Beautiful Wedding 4.28.07

Matt & Kathleen got married last night and their wedding was really beautiful. It was out at Dancing Horse Ranch In the hills above Paso Robles. Ben Potter with Cana Video did an amazing video of the wedding, see here.



Here are all the highlights of the wedding, I'll post more photos when i get back from Italy in 2 weeks for another wedding out there.

Amal B Bridal Fashion

Here is some of the recent Collection from Amal B of Beverly Hills Her gowns are so beautiful. We Shot up at Villa Toscana in the Central Coast of California.

Nominated for Best Photography Blog!

So we have the honor of being nominated for best photography blog thanks to the 2007 Blogger Choice Awards, which is amazing. So if you feel so inclined please vote for our blog! Click HERE or on the image to vote(its easy and takes about 2 minutes). There is some cool stuff for the winning blog to be announced in early June! IF you do have time to vote, email me when you finish and I will send you a free 4x6 print from our 2002-03 Oahu Collection, just remember to send your address!

Comron & Vinny

This is their second e-session and we headed to the mountains in Santa Barbara to a place called Knapps Castle. This is an amazing place where there are the ruins of a Castle from Circa 1916. As you can see, this is a totally unique place and we had a blast here. Comron & Vinny are getting married in Fresno next month.

Favorite past shots

So as i am editing for a magazine article, i came across some images and wanted to post some of my fav's from the last year. Here they are, a few might be on the website, but not all. I'd love your feedback on your favorites.

Photo of the Week

I wanted to start something new, a couple times a week, i am going to post a photo of the month, something cool, mostly a recent image, and sometimes something from the vault.

SO here goes, here are some images from this spring in BIg Sur in Central Calfornia. If you have not been there, it should be a must see, there are so many places to stay , from camping to 3-4 star lodging. Its rustic and has so much style. there are so many places to hike, beaches to check out, and a variety of terrain, from sea level, to 5,000 foot mountains that drop off into the ocean. So here are a few favorites...

Keone & Anna (Part 2)

This was our second shoot with one of our favorite couples this year. They are really fun and great to hang out with. They are getting married up in Auburn this summer, which is in northern California, near the wine country and foothills of the Sierras. They have an AMAZING wedding venue. So we took most of the morning and shot again, and we had a blast with them. Keone is from hawaii, and Anna is from Nor Cal, they have fond memories here in the central coast of california so it was fitting for them to grab some shots here. We shot in Montano De Oro. Definetly a place that has a huge variety of locations to shoot. Endless nature, and every day is different.

New "Step it Up Seminar" Site

Brittany Hanson with BLR Photo and myself, Mike Larson are proud to launch our new site Step It Up Seminar destination seminar series. Thanks to encouragement of many friends and other photographers asking us if we could put together a workshop, we are really excited about this development. And a Special Thanks to Big Folio for taking care of us. They are great at helping photographers with websites

The main goals of our workshop are:

- Be able to help other photographers develop a better relationship with their clients,
- while at the same time having a business and a personal lifestyle that enables them not to get burned out.
- Long term business strategies
- Learn how to create amazing images for your portfolio in exotic locations around the world
- Streamline, systemize and perfect your workflow so you develop relationships with your clients, rather than developing 4x6's in photoshop
- To Step up every aspect of thier business and take it to another level

There is more that we cover, especially since we try and focus a lot of time on the "one on one" mentor sessions so the education is personalized and not just directed towards a group during the destination seminars.

Bike Ride

This morning and a couple other mornings each week, Ben my buddy who owns Cana VP and I (sometimes a few others get together and ride around beautiful San Luis Obisop Country roads in the wine country and in the hills. Its so amazingly beautiful in the morning, its clean and crisp. Any ride; 5,10,25 or even 35 miles is such a nice break from working. We all train for the Wildflower Triathlon , and a few other triathlons throught the year, Each spring at Wildflower there amass 9,000 racers, in 100-man heats, and there are 35,000 spectators, racers, family and fans that pack Lake San Antonio every year. Its a great weekend. Well here is one of the rides we do, this shot is from wildflower last year, right near where we ride. I am always motivated to get out and ride when i see images like this.

