Today at 2:15, I'll be at the @WHCCpro booth talking about the controversial "what to do with the digital files?" issue. #thebschool | Follow me
Hey there! My name is Becker and I am a wedding photographer from Orange County, California who specializes in capturing relaxed portraits, amazing details and real moments for the coolest brides and grooms on the planet.
This blog follows both my personal and professional life, and features images from the weddings I shoot, the places I travel and the friends and family members that mean so much to me. It's basically like my own personal photo album combined with an information source for my current and potential clients and a source of inspiration and education for other photographers. This site is a little more informal and I just want to give everyone a sense of who I am, and what I am all about. Thanks for visiting.
I found a new blog that I really like called The Boy Genius Report which features all kinds of cool nerdy tech stuff. It's were I found out about the 150" plasma I have to have and this cool battery incase your iPhone runs out of juice. I've never drained my iPhone completely yet as the battery seems to perform quite well, but it may be good to have after a long flight.
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Congrats to all of the people who got engaged over Christmas or may get a ring tonight or tomorrow. Be sure to check out thebecker.com for all of your wedding photography needs!
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How about that Patriots vs. Giants game the other night? It was a great game to watch. I couldn't believe how poorly the Giants managed the clock in the last few minutes. I was pulling for the Giants, which I never do being a Dallas fan, but I would have liked to see the Patriots lose a regular season game, but I guess it would be even better for the Cowboys to spoil their season by beating them in the Superbowl (if the Patriots make it past Indy).
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Speaking of Dallas, they sure didn't look very good yesterday. Let's just chalk that up to being flat for a game that didn't matter to them one way or another.
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Anyone have any fun plans for New Years? I am shooting a wedding tonight and I am very excited about it. It'll be my second NYE wedding in the last 3 years.
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I saw something the other day that I was going to blog about, but then my friend Dane Sanders beat me to it and summed it up so well so I don't need to write anymore. Just read this post. The original post that caught my eye.
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Looking for last minute write offs. Go nuts! _____
If y'all read my new years resolutions yesterday, you remember that I am done with fast food completely. I have never been a big fan of Burger King and haven't eaten there in years, but I am a fan of clever advertising and I love their new commercials were the discontinued the Whopper and caught customers reactions on hidden camera. Check out the Whopper Freak Out.
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Did y'all see this Jamie Lynn Spears video?:
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I saw an ad for Juicy Crittoure and thought it was a Saturday Night Live spoof, but apparently for it's for real:
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Ok, I am off to shoot a fabulous New Years Eve wedding... be sure to check back over the next couple of days to see some tasty images!
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261.1 - I put on a pound or two over the holidays, but who didn't? I am looking forward to getting into my new routine on Wednesday.
It's that time of year to make of list of things you want to change in the coming year. I don't usually make resolutions, because it seems like resolutions are meant to be broken. Instead I like to set personal goals for myself. (Of course I have tons of business goals, but those are constantly modified throughout the year and don't have anything to do with New Years.)
In 2008, I plan on:
- Giving up fast food completely.
- Riding my bike 3 days a week.
- Getting better at replying to blog comments.
- Going to bed earlier.
- Reading more (not just listen to audio books)
- Watching less TV (which will be easier since my new DirecTv DVR sucks)
- Learning to cook more stuff without my Foreman Grill.
- Spend less time on the internet and more time being active.
I may add to this list over the next few days.
What are some of your resolutions/goals/plans for 2008?
Ok, just a few days left in the year which means I have been able to blog every single day for all of 2007. Like I mentioned when I blogged for the 365th consecutive days, I never set out to blog every day... It just sorta happened and became a part of my routine. It has been an interesting exercise and I have enjoyed so much of it. It was so fun this last week picking out my favorite posts of the year and images for my Christmas eCard... and just had an awesome account of my year.
Since I started this new blog on April 1, 2007, I've had over 1.1 million visits, from almost 72,000 Absolute Unique Visitors (according to Google Analytics), in 127 countries, and have posted over 900 images (1350+ for 2007 total), almost 4,000 comments and I am so thankful to Brock Martin at Infinet Design for hooking me up with such an awesome vehicle to share my life.
In 2008, I will continue to blog often, but I am don't think I am going to be able to do it every day. It's a lot of work, and sometimes I found myself obsessing about what I was going to post. Thankfully there weren't too many lame filler posts, but in the coming year, I am just going to blog when I actually have something interesting to say, share or show. No pressure, no worries. I suggest subscribing to the RSS feed so you'll know when I've updated this blog.
Also, I won't be adding any more posts under the photographers category. I will continue to share freely with photographers, but that will be on my new and improved, soon to be released, [ b ] school blog. You'll need to pre-register at thebschool.com in order to get an email with the link to the new blog. It will be launching next week.
The new poker chips work great! I came in second last night despite not catching very good cards and getting sucked out on all night. It was awesome having Victor Sizemore host the party for a change... his home is amazing and he's an awesome host. Here he is with some peeps serving Graeters Ice Cream which he has shipped in from his home state of Kentucky.
