David Escalante | Blog

Nicole & Joe | Married!!!

2008-06-11T16:48:00.000-07:00

This last Saturday marked the journey of a new life, a new change, and a new time of being together. Amongst friends and family from near and far, Nicole and Joe tied the knot! It was a beautiful day in Santa Rosa, and ended with an amazing reception at the Vineyard Creek Hyatt.
As an added bonus Kristy from Wreckless Photography, backed me up with her signature style.

Nicole and Joe are such kind, sincere and generous people, and I was honored to capture their big day. If you remember, they were so kind as to help me out with my Google Map Street View project a while back.

Before & After - Renovation

2008-04-22T23:29:00.000-07:00

In the last couple months our church Refuge Christian Fellowship, aquired a building in the downtown area. It was a mess to say the least... It smelled of smoke and much of it was worn down and broken. So for the last month me and a small group of guys have been working to improve conditions in the building. Usually going in around 7 or 8ish and leaving well after midnight. The work has paid off and this last Sunday we had our first official service in the new building. Below are a few photos of our renovation process and a before and after. Even the before photo looks better than what we actually started with!

Jules Café

2008-04-16T16:24:00.000-07:00

Recently, Jules Bianchi launched her new site Jules Café, aimed at providing resources and discounts to the photographer. Above is a short video that we created at WPPI in order to highlight a Jules's and her new site!

Everyone's a-Twitter!

2008-03-31T01:24:00.000-07:00

If you've not heard about Twitter, it's something you should look into. I've been asked, "what is twitter?" Most of the time, I simply answer, you've got to try it to find out!

I just read this article describing what Twitter is. It's a bizarre concept, but surprisingly the mainstream media is adopting it to get out news in a quicker fashion. After reading it, I've decided it can best be described as RSS for your life.

If you want catch me in my day to day head on over to http://twitter.com/davidescalante/
[Warning!! My life is not that exciting ]

WPPI Part 2

2008-03-23T21:00:00.000-07:00

Mike drew a large crowd at the Lexar Booth as he shared about shooting an entire wedding using only available light!

Alex Rodriguez, Kenny Kim, David Escalante, Shane Melenbacker, UncleRay

Dane Sanders, Robert T. Williams and Mike at the Pictage Booth

Mike with the amazing people from La-Vie

If you haven't checked out Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, it is a great organization to get involved with.

Thirst Relief mentoring session

Dane Sanders, Michelle Moore, and Tim Halberg

David Escalante, UncleRay and Kenny Nakai

iPhone party in the FotoCabina

The wonderful Sara France launched Go Bee bags at her party.

Michael Norwood cringing at his airbrushed Gecko

Kenny Kim shot a bunch of the photos posted here as well as this photo of my sweet airbrushed sleeve

Michelle Moore & Dane Sanders

Hanging with Mike Luna

WPPI Part 1

2008-03-23T18:17:00.000-07:00

We've been having an awesome time out in Las Vegas here at WPPI! Here is a small video and few photo to sum up the first couple of days.

Dinner at Le Café with Uncle Ray and Anna, Shane and Erin Melenbacker, Mike Steelman, Michael Norwood, Mike Colón, David Escalante, Travis Hoehne, Harald and Aundrea from Blu Domain

A bunch of the guys after dinner

Jim Garner with Mike and Ray

Mike shopping for glasses with Anna Santana

Aaron, Me, Jill Johnson, & the fabulous Tanja Lippert

Mark, Candace (who I sat next to in typing class in high school), Gabriel, Carlie

Bob & Becky Stender of Tibidabo Photography

Red: An interactive environment

2008-03-15T18:21:00.000-07:00

I'm flying Virgin America to Las Vegas and they have the most awesome
in flight entertainment system! You can do all of the normal media
stuff but you also get access to shopping and ordering food from your
seat and you can even play video games or start a chat room with
people on the plane!

Phillip Glickman & Marketing with Mike Colón

2008-02-27T09:39:00.000-08:00

I'm just gonna let the video speak for itself, but let me assure you that this is absolutely real! This was supposed to be the last night of The Colón Experience VIII, but quickly turned into a night filled with hot sauce and hurt. Phillip Glickman didn't seem to mind one bit though.

Marketing with Mike Colón from David Escalante on Vimeo.

WPPI 2008!

2008-02-27T09:35:00.000-08:00

Just a couple weeks until WPPI 2008! I am looking forward to seeing what is new for 2008 and getting to connect with old friends and even meeting a few new ones! If you are going to WPPI, hopefully we will get a chance to connect. I'm flying in on the 15th and I hope to see you all there!

The Colón Experience IX

2008-02-20T08:10:00.000-08:00

Mike Colón has just released seats for The Colón Experience IX - A 4 Day Intensive Workshop. If there is one workshop that you can attend this year, this needs to be it! The seats will fill up fast, so be sure to head over and register now! The workshop is held in Newport Beach, CA and runs June 23 - 26.

Here are a couple video's from the last session.

Happy Valentines Day!!

2008-02-14T09:35:00.001-08:00

I stinkin' love my wife! She rules! I hope you all are loving yours...

Beginning the long trek home!

2008-01-29T15:39:00.000-08:00

Mike Colón is a marketing guy

2008-01-24T22:19:00.000-08:00

Phillip Glickman takes branding to a new level! He branded himself with Mike's logo!

Colón Experience VIII

2008-01-21T14:50:00.000-08:00

I'm in Newport Beach this week working with Mike Colón at his workshop. I'll be guest blogging over on his site so stop by to see what is happening in Southern California. Kenny Kim and I are documenting the entire thing, so we will be posting daily updates to the blog.

Finding Nemo Submarines!!

2008-01-18T13:08:00.001-08:00

Easily in his top 10

Happy Birthday Elliott!

