Well, it’s 12:01am on the morning of May 2nd, and I want to be the first person to wish my beautiful, amazing wife a gigantic HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Today Jen will be celebrating the 3rd anniversary of her 30th birthday! We spent most of yesterday relaxing and having a picnic in a park in Old Town with our new baby girl Elliott. Jen just wanted some quality family time in the park, and that’s exactly what we did. I don’t want to get all mushy here on the blog, but I do want to say just how much I love my wife, and how truly amazing she is. Over the past month, experiencing the birth of our first child, and seeing just how exceptional of a mother she is makes me love her even more.
Here is a shot of her and our little girl:
I gave Jen her present a day early, since we’ll be pretty busy on her actual birthday. I posted a TwitPic of the box it came in, but not the actual gift. If I have time, I’ll try to update this post with a picture a little later. Please leave some birthday wishes in a comment below. I know she loves hearing from everyone!
On a side note… If you don’t follow me on Twitter, or Facebook, then you may not know that I’ve created a separate blog for posting pictures of my daughter. Knowing I’d completely saturate this blog with images of her, I decided to create another place to showcase those photographs. The image posted above is also posted over there at the moment. Check out that blog at http://www.elliottlarsen.com.
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Just a quick post to say that everything is going well out here in southeastern Arizona. We’re more than half way through our shoot, and we’ll be home in no time! Here’s a quick crew shot from this afternoon.
Sgt. Shine, Gary, Shredder, Ch4d, Nate, Carl, and myself:
I’ll be posting images soon. Check back!
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Today is the birthday of my good friend and fellow photographer Emily James. A couple of weeks ago I had the chance to shoot a few stock/portrait images of her, and I thought I’d post a few in honor of her big day! Emily is a wonderful friend and a fantastic photographer. She’s turns 22 today, so I can only image how talented she’s going to be when she gets as old as I am! here are a few fun shots:
I just think this one is funny:
I hope you have a fantastic day, Em!
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Last week I once again found myself in southern Georgia on post at Ft. Benning, shooting images for the US Army. For those of you who may not have seen my Army images before, several times a year I fly out to different Army posts around the country to photograph soldiers while in training. I’ve photographed everything from basic training, to airborne, to ranger, ROTC, and so on. This time around it was infantry.
I don’t like to preface the images too much, but there is one thing I always like to mention. All of these images were photographed as the moments happened. My shots were not staged or choreographed in any way. I photograph the soldiers as their training exercises happen. I think knowing that helps add to the effect of the images.
Here are handful of images from last week:
I love seeing the shell casings fly out of the chamber. Especially on these insane .50 caliber sniper rifles. Photographer’s note: There’s no added texture on this image. The explosiveness of the gun kicks up a lot of dust and debris.
Some details:
Tank track
25mm tank ammo
These tanks were zooming by at what seemed like 30 mph. They’re awesome.
I love faces.
The smoking gun!
This is another .50 caliber sniper rifle shot, a lucky one, where I actually captured the muzzle flash:
Ok. I lied. I actually had these guys stand up and pose for me for a second so I could snap this portrait. Definitely one of my faves from the trip!
Getting ready to take over the building:
And lastly, my absolute favorite shot from the trip. I won’t go into detail, but it’s a miracle I got this shot. This took place just after the previous image. The soldiers are clearing out a building one room at a time. When they cleared this room (which I was in) they used a flash-bang-stun-grenade thing before entering the room. I nearly pissed myself when it went off. It was 25 feet away, and it would’ve knocked me over had I not been up against a brick wall. I shot for 2 seconds after the blast, before the room was too filled with smoke, and I fell over.
More Army shoots are coming up in the new year, so stay tuned for more fun images!
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I’m heading out of town first thing in the morning for yet another week of shooting for the US Army! But before I leave I wanted to post a quick slideshow. My good friend Aaron Thompson and I run a networking group for San Diego photographers that get together once a month to chat and develop our businesses. At our holiday party last Thursday at Janis Foley’s awesome studio, I set up a fun little photo booth for everyone to have fun with. Below is a quick collection of shots from that setup. Please don’t complain about the images not lining up with the beat of the song. I have old version of ShowIt Web, so it’s not an option for me! Oh, and it’s a pretty big slideshow so be patient with the loading.
I’ll be checking in from Georgia in the coming days with Army photos! Until then, enjoy this goofy slideshow!
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From time to time, I’ like to post a bunch of pictures that I’ve taken with my iPhone. I manage to compile a rather large amount of fun and strange images in my phone. Every couple of months I like to pick out a few to post on the blog. I actually find myself leaving my regular point-and-shoot camera at home these days, knowing I’ll have my iPhone with me. The quality of the point-and-shoot camera is obviously much better, but there’s a weird aesthetic coolness to images taken with the iPhone.
Here a a bunch of random shots, all taken using my newer 3G iPhone, from the last couple of months:
Kite!
There’s something different about this self portrait, but I can’t quite figure it out:
A random shirt I found while in Santa Barbara:
Our view from the Santa Barbara pier while having lunch during our vacation a few weeks back:
No comment:
Again, no comment:
Taken while setting up for the Guava Belly band shoot a few days ago. I can even rock the flare with my iPhone!
Saw this when I was leaving the Canon Service Center a couple days ago. I know I’m probably not supposed to post people’s license plates, but come on… seriously?
This is supposed to be a pot pie.
Last Friday Jen and I attended her yearly office holiday party. Just a few hours earlier we announced to everyone that our baby is going to be a girl. Jen’s friend April gave these to us at the party. It’s getting real now, folks!