We also had a white elephant gift exchange, where we were supposed to bring the worst gift that we received this year and re-gift it. Sara France opened up a Steve Irwin toys set complete with sting ray. The crowd gaffed because that seemed to be in bad taste. Although she ended up with some Beano, which she doesn't seem as excited about.
Jess seems uncomfortable about what is in this box. Anyone care to guess what was in it?
Back to the poker, things got serious once I made the final table and had to bust out my glasses and hoodie:
Some guy named Jason won the who thing, with me and Jess coming in 2nd and 3rd. I didn't take his picture because I was bitter. I don't like losing. I guess I am a little too competitive that way. Actually, Jason O'hare is a great guy and an excellent player. He has won the whole thing at my house in the past. I may have to stop inviting him. j/k.
Good times!
EDITED TO ADD:
I forgot to take pictures of my new chips last night but I snagged this fine photo off of Ma5en's blog:
EDITED AGAIN TO ADD: These tasty photos from Victor's Blog (He used his real camera)
These were my top 10 favorite blog posts of 2007, in order of when they occurred, sort of a year in review (there are actually 23 links, but who's counting):
1. The year started off with Jessica and I taking the Great American Road Trip all over the Southwestern United States.
Here's the recap from Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5 and Day 6. It was an amazing trip and we both got so much blog traffic that week that it crashed our old blogs.
2. It was an amazing day in February when I found out I was going to the World Series of Poker. I just started playing hold 'em for real in late 2006, and once I figured out the math of poker, it has been a lot more fun.
3. Every year I look forward to the wedding photographers convention in Las Vegas and this year was no different. It's always so fun to get together and hang out with old friends and make new ones every year. Vegas Day 1, Vegas Day 2, and highlights from the 7th annual [ b ] party.
4. For the first time in 4 years, I made it to the annual fishing trip with my dad and some of our closest family friends. Although I froze my butt off, I had a great time with my dad and also got some cool photos on a photo field trip in Bodie (b&w, color)
5. iDay was a fun time camping out with friends to get a new toy. I also had over 4000 visits to my blog that day (still a single day record for me).
6. The WSOP was an unforgettable experience. I hope to play in the Main Event every year and one day it would be nice to win it all.
10. I also really enjoyed hooking up with photographers whenever I travelled this year. Boston, New York and Miami. I'll be traveling a bunch in 2008 so look for me in a city near you!
Thanks again to everyone who was a part of my life in 2007. I look forward to more experiences and fun times in 2008.
It is amazing how all of our family gatherings now revolve around one little boy... my nephew Caden. The kid is an absolute crack up... and he's learning new tricks, words and lyrics all of the time... he's quite a performer. It's going to be interesting once his little sister makes an appearance for the first time (she's expected in April).
Anyways, Christmas eve was spent mostly over at the parental units place as my mom was slaving away with the cinnamon rolls (see yesterday's post) while we sat around playing games and entertaining the kid.
I brought Cade a "Superball" which was promptly lost shortly after Jessica took this awesome photo of him:
I spent quite some time playing blocks with him, only to find that his goal is to tackle the structure as soon as it is completed:
Back at my place, I was able to open one present early since I accidentally saw it lying out in the open on Jessica's dining room table last week. She forgot it was out and unwrapped, and then accused me of ruining Christmas. I didn't do it on purpose... but I sure do love my new custom poker chips (which will be getting a workout Thursday night!):
On Christmas morn, we trekked all of 5 miles to Matt & April's new pad in Santa Margarita where they were going to host Christmas dinner for the first time (the did a smashing job by the way). It took Cade a while to open all of his presents, because each time he opened one, he wanted to play with it for a while before opening another.
Here he is ripping into his new dump truck:
He was trying to tell us "what does an elephant say?" - it sounded more like a wounded cow:
The happy kid with his grandparents:
And his actual parents:
I think the highlight of my day was thrashing around in the fallout of the wrapping paper and mess we made yesterday morning. Cade had a blast and I think he won our wrestling match.
All in all, we had a very relaxed, fun day with a plethora of good food and good times. I hope y'all had a very Merry Christmas and were able to spend it with your loved ones.
In addition to the poker chips, I got some cool new threads and a bunch of amazon.com gift certificates (my favorite). What great gifts did y'all get for Christmas?
Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christmas everyone. I've had a wonderful day at Matt & April's place, who hosted Christmas dinner for the first time. I'll have a full recap with lots of photos tomorrow, but for now... I wanted to talk about my favorite Christmas tradition in my family. For as long as I can remember, my mom has been making cinnamon rolls every Christmas Eve from a recipe that was passed down from my great grandmother. They are fabulous and to die for. Yesterday, my mom & sister made a fresh batch and they were everything I remembered.
The recipe is top secret, so I had to blur it out a tad. Maybe my mom will post it, if enough people leave comments begging for it. (Or she said she'd sell it for a reasonable fee!)
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