Monthly Newsletter

So we come to the end of another month and I just realized that I haven't been home for more than 48 hours since January! Wow! ...but it feels so good to be home now and one of my favorite things to do every month is send out my monthly newsletter so that's what I'll be working on later today.

There is some really good stuff including a bunch of new book recommendations that you won't want to miss and a new application called Showit Borders! There will be a huge discount code only offered in the email so be sure to get signed up here if you haven't already!

Eric and Roz!

I just finished a whirlwind of a month and it ended with my first shoot of the year! Yea! I got to go up to Mammoth this weekend and do an engagement shoot for a couple who's getting married later this year at the Four Seasons in Kona! I've never gone this far to do an engagement shoot but Eric and Roz are so sweet and hanging out with them this weekend was so fun! Eric even took some pictures of me! Haha! ...and the picture of Roz above happened when this huge gust of wind almost blew all three of us down the mountain...seriously it was crazy but being the manly man that I am I kept shooting despite the danger.

***CLICK HERE*** to see the slideshow!

...and just to prove how wonderful they are - they gave me a super nice travel bag because they know I've been traveling so much! Can you believe that! I seriously am so lucky to have clients like this!

Oh Yea!

Just when I thought this week couldn't get any better I come home and go through my mail and find this Valentine from Olivia Barlow!



For those of you who don't know how significant this is just listen to these words by SuperChick!

Yea! How do ya like them apples!

Top 10 Week

This definitely goes down as one of the top 10 weeks of my life! I'm riding such a high right now because of all the AMAZING people I got to meet this week!

Recap!
Sunday...got to go down to Rock Harbor Church which I love and then head over and see the BarlowGirls in concert!




...and this was a total rush for me because as Crystal so sneakily pointed out I do love the BarlowGirls! The are so nice and they let me use their music on my website.

and then I rushed back to SB for the first ever Santa Barbara PUG where I got to reconnect with so many of the Santa Barbara photographers who I've learned so much from and enjoyed working with over the past couple of years.




then I cruised up to Seattle to see Gary and Melissa at Gary's tour Finale! They are two of the funnest and most thoughtful and giving people I know. I've just gotten to know Gary in the past 6 months and I've just been blown away at what a caring guy he is and how he works so hard to help other people.

After that I buzzed straight back down to Orange county because Mike Colon was putting on another one of his INCREDIBLE workshops!!!



And afterwards everyone came and hungout at this huge mansion they had rented and we just had the best time together.



I miss all of you so so so much and if I wasn't so tired I would've come to Disneyland today but I needed to get home and get ready to head up to Mammoth tomorrow. I'm shooting an engagement there in the snow and I'm probably gonna try and drive there - shoot - and drive home in one day because I have so much to do before PartnerCon in Atlanta.

I love you all!
DJ

Good Times

Seattle was great and the Fong Show was awesome! I've never focused on albums and I've definitely been one of those "hope" album sorta guys! Haha...it was so funny when he described what that was because it is totally me! After hearing all his tips and stats I think I'm gonna have to change for 2007.

Gary was tired and wanted to be documented truthfully and photojournalistically, and after traveling to 14 cities in just a few weeks I can imagine why, but Missy smacked him on the head to create the wonderful second image. lol

I also got to hangout with Jeff LaPlante and he has a great new website he just put up and he's a master of customizing Showit Web and so be sure to checkout his iPod proofing page! It's the coolest one I've seen!

Ok...I'm headed back down to OC! I can't wait!!! See you guys soon!

Santa Barbara PUG

Ok...so the photographers in Santa Barbara are so awesome! Last night we had our first ever Pictage User Group "PUG" and it was AMAZING to see everyone come out! When I counted we had 26 people there which makes SB one of the biggest launches and it's just a little tiny town! That's how cool SB is! :)

Sara France did a great job giving us all the vision for what these PUG groups can be and this is going to be a very strong group of photographers and I'm so excited for the next one!

My friend JT came out all the way from AZ and we had Mellany and Tobi come all the way from Palm Springs too!



Today I got to fly out to Seattle first thing to hang with Gary Fong at his tour finale! He's an incredible dude! He just did a 14 city US tour in just a few weeks! ...and I've been reading on the forums how career changing these seminars have been so if you didn't have a chance to go definitely pickup a copy on DVD once it's released.

Yesterday was awesome!!! I had such a blast hanging out with all my friends from OSP and getting to go to the BarlowGirl concert and getting totally hooked up with backstage passes from Sarah Barlow was sweet!!!

