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Liz came to True Image Studio wanting to surprise her husband Mike with a family portrait session since this is something Mike has really been wanting to have done. Liz and Mike have three grown daughters and two grandchildren who would join us for the photo session. Also joining us were Mike’s brother, and mother. This gave us the rare opportunity to have four generations represented in this family portrait!

Mission San Juan Capistrano was the sentimental location choice for the Orange County family portrait session because Mike and Liz often took their daughters there as they were growing up.

As you review the album, you can see a personal touch for the Thomas family in every page. The family has many memories in the Los Rios street area in particular, as well as Sarducci’s restaurant and the Mission itself.

• Mike’s mother lives a few miles south of the mission. The third spread of the book shows a number of wooden signs pointing to local attractions on Los Rios Street. The top sign points south to Grandma’s house, a custom addition by True Image Studio.
• I took extra photos outside of Grandma’s house, outside of the mission, up and down Los Rios St and around the train depot and restaurant about a month after our session. These were used as background images for the album to give an even more personalized and sentimental feel for the album.
• The fourth spread has Grandma’s house as a background and features an enlarged inlay of a sign that has been in front of the home for many years. I restored much of the missing lettering on the sign as part of the project.

After the portrait session, I spoke with Liz and as she viewed the photos her original idea of a family portrait evolved into so much more! We were really thinking outside the box since the sky is the limit on what I can create here at True Image Studio.

Liz decided she not only wanted a beautiful family album, but she wanted five copies so she could give the other four albums to grandma and each of her daughters as a very special Christmas gift.

The albums include a personal message to the family, and uses Mission San Juan Capistrano as a backdrop. It also includes pictures of Mike’s father, who passed away a few years ago. Liz and Mike felt that the album would not be complete without including some memories of him in the album.

This project was special to me because of how involved Mike and Liz were in the shaping of the final product. They wanted a product of my creativity and invested much of their own creativity as well. This was an absolute joy for me because I always knew that their feedback was genuine and that they were excited about what we were creating.

I enjoy families and getting to know more about the people I photograph. This project was very special to me because it was a combination of my love for families and the process of creating digital art for a family.

This experience is the perfect example of an alternative to a traditional framed family portrait. I imagine the pages of these albums will be precious to the Thomas Family for years and years to come; passing down to new generations.

“The albums are a big hit!  You should have seen the smiles on their faces when they were looking at them.  Everyone LOVES them!! Thanks for all your hard work, it was so easy to work with you”. – Liz Thomas

Are you ready to create new memories for your family? Contact True Image Studio today for your next Orange County Family Portrait session!

Naturally, I wanted to get a portrait of everyone on her birthday and I wanted it to be as good as it could be. My wife and kids and I decided that a large part of our gift to Nana would be a large framed print of the portrait and we would give it to her that same day.

We had a great time on the trip, and truly spent some great time as a family. Late Sunday morning we went to celebrate Nana’s birthday at the care facility she lives in. We were in a large dining room and quickly transformed it into a makeshift portrait studio. I got into my portrait photographer mode while still maintaining the balance of enjoying my kids, nieces and nephew. Nana was in great spirits, cutting jokes as usual and keeping us all entertained. We took three different four-generation portraits.

Once the portrait and a few party images were done, everyone was off to a late lunch at Chuck E Cheese and I was off to the local Starbucks to produce the images, retouch and prepare the big portrait, then find a local place to get the best print I could. I’m looking at the images critically, getting caught up in all of the things I’d do differently in a better setting, too bad we didn’t have time to coordinate clothing, more time for better posing, etc. Don’t get me wrong, the portrait was good, especially given the speed with which we threw everything together and the amount of time we had, but I’m always critical of my work (as any photographer should be).

I finished my work as the family was finishing the pizza party, then we packed up the gang to go and get the print, frame it and deliver it. My wife and kids loved the print, but by then I was a little tired and still kind of caught up in the process of a self-imposed deadline. When we arrived to deliver the print, Nana’s face lit up in a way that I hadn’t seen in a while. She absolutely loved the print and showed that more clearly than she could say it.

That moment brought me back to a clear understanding of why I love family photography. I didn’t become a portrait photographer because I love the stresses of the workflow, and love to get caught up in the nit picking of my work. I’m a family photographer because of what portraits do for people.

