Calico Ghost Town

Yesterday I met up with Becker, Joe Photo and a couple other SoCal photographers from the [b] school and headed out to Calico Ghost Town to do some shooting.

Here are a couple of the shots I got.







Joe Photo himself








Cool old barber's pole

Afternoon at the Pumpkin Patch

Last weekend J and I took Liv to the Pumpkin Patch. I tried to get some good pictures of Liv, but she was being a little bit of a brat and she wouldn't look at me. I don't blame her though, she has a molar coming. Ouch, I would be grumpy too!

Coldplay Concert

Last night J and I ventured to the Forum for the Coldplay concert. It's been a long time since I've been there, and I was not impressed. All I have to say is the Forum is nasty. The parking was chaotic, and it took forever to get there once we got off the freeway.

Ok - rant over.



Coldplay was incredible. Those just guys always know how to put on a good show. We saw them at the Bowl a couple of years ago and love the show. This concert was even better.



Towards the end of the concert the band starting running though the crowd and up into the stands. They ended up playing an acoustic version of 'Yellow' about 8 rows in front of us.

Hanging around the house

Last week we had painters come to paint the inside of our house. It's so difficult to relax with plastic everywhere and nowhere to sit. So this weekend we just chilled around the house. Liv was happy to be able to roam around again and discovered her new toy box.

Snack time - Liv loves cheese sticks


Liv likes to share her cheese


Liv loves cheese on her face too!


....and in her hair


Liv's new toy box





I love her little bum & pudgy legs

Happy Birthday, America!

Happy 4th everybody! I hope everyone had a relaxing and safe holiday.
It was so much fun introducing Liv to fireworks. We went to a parking lot in Santa Ana where fireworks are legal, but left early when a couple of guys tried setting off professional fireworks and had them explode on the ground.

Liv sporting her patriotic colors


J and Liv watching the fireworks - Liv loved them!

New York vacation

Last month we went on vacation to New York. My grandmother turned 90, so we flew out early to spend some time in Manhattan and then headed Upstate to spend some time celebrating my grandma's birthday with the rest of my family.

Here are a couple of pictures from New York City.

Liv hanging out in Central Park








The fashion district in SOHO




Brooklyn


Lower Manhattan from the ferry to Ellis Island


Liv helping J figure out what stop to get off the subway


I loved introducing Liv to my grandma. We chose to have Liv's middle name to be after my grandma, and it fits. They are both such warm, loving and stubborn people.



Liv loved playing with her hands


Eleanor Bly


My grandma goofing off for the camera

Dwell on Design Conference

Today J, Liv and I went to the Dwell on Design Conference at the LA Convention Center. We are huge fans of good modern design and are avid readers of Dwell Magazine. So it was a cool experience to be in a room full of companies that we have been watching grow the last couple of years.



Dwell and a lot of the companies at the conference are very dedicated to green living. It has been a passion of ours for a while now to be responsible participants of the planet and I was so excited to see all these companies coming up with creative ways to leave the earth a greener place.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. J and I celebrated the day by laying low, taking a couple naps and recuperating from 2 weddings this weekend.

Last night on our way to our favorite restaurant, Gabbi's, we stopped in the Orange Circle to take advantage of the beautiful light.

Salton Sea

I met up with a group of photographers from OSP yesterday to do some shooting at the Salton Sea. We started out in the small town of Mecca. I think the town was a little overwhelmed by the 40 of us showing up. We might have almost doubled the population.

These images are from the old North Shore Yacht Club. It was so much fun to step out of the box and do some more fine art photography.

Enjoy.....

Party of 5

Today I spent the day with a good friend and photography genius Becker. Becker puts on an amazing one day workshop called Party of 5 . So if you are a photographer looking to take your business to the next level, I highly recommend this workshop.

Becker - thanks for the incredible day!

Here are a couple pictures I got from our photo outing at a local park.

They were a super nice and very gorgeous couple.












Here's Becker working his magic - the expression in the next 2 images were worth it!

Drive through LA at 1:30 am

Here are a couple quick pictures I took while I was driving on my way home from Catie & Leon's wedding.

Happy Birthday to Me!!!!

Yes I did spend my birthday shooting a cool wedding , but I still found the time to get a little something special for myself.

In a crazy fluke, I was able to get the very hard to find Canon 1D Mark III. I also bought myself a 50mm 1.2 (gorgeous lens). I know, I am totally a geek when it come to technology.

OSP Model Shoot

This afternoon a group of photographers from OSP got together in Fullerton to hang out, share tips and shoot a couple of models. I really enjoy watching other photographers work, see what they do differently that I can adopt.

Here one shot of mine - I'll post more later.

Angel Game

Tonight we decided at the last minute to go to the Angels game. We ended up with pretty good seats to the sold out game against the Dodgers. It was a great game, especially since the Angels ended up winning 9 to 1.













