this online forum that I had never heard of (http://club.foto.ru/forum/) and so I follow the link to see where it goes and it's this photo forum in Russia! Some guy had linked livebooks in one of his posts and then another guy linked my site specifically. I have NO idea what they are saying so if anyone reading this is fluent let me know! (You can click on the picture to see a bigger version which is easier to read....or maybe just easier to look at). :)

The REALLY funny thing is that I actually studied Russian for 7 years all through middle school and high school, but that was a long time ago and I really don't remember much. Hopefully, my old Russian teacher won't stumble across this blog. :)

Hopefully, judging from this guy's avatar he won't be one of my future grooms! :)

Have a great day!

iPhone

I'm very excited about this new announcment from Apple. As sick and tired of my old flip phone I've been hestitatnt to get a Blackberry or Palm because I've been waiting out for some word on the iPhone.

It's pretty interesting when you think what kind of marketing and buzz Apple has created. Think of Microsoft, they spent millions of dollars promoting their Zune player and had a huge marketing campaign for it and the response to it has been minimal at best.

Apple on the other hand never even officially acknowledged the iPhone existed before Tuesday and yet the buzz and excitement about it was at pretty much unprecented levels. Apple without spending a dime on marketing had created a huge buzz within their user base.

Amazing. :)

If you have no idea what I'm talking about here to see this revolutionary product! Unfortunately, it won't be available till June.

Hanging with Yvonne and Gavin!

Last night I got the awesome pleasure of hanging out with Gavin and Yvonne. They're in town from Peru where they're studying and working with infection diseases. I don't think I've ever laughed more during an engagement session these guys are so goofy!

They're actually really good friends with
Robin and Mike . Mike and Gavin were roommates in college for a few years and were at their wedding last June and saw the slideshow and contacted me a few months ago when they got engaged.

After the shoot we went to Palazzio's one of our favorite Italian places for dinner and just talked about their wedding which is gonna be a two day deal out in Las Vegas! It'll be quite the international affair with Yvonne's family coming over from Korea and a lot of Gavin's family coming in from the UK and then friends from all over the country. I can't wait!!

Here's a few shots!

If you didn't get my E-mail....

Happy New Year!!

I can't believe it's already 2007! I hope you all have had a WONDERFUL 2006. This year has been an absolutely fantastic one for me, as I've been blessed in so many ways. Just over one year ago I got married to my best friend, Katie. Marriage has enriched my life in so many ways, and after being in my own wedding, I've gained a whole new perspective on shooting weddings for other people!

In terms of photography, it's been an incredible year of growing. We shot over 20 weddings this year in amazing locations all over the country; we've visited the grassy fields of Sisters, Oregon, the sandy beaches of Waikiki, Hawaii, the chilly suburbs of Chicago, IL, and of course been all over northern and southern CA. More importantly than the places I've been able to go to, are the people that I've been able to meet and the stories I've been blessed to enter into. 2006 has been a year of incredible blessings, and I can't wait to see what 2007 has in store.

One of the biggest highlights of this year has come in the last few weeks. We've launched a brand new website and gotten incredible feedback on it. If you haven't already, go check it out at www.chrishumphreys.com . You'll be able to see images from some of our favorites weddings this year, as well as see a whole new bio section, so you can read more about me! :) I hope you enjoy it, and I'd love to hear some of your feedback on it.

If you want a real quick glance at some of our work from this past year, I've posted my top 18 favorite wedding images from 2006
HERE. Go vote on which one you like the best. :)

I hope you all have had a great 2006 and a wonderful Christmas! Be blessed in 2007!!

Top 18 images from 2006!

To put it simply....

2006 ROCKED!

I tried to make a top 10 images of 2006 list, but realized that was way too hard! :) (I can't narrow things down that much!) So, even though it's not your typical list here's my top 18 images from 2006!!! Leave a comment to vote on your favorite!

(In no particular order....)