Joe McNally workshop. Or, I AM HANGING OUT WITH JOE MCNALLY FOR A FULL DAY TAKING PICTURES WOHOO!!!!!!!
That tells you more how excited I was about this day. Add to that that I have been working every day for the last six weeks and I you'd start to understand how happy I was to take the weekend off to fly to New York and be at Joe's workshop.
I booked it as soon as they announced them on the Joe McNally blog. I wasn't sure if I'd get a spot or not so I sent the response with express mail. They responded after a while that I had gotten the spot. Sweet. I needed something to look forward to. I waited a while before I booked my flight and hotel, just to make sure I didn't have to work. After a while I realized that I was going to have to work most likely but also that I would have been working non stop up until the workshop came around. So I decided to just go. I really didn't want to miss this.
I booked a hotel close to JFK since I was flying back really early. Oh man, the area around JFK is pretty depressing to say the least. My hotel was the crown jewel of depressingness (yes, I just made that word up). It looked like it belonged in the former Soviet Union haha. The whole place had a bit of a twilight zone over it. I didn't really care since I was just spending two nights there. I flew in on Saturday, landed at 7. The checkin line at the hotel was crazy so I took my rental car and went out to look for food. The areas around JFK are kind of sketchy to say the least so finally I gave up and defaulted to McDonald's. A really sketchy one.
Went back to the hotel, checked in and went to bed. The next day I woke up early and drove up to Dobbs Ferry where the workshop was. It is about an hour north of JFK.
The workshop was great! Basically we got to hang out with Joe the whole day while he walked us through lighting setups and talked about how he was lighting things and his thought process. That was the most awesome thing the whole day, just to hear how he was reasoning and trying to make the picture work. Really annoying how easy he made it seem haha. There were some models from some agency in NY there too. They were all really nice and normal except one girl who was so funny. Probably the blondest person I have ever met. She kept saying the weirdest things making the whole group biting their lips not to laugh. The later in the day it got the less people could hold the laughter back hahaha. Great entertainment.
The best part of the day for me was just seeing Joe do three lighting setups with just one light where the pictures came out amazing. Made me think a bit that I might be overdoing the whole flash lighting thing sometimes and using a bunch of lights just because I have them, not so much because I need them to get the picture i want :)
It was a long day and I learned a lot, and it was really fun to get to meet Joe and hang out with him and his staff.
Drove back to return the rental car like a mad man after my gps for some reason thought that JFK was on the west coast of the US and sent me that way. Just made it back to the airport in time for not paying for an extra day on the car.
Went back to my depressing hotel exhausted. Had a really bad burger with an awesome Corona (beer tends to taste great when you are exhausted I've noticed..). Went straight to bed after that. Needed a few hours of sleep before I flew back to LA at 6.30am.
Not a very relaxing weekend, but one I'll remember for a long time :)