2008-01-18T11:56:00.000-08:00

Spending the day at Disneyland! 3 years old!

Most Extreme Wedding Cake Ever!

2008-01-08T17:55:00.001-08:00

Fulfilling a childhood dream, Chidi Ogbuta of Allen, Texas, had a lifesized wedding cake made in her likeness! If I was this couple's wedding photographer, I would probably be a little squeamish during the cake cutting! As wedding photographers, we often talk about capturing moments, I don't think anyone will ever forget this one!

Adobe White Papers and Primers

2008-01-06T18:16:00.000-08:00

Adobe just posted a new addition to their White Paper & Primers Section for Digital Imaging. If you've not been there before, it features several informative titles that your can download in PDF format for free! If you have an iPhone, you could get creative and email them all to yourself for easy access on the go! Go get em' now

via FrederickVan

Teaching a new dog, old tricks

2008-01-03T20:28:00.001-08:00

Sonoma county photographers and friends checking out some different
lighting setups

New Year, (Hopefully) New links!

2007-12-31T14:44:00.000-08:00

To kick off the New Year, I wanted to post several of the sites / blogs that I've been enjoying lately. These are just a few of my favorites that correspond to photography and making beautiful images through the use of light and lack thereof. So drop those into your favorite RSS reader and enjoy the up and coming posts for 2008

If you don't have an RSS Reader you can get one just about anywhere these days.
Some popular options are:

Safari 3.0

Newsfire

NetNewsWire

Google Reader

So here they are!

Hawk Wings - http://hawkwings.net/
If you use Apple Mail, this site will turn the lite user into a power user complete with Mail Tags and Stationary Building skills.

Zach Arias / OneLight Workshop - http://onelightworkshop.com/
This man has been shooting bands, CD covers, and portraits for years. Believe me when I say he knows what he is doing. If you left him alone with a 35mm SLR, a flash and a roll of film (yes, that is how he rolls) he could give you 36 different images that would blow you away.

Strobist - http://strobist.blogspot.com/
This is the community where people like Zach, come to share ideas, discuss new gear, share techniques, organize meetups. It's a niche OSP basically. Some amazing amateur and pro's belong to this group. Be sure to check out the Strobist Flickr Pool.

Mike Colón - http://www.mikecolon.net/blog/
If you give Mike only a little bit of light, he will produce an amazing image. It is just crazy to see what he can do with full light. Mike shoots primarily with available light and if anyone can capture the most perfect moments with a miniscule amount of light, he can. Be sure to view his images at http://www.mikecolon.com

Chase Jarvis - http://www.chasejarvis.com/blog/
A commercial advertising photographer, Chase is involved with growing the photo industry through his blog. He posts behind the scenes video documenting his various shoots and techniques used to produce the final images. He recently participated in a seminar sponsored by PhotoShelter and is also involved with Strobist.

I'm on the hunt for my new blogs/sites that will keep me company through 2008. So if you are keeping a secret, now is the time to let it out!

Top 5 Albums of 2007

2007-12-31T08:27:00.001-08:00

In no particular order, here are 5 of my Top Albums of 2007.

The National's follow up to 2005's Alligator

In 2007, Feist took the world by storm, simply using numbers 1 through 4. Once my 2 year old got a hold of this song, it quickly became his first request upon being strapped into his car seat. If this was on vinyl, 1234 would have the deepest groove.

Travis reminded us that, before Keane was, they were.

Radiohead shocked the world with their "pay what you think our music is worth" pricing scheme. This was a digital download only with the option to buy a price fixed dual disc set that shipped 2 months after the initial release.

My new favorite album from Wilco. This is the must have of 2007. There are too many things to say regarding this album. Track 3, Impossible Germany is probably my song of the year.

I could have had a very long list here, but I just wanted to give a quick list of the most played, the albums that contained the songs that get stuck in your head for days.

If you perhaps have an album that I've not listed that was in your top 5 of 2007 leave me a comment below and I'll promise to check it out! I love new music and am already mapping out my new albums for 2008.

David is...

2007-12-16T18:53:00.000-08:00

...Happy to be at Barney's!

Engaged: Nicole & Joe

2007-12-11T01:36:00.000-08:00

I spent a chilly, but beautiful Saturday, with Nicole and Joe in the great city of San Francisco! It was an awesome day of getting to know them and their story! (High School Sweethearts!)

Nicole just started her Christmas break from USF and you could tell it was nice to have some time with her fiancé. She is one of the sweetest clients I've ever had.

Now, I know that Joe will be taking great care of her, because he took great care of me!

In the planning of the city of San Francisco, I don't think they took certain flows of traffic

into account.

This left us simply waiting to merge into traffic on a busy street for about 10 minutes!!!

I hear the door of my car open, "kah, click" and out hops Joe! Being a brilliant man, he simply waltzed right into the crosswalk and just stood there defiantly, stopping traffic in both

directions and enabling us to get on to our next destination as the light was fading!

Photo Tech: Low Budget Location Scouting

2007-12-11T00:51:00.000-08:00

Earlier, I had posted about using the Google Maps Street View option as a location scouting tool.

This is a follow up video that I recorded after taking a quick drive to see the locations I picked. (I planned them in a circle, so as to end up where I started)

Now, the maps are not available for every city at the time of this post. Most major cities will have them, but check your area map often. You would be surprised how fast Google can move...

UPDATE: Google just added 8 new cities today! (12/11)

Flying High.

2007-12-04T08:44:00.000-08:00

For the past couple weekends, we have been taking small trips to Berkeley, Petaluma, San Francisco. It has been a blast and refreshing to see the different styles of cities and capturing the family in action.

My friend, Char was having some fun with my son, Elliott and I was able to capture one of the most entertaining photos I've seen in a while. Hope you like it!

Here is how it unfolded...