dirty laundry

work, weddings, & death.

That's quite a title for this post.  Not usually my thing to cram all kinds of stuff into one post, but time free has been limited lately.  Hmm... maybe that's where to start.

I got a does of just how limited our time is this week, when I heard of my cousin's untimely passing.  I hadn't seen or spoken to him in quite some time (nothing bad, just life), and most of my memories come from childhood, but he is loved and will be missed. 

Before next week's funeral services, I'll be attending my friend's wedding in Arizona.  It feels a little odd to be going to such a joyous celebration when I know so many people in my family are hurting.  Not sure how I feel about that just yet, but it is what it is.

Enough of the emo stuff.  As anyone who keeps up with me knows, work is a rather constant theme lately.  This post is no different.  I had the pleasure of shooting the 75th Anniversary Gala for the San Francisco Ballet last week.  Below are a few outtakes.

Yep. Definitely a beautiful event -- decor by IDEAS Events, lighting by Got Light?

Despite my occassional gripes and the long (very long) hours, I count myself pretty darn lucky to have the job I do.

best friends.

I've been thinking a lot about friendship lately.  My friends have been rather neglected due to my neurotic worth ethic.  Likewise, I feel like I've become a rather boring person.  A new friend, Ryan "the laundry dude", said it best -- a loss of all interests and personality due to working too much.  Yep.  I use to be one of the busiest unemployed people you would know, with opinions on current topics and hobbies galore.  Now I'm just busy.  I want to be interesting again.  I'd also like to reconnect with friends that I've lost touch with.  Lalala... until then, I'll keep pestering my brother and Sonia. 

Here they are looking happy.  I believe these photos were taken about a month into their relationship.  I would say that they are even happier now.  In fact, I've never seen my brother as happy as he is when he's with her.

I love them.

cameo appearance.

Last week I found some time to sneak out to a show -- The Singularity at Annie's Social Club.  My friend Josh, bass player for the band, has developed some incredible film editing skills and has started carrying around a little video cam wherever he goes.  He asked if I would shoot a bit of footage during their set.  I happily obliged and here are the results:

Recognize anyone?  :)  It was a good night.

happy birthday kira cosmo!

Our little cutie-pa-tootie, Kira, graduated from pre-school on Friday, then promptly turned 5 years old today.  She's had quite a busy weekend.

She loves music, so for her birthday I gave her a CD player and made her a mix CD.  Jesse, called me today to say that she's been listening to it non-stop -- repeating track 9 -- Time is Running Out by Muse.  He later stole the CD and played it in the house system --- Blink 182's cover of Dancing with Myself opened it up, followed by Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl.  Jesse called me all choked up.  He makes fun of me for being a sap, but he's just as bad as I am.

I just hope she likes it as much as he does.

Today is also Father's Day.  So, happy Father's Day to my brother -- one of the best dads on earth.  And, a very happy Father's Day to Bill, and to my dad Jim too.  And to all the other dad's celebrating today, have a good one!

my mama.

Mom needed new head shots for her real estate biz.

She's so beautiful :)

happy couple

My high school friend Ong-Lee and her husband Jason are expecting their first baby next month -- a little girl they will call Ashlyn Grace.  They asked if I would take a few photos of them before Ashlyn arrives, so this morning we all met up at Dolores Park.  The shots below are my faves from the shoot.

More will be on Flickr soon.  I need to let the mom & dad to be see them first.  As a fun little point of comparison, here is a picture of my mom & dad when I was a baby.  I wonder what a grown up Ashlyn will one day think about these photos of her parents.

weekend trip to AZ.

My mom and Bill took a road trip down to Tucson, Arizona for New Years.  My mom is actually from Miami, a little mining town just outside of Tucson, so we have a ton of family there.  My aunt Ani & uncle Paul also flew in from Georgia.  Anyway, I called her the Thursday after the new year figuring they were already home or well on their way.  To my surprise, they were still there and planned to stay through the next week.  On a whim, I bought a ticket and flew out the next day.  It was a great time.

That's my aunt Betty & my cousin Liz -- both gorgeous!  The photo links to a photo set on Flickr of the shots from that weekend.  We spent lots of time just visiting, but also toured Mission Xavier & attended my cousin Sarah's wedding.

Can't wait to go again.

"pretend like this is san francisco"

Last night Jess, Sonia, Peaches & I went to see the Silversun Pickups, Ok Go & Snow Patrol.  Of course, the band we were most excited to see -- Silversun Pickups -- played first and, to our dismay, went on way earlier than the tickets said so we missed the first few songs.  I've seen them a few times before, so I wasn't super bummed for me, but I wish the other three could have seen the whole show.

Whatever the case, Silversun Pickups put on a great show as usual-- after which Peaches and I got to meet Nikki Monniger (bass) in the hallway just outside the auditorium.  I pulled the star struck dork approach, gushing over how she has inspired me to learn bass... blah blah.  Peaches was a cutie and calmly shook her hand.  It was a nice moment.

Ok Go was decent too, the best part being the video feed playing in time to the music and the hot pink sky-dancer tubes thrusting like jazz hands into the air during the last song.  I usually hate those things, but they somehow worked for this.

Snow Patrol's set entertained as well.  They had three floor to ceiling, *LED nets behind them, glowing with patterns that you had to either severely blur your eyes (I just took off my glasses), or be standing far enough back to properly see what was going on, but it was a nice visual element.  At one point the lead singer, Gary Lightbody, started rambling about people having things that glow in their pockets and if they did to hold them up during the second verse of the following song... you know "pretend like this is San Francisco."  I'm not sure exactly what he meant by that.  It felt a bit like an insult.  He's a foreign (Irish) rock star though, so I suppose it's forgivable, no?  Below is a crappy camera phone photo of what the sea of glowing cell phones, cameras & a few token lighters looked like:

Geez, that is a crappy photo.  It was way more impressive and moderately disturbing in person.  Oh well.  I'm just happy I figured out how to get this photo off my phone!  Yay bluetooth.  So, after all was said and done, it was a good night. 

Back to work for me now.

* LED nets are hard to explain, but imagine if each pixel on your computer monitor was about 1"x1" and spaced 6" apart, with nothing but darkness in between.  Did that help?