Happy almost Thanksgiving!
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Last Friday night I headed downtown to spend my Halloween night photographing Monster Bash ’08 in the Gaslamp Quarter for the wonderful folks at McFarlane Promotions. Those ladies certainly know how to promote a party! I’ve shot this event before, and it’s always fun to see what costumes people come up with.
Here’s the interesting a somewhat funny thing about this post. I was originally NOT going to post images from this event, simply because it’s already November 4th, Halloween is long gone, and events like this don’t really allow for the most creative or groundbreaking images. Last night, however, my wife Jen informed me that a couple of her male friends from work were inquiring about whether or not I’d shot the event, and if I was going to post images. They know that my job during these events is find and shoot the beautiful, scantily clad ladies. After all, who wants to see 37 images of guys dressed as Joe the Plumber? So, this post is for you guys…
First, a shot of the crazy packed in crowd:
And you know it’s going to be a party when DJ Brent Bartel is spinning!
And here are a few shots of the partygoers…
Special thanks goes out to the ladies of McFarlane Promotions for having me out again!
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After a fierce battle, and nearly a hundred votes, my good friend Courtney is our 2008 winner with pumpkin #6! It’s pretty obvious that he chose that most difficult design, and it paid off. I’m pretty sure he complained about hand cramps most of that last half of the carving process.
I also want to give praise to my friend Megan for her scary McCain pumpkin, which came in second place by only 1 vote! For the first couple of days, my wife Jen’s pumpkin #4 (the hands) was in the lead. But a late surge by Courtney and Megan left everyone else in the dust.
My pumpkin this year sadly did not turn any heads. I carved the goofy “Patrick” pumpkin (#8). I thought it would get the “cute” vote, but was sadly mistaken. Next year I think I’ll have to carve a scale replica of my vascular system just to compete with Cort’s intricate designs.
Thank you very much to everyone who voted! We’ll certainly be doing it again next year for contest #3!
On Sunday evening Jennifer and I headed down to Chula Vista to the home of Pete and Jena to meet up with them and a few other friends for our 2nd Annual Pumpkin Carving Contest! We had a blast doing this last year, and had enough fun again this year that it looks like we’re going to make it a tradition.
The best part about this contest is that I photograph all of the finished pumpkins and put them here on the blog so all my readers can vote for the winner. Last year I was stoked to be the winner (#3), and hope to repeat again this year. I obviously can’t say which pumpkin is mine, because that wouldn’t be fair. But I still have faith that I’ll continue to reign as carving champion. There’s no money or prizes involved, only bragging rights.
There are 10 awesome entries this year, and it’s not going to be an easy choice. You’ll find a voting poll at the bottom of the post. You can only vote once, for one pumpkin, so make it count! Voting will be open until midnight this Thursday, with the winner being crowned on Friday morning. One final note… the McCain pumpkin was chosen by it’s carver because it was the “scariest” of all the designs. I encourage all of you to vote, and then leave a comment as to why you chose that particular pumpkin.
********* VOTE NOW!! *********
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Believe it or not, the “Holiday Season” is just around the corner, and it’s time to begin thinking about portraits and greeting cards! I’ve come up with a couple of fantastic holiday specials that you’ll want to take advantage of in the next month and a half. Here’s info on both of them!
*** 10% off all print orders through the end of the year! ***
I have reactivated most of the image galleries from 2008, and they now all have a 10% discount for all orders. This discount will be available through the end of the year. Please be aware that if you’d like to receive your orders in time for Christmas, you MUST submit them by December 5th. I will do my best to get them all shipped in time for the holidays, but cannot guarantee any orders after December 5th. To browse through a particular gallery, simply CLICK HERE to access the main page.
If you have any questions, or need to be reminded of a particular password, please feel free to contact me at anytime by sending an email to orders at ma5en dot com.
In lieu of the recent craziness on Wall Street, and the challenging economic times facing everyone in the coming months, I’ve decided to offer an amazing, low cost Holiday Portrait Package for 2008. This year I’m offering only one package, with everything you’ll need for your family portraits and holiday cards. For the insanely low price of $275, here’s what you’ll get:
– a 1 hour location portrait session here in San Diego
– a password protected on-line gallery containing of all your images
– a disc of all the out-of-camera hi-res images
– 25 – 5 X 7 folded linen holiday greeting cards with envelopes (utilizing your favorite image from our session)
– a digital retouched hi-res file of the image used in your holiday cards
All sessions must be booked in the next 2 weeks (by November 1st), and must be scheduled to take place by Sunday, November 23rd. If you have any questions, or would like to book a session, please send me an e-mail at masen at ma5en dot com.
I understand that because of the recent economic crisis, many families will be trying to save money over the holidays. I’m trying to do my part to help out those that would still like to have a beautiful snapshot of their family to send out to their loved ones this year. Also, if you’d like to use an image from a session from earlier this year, you can order holiday cards directly through your gallery!
Don’t wait too long to book your session. Just look what happened last year when my wife Jen and I waited too long to have our portraits taken, and had to go to the local photo hut in the mall:
Don’t let this be you!
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I’m currently at the hospital, waiting for my Mom to finish up a scan. I love my iPhone during times like this as I can stay productive even while out of the office. To take it to another level, I’ve installed the new WordPress application onto my iPhone. (WordPress is the application that runs my blog).
So, this is my first real attempt at “phone blogging”. Pretty cool! The phone app is very straight forward and simple to use. I love technology, and how it constantly makes it easier to stay connected!
Anyone else out there “phone blogging” yet?
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