So, since I was in Chamonix away from Deanne on my birthday she decided that we would have a second birthday when I got home. That birthday was today.
Here is my day from start to finish. Woke up early, or so I thought. After about half an hour of total confusion we decided that last night was the night when the daylight savings adjustment happened. That meant, we just lost an hour and didn't wake up as early as we thought. Oh well, not much we could do about that. We packed the car with Deanne's bike and the awesome bike she had rented for me, made sure we had all our stuff and headed to the Rose Cafe for some breakfast. After breakfast we took a quick trip to the Patagonia store next door where I bought myself a really nice soft shell. After all, it was my birthday. Again.
When we were done with the short shopping streak we headed out on the roads. We went on the 10 east heading for Perris Valley. Highlights along the way: a shell station where the bathroom and 3 of the pumps were broken where we lost precious time getting to our first destination.
At 1.07 pm we rolled in to the Perris Valley indoor skydiving place's parking lot. I was so excited at this point. We went inside to register, get our ugly t-shirts and pay. After that we walked in to the indoor skydiving thingy and met our instructor. They started with a lame instructional video followed by handing out the gear we would be wearing in the wind tunnel. I got the purple suit (oh, great, thanks) and, after Deanne had pointed out that it was my birthday, I also got the neon green birthday helmet. Thanks Deanne.
We had paid for four minutes. They said it felt like way more (they were totally wrong). First thing we got to do was to just lie down on the bottom of the wind tunnel, assume the skydiving position and then they turned the fans on while the instructor was adjusting your body position and stabilizing you. Second time he let me fly a bit more on my own. Third time he just walked out of the airflow letting me float on my own! It was so much fun!!! A bit of a balancing act. He then showed me how to go higher and lower. I did, a few times. It was such a blast!! I could turn, rotate, go forward and backwards and up and down. My time in the tunnel felt like seconds!! I didn't want to get out! But, I had to. I came out with the biggest smile. Deanne had gone before me and the instructor had flown with her high up in the tunnel. When she came down she just smiled so big at me through the glass walls separating us. It was such a great place. I had a blast and didn't want to leave. But we had to. We had more stuff to do this day.
After a quick food stop at Wendy's we headed west over the mountains. This part of LA is so beautiful with green hills and nice lakes. This is a big wine producing part of California. We even got to see all of Lake Depressu. Nice place.
At about five we arrived at Aliso Woods Canyon State Park. We unloaded the mountain bikes from the trunk of my car and got the gear on. After asking for some tips from some dude that looked like he had gone there a lot we decided to do the Mathis Canyon trail up and then the Rock-It trail down.
Mathis was a hard trail! It was such a steep and rocky uphill climb for over 30 minutes. We had to stop so many times along the way since our thighs were shaking. Even after my week of skiing in Chamonix! Once we made it up the view was really great. You could see the ocean from there.
The way down Rock-It was a blast! Single track at first with high bushes and grass next to it made it feel even more narrow. Really curvy and fun. After that we hit a really technical section with a LOT of really bumpy rock. Once we got over that section it was more curvy dirt road all the way to the bottom. At the bottom the trail turned into a really nice curvy forrest trail. We got back to the car at seven exhausted and smiling so big. We started heading home after loading the bikes in the car.
Once we got home we headed over to canal club (after a much needed shower). We ended the day with my favorite Escolar Sushi and a Corona.
Such a good day.
More of these please.

Best day so far. Woke up, had breakfast and went to pay for our condo. When that was taken care of we headed up to Le Flegiere.
First run of the day went so bad. I was so pissed. It got a bit better the more we went. After lunch we decided to head over to Grandes Montes. We jumped on a bus and started heading over. Once we got there we decided to go all the way up to the top. The snow was so great up there and the riding was so awesome! I got really tired but it was still fun.
We ended the ski day with beers at Chambre Neuf. Such a good day. This day alone was worth the whole trip. We were all ecstatic while drinking our cold beers. Can't wait to go tomorrow. Although, my body hurts so bad, all over :)

Yesterday I got to play with my camera and all my 3 flashes pretty much all night while taking pictures of Deanne.
It is so much fun to try to get some nice lighting and making the flashes do what I want. My living room got to serve as a studio. It is a bit tricky to control the light in there because it is not that big and all the walls, floor and ceiling are all white (or close to) to the flash light bounces around like crazy. This can sometimes be a bit tricky when you want to control the amount of light that falls on the background. Anyway, I am so happy that Deanne actually likes when I take pictures of her, makes it so much fun. She gets to play dress up and I get to play with my camera gear. I love trying out new things that I have seen somewhere, normally on Strobist or on Joe McNally's blog.
I will try to do some more photo sessions soon!
Stay tuned

Ok, I am trying to find time to go through all the pictures from the roadtrip I did with Deanne over Christmas and put them all online.
I am hoping for this weekend!
In the mean time here is a little teaser sample. Horseshoe Bend in Page, Arizona. Really cool place.