Red Bat Photography

Santa Cruz NEXT at Surf City Billiards

Rebecca — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:00:18 -0700

Last month, Santa Cruz NEXT had a little party at Surf City Billiards, and it was the first time either of the Red Bats had seen the place since it became a billiards hall. We were impressed. I found myself wanting to ask people to drape themselves over the tables for some of the shots, but instead I settled for urging people to “Look cool!” They did look cool.

Here’s the Santa Cruz NEXT blog post about that evening.

Take a closer look at the guy in the middle in the next-to-last photo and the woman on the right in the last photo. Don’t they look like they deserve a lifetime of marital bliss? You have just experienced Red Bat foreshadowing. Stay tuned…

Kimma and Keith, Part 3 (lots of pictures, so it may take a moment to load)

Patrick — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 03:13:14 -0700

This post is part 3 of a 3-part series. Read part 1 - Read part 2 - Read part 3

Right after Kimma and Keith got married, they hopped in a limo and took off for a few brief moments alone with themselves, a pond, some ducks, and Rebecca.

Then the party got started for REAL. There was a ballroom. There was dancing. There was cake. There was even a surprise entrance - when the crowd was expecting Kimma and Keith to bust through the doors, a video started playing on the flatscreen up on stage. It was a video of our couple, frolicking, mixed in with photos from their Red Bat engagement shoot and narrated by the KGO-TV news team (who Keith happens to work with).

Oh, and did I mention the ice cream truck? There was an ice cream truck.

Kimma and Keith, Part 2 (lots of pictures, so it may take a while to load)

Patrick — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:37:54 -0700

This post is part 2 of a 3-part series. Read part 1 - Read part 2 - Read part 3

Here are some more photos from Kimma and Keith’s lovely outdoor ceremony in San Rafael, California.

It was a beautiful day to get married, and a perfect day for photography!

Kimma and Keith, Part 1 (lots of pictures, so it may take a moment to load)

Patrick — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:53:43 -0600

This post is part 1 of a 3-part series. Read part 1 - Read part 2 - Read part 3

Kimma and Keith. Talk about your long hauls to the altar! These two have been through a lot, and by a lot I mean A LOT. Trials, tribulations and maybe even a tibia or two.

It’s not my story tell, so I’m not going to tell it, but I will say that I’ve never met a couple who’ve been through so much on their journey to marriage. But they did it with class, humor, and, dare I say, a fair helping of sass. We like sass.

If you’ve been Red Bat fans for a while, you’ll recognize Kimma and Keith from their engagement session late last year at Seabright Beach. As the year went by and the wedding got closer, we kept in touch about this and that. Many hilarious emails were sent thither and yon, to and fro, touching on subjects as varied as orangutans, rocking chairs with spikes, Rebecca’s looming skills (formidable!) and limited edition Iron Maiden nose hair trimmers. Suffice to say, we think they’re pretty awesome.

The wedding took place in the courtyard of the Osher Marin Jewish Community Center in lovely San Rafael, and the reception was held in their (huge) ballroom. And in keeping with the tradition of odd places to get ready, Kimma and the girls got gussied up in the children’s library while Keith and his party got ready in the day care room.

The pictures below are a very small sampling of the many, MANY photos we took of Kimma and Keith. This first set includes a few photos from the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner. More to come!

Alicia and Lawrence, part 3 (lots of pictures so it may take a moment to load)

Rebecca — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:52:07 -0600

This post is part 3 of a 3-part series. Read part 1 - Read part 2 - Read part 3

Did I mention that the awesome dance moves at the Alicia and Lawrence wedding reception? Our photos simply can’t convey the awesomeness. I tried hard to capture it by spending a large part of the reception crouching on the floor shooting up at people. They were remarkably understanding about my need to do this, and kept on dancing.

All over the world, people dance to celebrate transitions and rites of passage. I think dancing is a terrific way to launch two people into the matrimonial state (not that I have any firsthand experience with being launched into that). Similarly, throwing lavender is a terrific way to hasten the bride and groom to their getaway vehicle. And so, with lavender in their hair and clothes, and embarrassing phrases lovingly scribbled on their car by their friends, Alicia and Lawrence began their married life…

Alicia and Lawrence, part 2 (lots of pictures so it may take a moment to load)

Rebecca — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:53:50 -0600

This post is part 2 of a 3-part series. Read part 1 - Read part 2 - Read part 3

Here are some photos from the reception for Alicia and Lawrence, including the toasting, the first dance, the cake cutting, and the completely hilarious bouquet and garter tossings. If there’s one thing that makes me wish I had a camera that could shoot video, it’s the tossings. Something crazy seems to happen to people when they participate in these particular rituals. Especially the garter tossings- those often turn into highly competitive wrestling matches.