Hanson Family

A few weeks ago, when Rachel and I were with one of our family friends, we were blessed to have the opportunity to photograph their family. I haven't done this much, but was such a fun experience. The masters of "Day in the Life portraits" BLR photo, asked us and we were honored to shoot their family. So here is their beautiful family having fun on a typical weekend. Someday, we will have a family like theirs, and these will mean the world to me too. Both kids were great and so cute. They are so blessed to have such a beautiful family.

Usonia Jazz Band

We shot the famous and amazing Jazz band. here are the highlights!!!

Big Sur

My wife and I were able to get away thursday and friday to big sur, (on our way up to San Francisco for a wedding this weekend) the most beautiful stretch of coast in the world. Here are some of the photos from Sand Dollar beach, and then from our breakfast @ Big Sur River Inn, which has a restaurant right on the river, you can actually sit and have food/drink with your feet soaking. If you want to go during the summer months, it books up 2-3 months in advance. Saturday we had our wedding and i will post some highlights from that later today or tomorrow!

Memories from mexico

As i was cleaning up my desktop, i came across some photos that my sister in law Anna Joy took of Rachel and me in Cabo San Lucas a few months ago. We were there so many times last year and one of the highlight trips was when Anna was with us. She was so sweet and took these photos, the last one is one i took of her walking down the beach, she has come so far since i first met her. Check out her website on the link above and her blog. She used to intern for me and then was an associate for a while, then she was too talented and we sent her off on her own. So I am thankful for my beautiful wife in this photo.




Anna walking into the ocean, she has so much ahead of her & the plans God has for her outnumber the grains of sand on the beach.

Getting the shot: at all costs...

I love putting myself on the line for the shot, dont get me wrong, i am all about being safe, but these days, delievering something unique takes risk, and in any successful business, risk plays some part. So this is my little bit of risk, granted, this ain't the 405, but i love the shot, and later this week i will post the images from this e-shoot. Thanks to my beautiful wife rachel who shot this image. I couldn't do what i do without her help!

Vegas Wedding Highlights

Here are a few of the top images from my vegas wedding where i was helping BLR photo This wedding was really fun. We shot at Bali Hai, a really nice Golf Course right on the South end of the strip. Its great to second shoot for friends on occasion, I had a blast and was able to be creative and have fun, I think that when we have fun as photographers, thats when we get the best shots possible. This Couple Emilie & Matt were a blast, they are from Chicago and brough out almost 200 guests!!!!

Here are some of the top picks...

Here is an image from the entry sign to Vegas, the guys blocked traffic. That was their favorite part.


Their favorite poloroids from their group shots....


Emilie coming around from her time alone for the grand entrance to the wedding



There are so many moments at weddings that are about 1/8th of a second in duration, we as photogs have to not only "see" them, but be so quick to capture them.


And Lastly my favorite shot, this is my signature shot, where i throw the camera up in the air (25-30 feet) and then get the whole bridal party in the shot, I love the expression on everyone's face, they ranged from scared to excited. Its so funny to see their reactions, and then sometimes they want an encore. So I annied up and this time i threw it up 4 times, the last time i nailed it and got this image...

Beautiful Monday

I hope you all had a great easter, Nothing helps me better transition from a weekend with family and friends than a monday surf session with friends, Dan & I headed out and got some great waves this morning, check out the surf on Surfline.com a great place to see live web cams and such. We are all set for a busy week with editing another 10,000 images and another e-session later today, Stay tuned for more posts and shots, have a great week.

Saturday Morning

There is nothing better than getting to spend time with your friends at breakfast, we just meet with our new associate team for 2008! I love the warmth of spring and looking out into the garden and seeing the burst of colors and warm sun. Hopefully I'll be on a hike with my wife before our wedding today. I hope your saturday is as enjoyable as mine.

Sunset in Oahu Time release

This is from a few weeks ago, but I thought that you should see how beautiful the North Shore of Hawaii is, scroll down to previous posts from hawaii from october 06 and jan 07 to see more images, or go to the link on the right side of the blog and click on "Mike Larson Photography Fine Art". let me know what you think!.