I love how hard Vlad swings......

Some more pictures from London

I love this city and I can't believe our time here is almost over. This is the best weather we have ever had here. The temperature has been in the high 60's to low 70's and with beautiful clear skies.

Today we took a train outside of London to Winsor Castle. This is one of the few castles still used by the royal family.

London Calling

We landed in London yesterday. I love this place but I hate the flight over. I can't ever seem to be able to sleep on a plane. So 10 hours sitting in a small seat gets old very quickly. But we're here now and had a very full first day.


I love the Pub names they come up with

My cute wife



Tate Modern - modern art museum housed in an old power station

We Sold our House

We just finished cleaning and moving. The garage door has shut for the last time as owners of our first place. It is kind of sad. We really loved the layout and put a lot of ourselves into the design. But at the same time I'm really excited to see what our new place will be.

Now we pack for London...... We'll be there for a week and we're so excited.

Playing Around in Wine Country

I thought I would post a couple more images I shot while in Solvang wine country.

Picture in the Malibu Times

In November I shot a nonprofit benefit for Chrysalis in LA. Today I found an image of mine was included in an article in the Malibu Times.

Wine Tasting

My good friend Blake Schwendimann invited me to join a group of guys from his church to go wine tasting in the Solvang area. I had such a great time with you guys and I managed to grab a few photos.

I don't know why but I just loved this door.




This wine was so good that I just had to buy a bottle.

She smelled every bottle she opened - I think she loves her job!

What a great place for a bachelorette party - check out the size of her glass.


We ate like kings all weekend.





Blake is very serious about his wine

Santa Barbara Weekend

J and I spend the weekend in Santa Barbara for our friends' Kate and David's wedding. As always Santa Barbara was gorgeous and we had a great time hanging out with great friends. Kate's dad and sister are both professional photographers shot all of the formals. A great photographer and good friend from OSP Chris Humphreys shot the ceremony. You can check out some of his images on his Blog.

J created the girls bouquets as well as the table centerpiece. She constantly blows me away with her creativity and style. Here's a link to her floral work.

Congratulations you guys! Kate you looked absolutely beautiful!

Dark to Light

This weekend we hosted a dinner party at our place to celebrate Advent. A meal centered around the themes of Advent where the courses we share progress throughout the evening from dark to light. Here are a couple of pics from the night. My favorite part was the weather we had projected on our ceiling.


Cheers!

LA/OC PUG Holiday Party

Last night was the holiday party for both the Los Angeles and Orange County Pictage User Groups (PUGs) and the very cool Bodega Wine Bar in Santa Monica. There are so many super talented photographers in Southern California, and it's so fun when we get to hang out together.

The Bar





Blake Schwendimann, Jules Bianchi and Me (borrowed from Jules bolg)


Downtown LA on my drive home

The Spirit of Chrysalis

Tonight I shot an awards banquet for this incredible organization called Chrysalis. Chrysalis is a non-profit organization that helps the homeless of Los Angeles with interviewing and job skills and then places them in jobs. Then The Dan Band was there to close the evening with such a very entertaining show.

(RED)

New Website Soon!

I'm so excited that a new website for Hilmerson Photography will go live in a couple of weeks. The current website is version 2 of the original site I created about a year and a half ago. Although I was quite proud of myself for learning flash design from a book, the current site just loads too slowly and don’t show off my images well.

The new website has just been released to me by my design team, so now I am just going through all my images to decide which ones I will use. I hope you'll love this new website as much as I do. There will be large images and several fast loading galleries to make it much easier to navigate through.

So check back here for a more exact launch date soon.

We're Selling our Place

We are just about to put our place on the market and it is definitely bittersweet. We really love this place and put a lot of ourselves into making it our home. These are some of the pictures I took for our realtor. We're most likely going to be buying a place at the Santiago Street Lofts. So if you know someone looking for a condo to buy, send them our way.

On Tour with David Ziser

I spent the last week traveling with David Ziser's Digital WakeUp Call tour as he goes around the country sharing his tips for great photography and his insights on being a successful photographer.

I had the opportunity to meet a lot photographers in Columbus Ohio, Pittsburg PA, Cleveland OH and Buffalo NY. I will be joining the tour again when it comes to LA and Orange county in a couple of weeks.

One of the many things I love about being a wedding photographer is the chance to meet some wonderful people. If you are a photographer wanting to take your business to the next level, then I would recommend going to one of these seminars.


David Ziser, his wife LaDawn and of course me.....

Graduation Party in Modjeska Canyon

Last weekend we celebrated the graduation of our friends Brett & Autumn. The party was at Autumn's grandmother's house in Modjeska Canyon. It was so amazing how it doesn't feel like Orange County out there. Autumn graduated from Chapman and Brett from Cal State Fullerton. They will be moving to Dominica where Brett will be going to Med School.

We will really miss you guys.