At this particular wedding, however, many of the guys lined up to catch the garter were basketball teammates, so the garter was caught in the blink of an eye. We couldn’t get good shots of the garter in motion because it had barely left Lawrence’s hand before someone snagged it out of the air. We had to settle for making the guys pose with the garter after it was caught.

There are so many more photos I wish I could include here. This was a very playful, fun, informal wedding reception. Even though the room was rather dark for non-flash photos (we RARELY use a flash, so that was challenging), we were still able to get lots of shots we loved.

Santa Cruz NEXT cleans your beach

Rebecca — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 11:40:03 -0600

This post is old news by now- once again, I’m reaching back into the ancient mists of July. Please forgive this overly busy Bat for the lack of posting during July when it was actually happening. And stop me if I’ve told you any of this before…

On July 5 (you know, the day after Independence Day, when you can expect to see beaches littered with debris from parties celebrating the American tradition of trashing the place) some devoted early risers from Santa Cruz NEXT, in conjunction with Save Our Shores, collected 257 pounds of trash and 62 pounds of recycling at Twin Lakes Beach. Here’s the Santa Cruz NEXT blog post about that day.

I was there to take photos of people picking up trash, making me once again glad to be a photographer, tasked only with lifting my camera and walking around. These folks were out at Twin Lakes at 7 am, collecting trash. And no, they did not go to bed early the night before. They partied like the rest of us (though presumably with less mess) but got themselves up at the crack of dawn to make Twin Lakes tidy again. Their enthusiasm at 7 am was very impressive. I hope they all went home patting themselves on the back, because they deserved that and more.

Here are some photos:

Alicia and Lawrence, part 1 (lots of pictures so it may take a moment to load)

Rebecca — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 12:20:12 -0600

This post is part 1 of a 3-part series. Read part 1 - Read part 2 - Read part 3

I’m taking a brief break from the excitement of WEDDING SEASON to share some photos from a wedding that happened back in July. If you read this blog regularly, you may remember Alicia and Lawrence. Click here to see photos from their engagement session. These two got married at Crystal Springs Golf Course, which turned out to be quite a lovely place for a ceremony. What the Crystal Springs website says is true: because the place has a great view and is right next to a wildlife preserve, it feels far from cities and highways. With the gazebo and the creeping mist over the valley, the venue felt very romantic.

The getting ready part happened at the reception site, at Wedgewood Banquet Facility, right next to the golf course. Alicia put her dress on in a locker room for women golfers. (I love the odd places brides are often required to use for getting ready.)

The photos below are from the first part of the wedding day. I’ll share some more later. Once again, I was struck by the difference between the bride’s preparations and the groom’s. While Alicia was having to be carefully laced into a dress, unable to move far enough to get a glass of water for herself, Lawrence was playing games on his phone with his groomsmen. But as you can see from looking at the photos, Alicia’s preparations were worth it- she looked stunning! Actually, they are both beautiful, but Alicia blew everyone away with how pretty she looked in her dress. (And she was sweet to everyone the entire time, too.)

How to Take a Redwood Tree’s Portrait

Patrick — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:16:18 -0600

The current issue of National Geographic features a huge, fold-out portrait of a 1,500 year old, 300 foot tall Redwood tree. It’s an actual portrait, too - not something that looks like it was taken from toddler-level. So how’d the photographer do it? He built a rig that contained three high-end (Canon) cameras, attached the rig to a vertical dolly, and came up with a total of 83 individual photos that were stitched together in a mosaic to make one ginormous portrait.

Here’s the rig:

Those six devices to either side of the cameras are Pocket Wizard Plus IIs - wireless camera

and flash triggers that have a range of about 1600 feet.

Here’s the completed photo:

And here’s a video of how it was done:

Neat!

Source: NPR - Biggest, Tallest Tree Photo Ever

A Brief Nature Interlude

Patrick — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 05:17:00 -0600

Were these photos taken by me this last weekend at Nisene Marks State Park, or were they snapped by young Georgina Honeywell in 1932 and only recently found in an old steamer trunk purchased at auction?

IT IS A MYSTERY.