Digital photography offers some powerful enhancements that a film negative never could. With tools like Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, photographers can apply color corrections, cropping, noise filters and any number of other adjustments to one or more images before producing the final output files. Lightroom also allows a photographer to add keywords and other important metadata (such as a copyright) to the images, then catalog them for easy look-up later on. Lightroom is a very important part of my workflow at True Image Studio. It is easy to use and feature packed, allowing me to spend as little time as possible on editing. I would recommend Lightroom to any professional or serious amateur photographer who wants to easily edit and organize their images.

If you would like to see what Lightroom can do for you, I welcome you to join me in being a part of a very special photography event being held on Sunday, September 11, 2011. The event is being hosted by my friend and business partner Julie Diebolt Price of JDP Photography, and will kick-off by commemorating the 10th anniversary of 9/11 with speakers, a Moment of Silence and a donation to a local O.C. fire fighting charity.

The workshop sessions will include camera operation, landscape photography, wildlife photography, Adobe Lightroom and other helpful workflow process using key software tools. I will be sharing some of my most important digital workflow methods using Adobe Lightroom 3, and hope to see you and a friend there!

Click here to download the event flyer for details

Click here to register

Earn cash rewards by referring a friend!

Digital photography offers some powerful enhancements that a film negative never could. With tools like Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, photographers can apply color corrections, cropping, noise filters and any number of other adjustments to one or more images before producing the final output files. Lightroom also allows a photographer to add keywords and other important metadata (such as a copyright) to the images, then catalog them for easy look-up later on. Lightroom is a very important part of my workflow at True Image Studio. It is easy to use and feature packed, allowing me to spend as little time as possible on editing. I would recommend Lightroom to any professional or serious amateur photographer who wants to easily edit and organize their images.

If you would like to see what Lightroom can do for you, I welcome you to join me in being a part of a very special photography event being held on Sunday, September 11, 2011. The event is being hosted by my friend and business partner Julie Diebolt Price of JDP Photography, and will kick-off by commemorating the 10th anniversary of 9/11 with speakers, a Moment of Silence and a donation to a local O.C. fire fighting charity.

The workshop sessions will include camera operation, landscape photography, wildlife photography, Adobe Lightroom and other helpful workflow process using key software tools. I will be sharing some of my most important digital workflow methods using Adobe Lightroom 3, and hope to see you and a friend there!

Click here to download the event flyer for details

Click here to register

Earn cash rewards by referring a friend!

The workshop sessions will include camera operation, landscape photography, wildlife photography, Adobe Lightroom and other helpful workflow process using key software tools. I will be sharing some of my most important digital workflow methods using Adobe Lightroom 3, and hope to see you and a friend there!

Click here to download the event flyer for details

Click here to register

Earn cash rewards by referring a friend!

When photographing in a theater, I always feel like I have a special responsibility to the lighting designers to represent their work as accurately as possible. This can be difficult, as the brightness and color of light are constantly changing throughout the show. Using any kind of automatic functions on the camera is simply not an option. For this particular production, the lighting design was done by the very talented KC Wilkerson. As usual, his use of light is spectacular in. The lighting, all of the behind the scenes design work and a talented set of actors and musicians under the direction of Oahn Nguyen all come together to make this an awesome production.

July 2 – August 8, 2010
The Who’s Tommy
Book by Pete Townshend and Des McAnuff
Music and Lyrics by Pete Townshend
Additional Music and Lyrics by John Entwistle and Keith Moon
Directed by Oanh Nguyen
Choreographed by Allison Bibicoff
Musical Direction by Mike Wilkins

In the world of snapshot photography, photos are taken quickly and attention to detail is not usually a high priority. Even casual photography should bring out someone’s personality in the best way possible. The most effective tool to accomplish this is through a relationship with the subject. A constant interaction between the photographer and subject can bring out real laughter, smiles and even a somber look if desired. The key is to establish a comfort level, especially with kids, making them feel comfortable and engaged in the experience. Before they know it, it’s all over and you’ve got a set of images that you’ll both treasure for years to come.

In the world of snapshot photography, photos are taken quickly and attention to detail is not usually a high priority. Even casual photography should bring out someone’s personality in the best way possible. The most effective tool to accomplish this is through a relationship with the subject. A constant interaction between the photographer and subject can bring out real laughter, smiles and even a somber look if desired. The key is to establish a comfort level, especially with kids, making them feel comfortable and engaged in the experience. Before they know it, it’s all over and you’ve got a set of images that you’ll both treasure for years to come.