Lisa Whalen Photography Blog!

Why do I love being a photographer? Because I get to run around on beaches for a living, that’s why! I also get to entertain small children with really bad song and dance numbers (leftovers from that failed career as a Vegas showgirl – so sad...)

Last week I got to run around one of the beaches in Santa Cruz with Isabella and her parents, and by the end of the evening everyone was pretty much encrusted with sand. Which reminds me - I still need to vacuum about 10 pounds of sand out of my car!

Isabella has these fabulously luminous brown eyes and four front teeth that are well – too cute for words, so how about some pictures instead?

There was a small grove of "beach trees" (a botanist I am not. I don't actually know what kind of trees these are, I just know that I always find them near beaches) where we took a bunch of photos before heading down to the actual beach.

Down on the beach, Isabella had a grand 'ol time just hanging out, and crawling around on the sand

I enjoy this image quite a bit because Isabella looks like quite the little explorer!

One more photo of the whole family on the beach:

Thanks to Isabella and her parents for making my job so EASY, and thanks for so patiently waiting until I get back from my vacation to see the rest of the photos... I promise that as soon as I get a handle on my jet lag I'll get right down to editing your images!

Posted by lisa at 08:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Okay, so this entry is probably just mostly going to appeal to photographers, but I thought it would be fun to post because it provides a glimpse of some of the zany but dedicated personalities that are influencing current trends within the wedding and portrait industry.

The Longest Day is a multi-part promo video for the WPPI Convention, which I will be attending for the first time this year. I'm pretty psyched to attend and get to see first-hand what's up in the industry. The trade show alone is worth the cost of admission, and on top of that there are seminars galore, and the opportunity to meet face-to-face with some of the tremendously talented photographers whose blogs, tweets and general life-stories I've been following on Facebook for the past few years or so. Pretty exciting stuff!

This will be an interesting experience for me, because when I first started shooting professionally waaaaaaaay back when during the early 90's, WPPI was sort of this giant joke among those of us who had fine-art training. It was considered the provence of old, bald-headed men with Hasselblads who seemed to have pretty much ZERO creative ability, MASSIVE egos the size of Texas, (sorry Texas, you always get such a bum rap!) and who always seemed kinda creepy because they got a little too excited about creating studio portraits of beautiful young women. The "cheese" factor was remarkably high, and I avoided professional organizations such as WPPI like the plague!

Well, times have changed, and while some of the egos might not have gotten any smaller, (LOL!) the level of commitment to promoting genuine creativity and even artistry within the craft has increased exponentially, and has really pushed commercial portrait and wedding photography in exciting, dynamic new directions. Also, there seems to be less general creepiness surrounding photo shoots of beautiful young women... WPPI, you've come a long way, baby!

So, yeah - how 'bout that video? Check it out! It's part one of the series, where we are introduced to the cast of characters and the challenge is issued... Enjoy!

Posted by lisa at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Happy 2009 everybody! One of my goals (I do goals, not resolutions. Resolutions are just ASKING to be broken, if you ask me!) is to actually start blogging on a regular basis. With that goal in mind, I'm posting my first official blog of '09 only two days after the shoot that inspired this blog. Shocking, indeed, considering I still have jobs from months back that are "in the cue" for some blogging...

So, without further ado, I bring you Aaron! Yes, those rosy cheeks and stunning eyes are all his - there are no Photoshop "enhancements" on those adorable little features of his at all, I promise!

We started out our shoot down in Carmel at a local cafe - the purpose being to grab some lunch prior to our shoot, although in reality it wound up becoming the first part of the day's photo session. I worked very hard to keep my elbows out of everyone's lunch, and managed to get some fun photos of Aaron entertaining himself while the adults chowed down.

After lunch we headed down to the beach. This proved to be a less than popular option with Aaron so we didn't stay for too long, but we managed to get some interesting images.

It wound up being a little too cold on the beach for Aaron to really enjoy himself, but even sans smile those compelling eyes of his kept tempting me to click my shutter.

The last part of our photo session was spent in the town of Carmel, and we capped the afternoon off with some amazingly good hot chocolate. (actually didn't taste like brown powder suspended in a cup of hot water, like most hot chocolate seems to these days) Aaron's quite the introspective little guy, and he just hung out and enjoyed people watching while the adults once again stuffed themselves with food items...

Here's a few more photos from the afternoon:

This next image is one of my absolute favorites from the day:

Thanks to Aaron, Mike and Maria for the opportunity to indulge my photographic obsession for an afternoon!

Posted by lisa at 02:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)