***CLICK HERE*** for the slideshow!

...and I actually think I look kinda goofy in the picture above but with these girls standing next to me (Liana and Jess) I'm 100% certain nobody will even notice that I am in the picture....and BTW these are two of the most amazing photographers I've ever met in my life so be sure to checkout their sites!

:)

Home from the Amazon

It was a pretty incredible 10 days and I'm sure I'll be sharing tons about my experience in Brazil but I just wanted to post up this picture of the four of us from the first Thirst Relief Team and say thank you to all of you for your thoughts and prayers because we needed them!

Our host while we were there was Richie Bouthillier and this guy was freakin gnarly (in a really good way)! I remember the first day we were on the river and we had some spare time so he hops off the side of the boat into this dark water that you can't see anything in and like 10 seconds later comes up with a Piranha! He shot it with his spear gun! It was insane and freaked me out because down in that water was where we were going to be bathing for the next week! He even taught us how to hunt Crocodiles!

There are some wonderful stories on his blog about the trip and the picture you'll see of "Celio" ( he had his hands blown off by fireworks ) is the guy we'll probably use in the video at WPPI. He has a great testimony of how these water filters have saved his family and it was such a blessing to see Celio's excitement to tell Richie about how their family isn't ever sick anymore now that they have a filter!



The kids were amazing!





They were always so happy and excited to see us they loved seeing pictures of themselves so Colon would always chimp with them and I'd try and turn my video screen around so that they could see what I was filming!



and here's a cool shot I got of a bird up on a cross.



...I didn't have my camera out there so these were just little pics I took with the camera mode on my video camera so that's why the quality isn't very good.

Definitely go to Richie's Blog and see some more pictures and read the stories from our trip and I'll post up more when I get back from Fresno. :)

***CLICK HERE***

The land is moving

After a wild week we're back on land but it's kinda weird because it feels like the earth is still moving! I've never been on a boat for very long but I guess it's normal. Anyway...it was an amazing week and Thirst was able to help so many families!

It was such an honor to be here and to be able to help a little bit because the people, and especially the kids, were so excited to see us and one family had been waiting a year for a filter! That kinda pissed me off but I guess that's why I am here. This organization is doing a great thing and I shot so much video it's gonna take me a year to go through it all but it'll be worth it just to see the kids smiling faces again. The people here are so beautiful and some of Colon's and Jim's pics will blow you away so keep your eyes peeled for more of them! Until then enjoy the shot of me that Colon took! ;)

I can't wait to get home and see so many of you next week at Colon's workshop! It's gonna be so much fun!

Posting from the river!

Posted Feb 5th.

We made it to the river and and have been cruising as fast as we can because it's a ten hour trip to Porto de Moz and WOW it just started pooring down rain like crazy!!! The rain here is unbelievable and so they're dropping the tarps on the sides of the boat but the wind is still pushing it in! This is awesome!

It's been quite a trip so far with Mike and I losing our bags yesterday to running through the airport and only catching our flight by a few seconds and now we'll be living on this huge boat for the next seven days or so.

It's fascinating how we sleep! They just have these hooks on the boat and we tie our hammocks to them! We even slept in hammocks at the house last night because they have the same setup there.

The reception on my blackberry is kinda shady out here but I'll try and post whenever I can but it might not be for a day or a week...but look forward to an awesome video!!!

....and thanks for all your thoughts and prayers! Because today was Sunday there weren't any shops open so we're kinda making due with the clothes we had!

Off to the Amazon!

Some of you already know that I'm headed to Brazil with Thirst Relief International but what you don't know is that I powered through a wedding in like 3 hours last night and it looks soooo good!!! I've been working on perfecting my workflow which is based off of Denis Reggie's workflow but it now makes use of some pretty sweet automation tools and I'll be talking more about it at WPPI this year. I've just added 2 huge new steps to it that cut the time from 6 or 7 hours which is what it was taking us last year down to 3 or 4 which is amazing! ...and this is including downloading!!! Can you imagine only having 4 hours of post wedding work to do and then the rest of the week to enjoy the beach! Wooohoo!

I didn't feel like going to the beach so I reinvented my Away Message! I know many of you liked my last one and everything but I just thought it was time for something new so if you wanna see something cool send me an email! ;)

***Click Here for Email Surprise!***

Please keep me, Mike Colon, Jim Hicks and Greg Gibbs in your thoughts and prayers because I've heard that it can get pretty gnarly down there!

Love you guys!
DJ