It's Almost Time!!!

Wow! It's been too long since I blogged, but man have I been busy! Our escrow clock is ticking and time is running out! We move into our FIRST HOUSE in just 3 days! As promised, I did take some pictures at our final walk through last week, but I haven't had time to post them with all the packing!

I finally threw some together so you can see a cool "before" gallery. You know there will be plenty of "after"s! Check it out!

The outside of our lovely home:






The downstairs (part of the backyard, kitchen, great room, and front door) - my drapes rock.





Here's a close up of that super cool built-in section for the TV - my flat screen will look fantastic - and all my old cameras will be displayed around it in the niches:






The master bedroom and my AWESOME master closet with it's own window :-p





The totally awesome master bath - you can't see how cool the tub and shower are or the giant plantation shutter over the tub, but you get the idea :-)



The guest bathrooms (double sinks in the one with the tub/shower)!:



WOOT! More to come! Now, back to packing!!!

Jada & Jelani are MARRIED!

Yesterday I had the EXTREME pleasure of shooting Jada & Jelani's wedding! Even before shooting their engagement session at USC, I knew this was going to be a beautiful wedding and I was not disappointed! Jada was absolutely glowing and Jelani, though sorta bummed about being pulled away from the games, seemed pretty impressed with his bride too (and he looked pretty good himself!).

Check out some of my favorite images from the day - and scroll down to get the link to their online slideshow!

The dress...




The ADORABLE shoes....



No, she wasn't my assistant for the day, but sister of the bride Hana had to get in a shot or two also :-)



Jada putting on those adorable shoes.... ;-p



Some of the beautiful bridesmaids - including the other sister of the bride, Gavin



In the words of Becker, I don't like to talk about my flare... :-)



More of the beautiful couple



I always love taking this shot - inspired by the beautimous Jessica Verma



And the WHOLE wedding party



The gorgeous ceremony right at sunset overlooking Los Angeles



For more photos, including some fun reception shots, check out their slideshow! :-)

Congratulations again to Jada & Jelani (and enjoy the honeymoon in Jamaica!!). I offered to shoot with them on their honeymoon for free if they'd just fly me out to Jamaica with them, but they passed. :-( Lol.

~Brienne

Rebecca & Joel's Engagement Session!

I have to tell you, I've been looking forward to this particular engagement session for a while and I am SO happy with how it turned out (hence the reason why I'm awake right now and not sleeping like I should be)!

Joel & Rebecca are an adorably cute couple and they had fantastic ideas on where to go for their engagement session that we decided to just go to them all! We started out and Downtown Disney, then traveled to downtown LA to Olvera Street (and had some mighty-fine taquitos I might add!) and then walked over to Union Station. Whew! It was a long day but absolutely worth it! Well, I think so - I hope Rebecca & Joel think so too!

Check out some of my favorite shots - there are a lot!










Look at that bling!



























Whew!! Thanks again to Joel & Rebecca for trekking through such a long day! I am soo excited for March 15! And for the Engagement Guestbook design - which you know I'll be posting here! :-)

NOW I can go to bed. ;-)

~Brienne

Izabel Turns One!

This past weekend I had the pleasure of shooting little Izabel who has just turned the OH-ONE. :-) She's such an adorable sweety, I had to put up pictures of her with her little dress and cake! You may recognize this cutie-patootie from the header at the top of the page too. ;-)

Check it out!




Cake? Where?







I think the candle goes right.......there!




I'm just a brown-eyed girl....

#13 - check!

In my 101 in 1001 list, I stated that I wanted to enter some of my photography into a contest. Today I entered THREE photos in the Open Source Photo Contest. I'm so excited! I may enter a few more, but I'll stick with these three for now.

I'm telling you, voting on this thing is totally addictive. I love that I get to vote too! If you're a photographer (professional or not), take a look at this thing and join up! I may enter some of my work in other areas (nobody says I can't fulfill an item on my list more than once!), but I'm excited that I finally did something in this direction. ;-)

So any other listers out there? I wanna hear about it if you're doing it too!

#15 - done and done!

I just completed #15 on my 101 in 1001 list! And I totally beat the time limit too. :-p Here are the books I read (all of which I HIGHLY recommend):

"How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less" -- which is actually a really fascinating study about body language and all that - sooo cool (and written by a photographer!)




"The Tipping Point" - I've already blogged about this one I think




and my favorite so far, "All Marketers Are Liars" by Seth Godin




All were definitely beneficial and I recommend them to anyone who is looking for more knowledge and nohow for their business.

I intend to keep up this trend - I think I might go for a few more Seth Godin books. He really knows what he's talking about and is on the front edge of how the market works right now. I'll keep you updated on any others I come across!

Woot! another one down and only like 99 left to go!

~Brienne

So the votes are in!

Most of you know that I took a vote recently. I had been thinking for a little while that it was time for some change in the hair department. As I continued to go through old photos and organize them (an attempt at #31 on my 101 in 1001 list) I realized that I have had a pattern here for a while. For the past 6 years, I have been growing out my hair. Or have I? About the time it gets to the bottom of my shoulder blades (at the longest), I get tired of the in-between stage and need to do SOMETHING to play with it. So I get a bunch of layers cut in it and bring up to about 3 inches or so below the shoulders. Then I "grow it out" again. And I've convinced myself I did something different.

As I went through the pictures and realized that what this resulted in is the EXACT SAME HAIR CUT for 6 years, that's when I also saw Katie Holmes new hair cut.




I thought it was adorable. And the spread on the inside showed it in several more ways and it got my little bean going. So I put the vote up on my Myspace and let the results roll in. The end vote was.....

10 to 5 in favor of cutting!

Well, actually, it was 10.5 to 5.5 because my friend Patrick wanted me to only cut half of it. I ruled that one out pretty quickly - a little TOO change-y for me. So here are the before and afters (keep in mind that the "after" shot was taken by my mac laptop so it's not the best quality - and the black and white thing on the side is my dog trying to get in on the photo action).

Before....





And after....





So what do you think?

Jada & Jelani at USC!

I'm SO excited about Jada & Jelani's wedding that is coming up in only a few short weeks! We shot there engagement session a little while ago at USC - Jelani's alma mater (Go Trojans!). I didn't attend there, but I'm a huge fan (much to the chagrin of my UCLA-oriented family). I can't help it. I'm a musician and too many friend went there.

Anyway, back to Jada & Jelani! These two are adorable and gorgeous (to say the least!). Jada and I go way back - like 3 years old (for me) back, so it's such an amazing honor to get to work with her and her handsome almost-husband. It was a night shoot, so that was a nice and different edge to what we were doing. Check out some of my favorites!











I love it when she laughs - Jada has one of those totally infectious laughs (actually, so do both her sisters)...











And a shot for the Trojan fans out there. ;-)