Vegas/Dry Lake Bed E-shoot!

Dan & Carolyn are the sweetest couple, they flew out to Vegas to meet me and to take their photos. Their wedding is in Berkely in 2 weeks and we waited down to the wire, but it was a great shoot, thanks to Brittany of BLR photo for helping out with the night shoot, she knows vegas much better than I do!

The 1st part of this shoot we started on saturday night after the wedding I helped brittany at, so we shot from 11pm, to 1am. The next day we went out to a dry lake bed near Primm, and had a blast for a couple more hours....

Friends @ wppi

I just got these images off my wife's camera, and i wanted to share, the top image is the SLO boys from [b]eckers party at THEHotel, Jeff Newsom, and Eric Dungan from Big Folio.

Below pictured here is the big group of friends, celebrating Jen Manuele's birthday. Happy 25th Jen!



below, the Pool Sharks who dominated the competition @ the BLUdomain party, Thanks to my wife for documenting the funny photos you dont see here.


And the last image is the great Chris & Lynn Jaska , they are up in BC, an amazing couple, check out their stories if you have a time to catch up with them, they traveled all over BC backpacking doing stories on the nature there and trying to not get eaten by big bears. I know that sounds funny, but the stories are really great and their images are amazing!

Desert Shooting

Here is a time lapse of our latest E-shoot in the desert, outside of vegas in a dry lake bed. Those places are INSANE to shoot in. Later today I will post some of the images i shot.

back home!

Home is California for me, and i am ususally found NEVER in one spot, grew up in Danville, and family still has a house there, San Luis Obispo, where my house is, and Newport Beach, where the other 1/2 of my family is, I also spend way to much time in San Diego and San Clemente surfing, and other such activitues. My wife has family in Molokai, and the next island over we spend a lot of time with all of our friends on Oahu, Someday i want to retire there maybe(see images from hawaii blog posts below) We have a new office in NYC! so more traveling across the country. Way to much travel, hopefully in the next year, we will have a new office/division in Italy. Thats the Goal at least! but when you see locations like this one, how can you not want to spend time living in the Central Coast of California! See Morro Rock in the distance, so if you come into town, hit me up and if we are here, we will show you the best the area has to offer!

10,000 images shot in one week.

This is what i love about digital, In the last 7 days I had some amazing shoots. And I LOVE to shoot, rather than being in my office. When I shoot, i get to mingle with my friends, or make new ones, travel to great places, and bless wedding couples, or getting to hang out and get to know a couple while we shoot their 1st e-session. Then there are bridal fashion shoots where i have all the time in the world to explore and get creative. I get to stoke out the bridal gown or handbag designers. Then when i have some time off from that, i take as much time shooting surf/wakeboarding, ocean landscapes, and anything else i can with my water housing. I spend a lot of time shooting out in the water and I must admit, Im addicted.

All of this experience behind the camera i believe is cumulative. I believe that i build my style continually as I shoot from week to week, this week shoots inspire next week, and the more i shoot, the more tangents I go off on, I get new creative ideas. Essentially, the more I shoot, the better i feel i can produce images.

Then there is the cost per image. Lets do the math, with digital, hard drive space is cheap, pennies per image. Lets take a look at what it would be if i was shooting film. (by the way, I used to shoot my hasselblad with film and i LOVED film.

36 exposures per roll (film +dev) = $20
10,000 images /36 exp per roll = 278 rolls of film
times $20 a roll = $5,560 for this week

Now, lets look at what it would cost for a year of shooting

in 2006 I shot approx. 278,000 images
that comes out to 7,555 rolls of film. WOW.

Now times that by $20 a roll you get A WHOPPING $151,111.11 IN FILM AND DEV COST. So if you do the math, taking into mind that every year i seem to shoot more, It would be impossible to shoot this way with film. Thus the cost of upgrading my digital camera and computer every other year is a very small cost, $10-20k, vs $151k.

I love a cinematic approach to shooting, not a reckless machine gun fire of shots, but instead a framed, targeted approach with the knowledge that my subjects are constantly evolving in their position, action and placement so i can be sure to get the right body/face expression with the right composition in my camera at the same time during some point in the sequence.