…than with the individuals that mean the world to you? I turned the big 2-5 this past Monday but didn’t really get a chance to celebrate it until last night. This is a post that I’ll look back for the rest of my life and smile everytime, because the photos below are filled with individuals that make up who I am, and have all done something special for me in one way or another throughout my life. Last night was filled with friends back from the old days (Nightingale Middle School and Lincoln High School) to the middle days (Harvey Mudd College), to the very recent days (Raytheon, NBA/Clippers, and photography).

It was wonderful to see many familiar faces from over a decade ago to new ones from just a few months back; relationships that have been formed in all sorts of different yet fascinating, unique, and memorable ways, and how I’m honored and inspired to share a reflection of their amazing characters within myself. Thank you all for coming out and sharing the beautiful evening with me. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to close the first quarter-century of my life and start the next one. I’m truly blessed to have you all in my life.

And now, without further adieu, the lovely people in my life, starting off with two SUPER, SUPER, SUPER awesome couples who I’ve become really good friends with and one of my closest photography buddy; from left to right: Ivette + Joe (getting married next September; congrats guys and thanks for coming out esp. since I know you’re super busy this month and next), Michelle (can’t wait to catch up and work with you again!) and Lisa + Aldous (we met at a Target Starbucks, I love it! Your e-session REALLY helped my business, can’t thank you guys enough for everything).

Chris (my “boss” when I was with the Clippers and Insider info guy heh heh) + Janet, Oliver and Jeff from Mudd, and DJ Konrad (met him at last year’s Clippers Spirit audition and worked with him just last week at this year’s) + Cheryl (NOT Connie! haha):

Vince from Raytheon, who was nice (or maybe crazy?) enough to hire me for his wedding next August in Seattle; he said you’re all invited, j/k! and Tuan, the wedding photographer who gave me my break a year ago, I owe him a ton!

Nick, owner of 3byOne Company; moved from Toledo, OH to Los Angeles late 2007 and already making it big in Hollywood at the age of 21! Big props to you! We really try to push and motivate each other in our respective photography genre. I know he’s going to be a big part of my life for a very long time. Also here with his friend/producer/writer Jarrett:

Two of my closest friends from HMC, Shane (+ Tiffany) and Jeff; still can’t believe we made it out of Mudd in one piece guys! And look at how much we all looooove engineering now :).

Lincoln High, Class of 2001! Mark, Jason, Dieu, Lily, Nancy, and Albert: I’m really glad all of you made it and more so that we got a photo together; oh how seven years fly by so quickly. Just three more until our class reunion!

These crazy kids have become two of my closest friends ever in such a short period of time; Solana, make-up artist extroardinaire, and her husband/my assistant/second shooter/bodyguard/taco run after weddings buddy Miguel! Together we make up the “Dream Team” and are trying to take over the world one wedding at a time :). Seriously, I honestly don’t know what I’d do without these two. Happy belated birthday Solana (7/16) and happy early birthday Miguel (7/28)!

Lastly, and most certainly not least, my wonderful family! They weren’t at my GTG last night but treated me out to my favorite restaurant last Saturday. Mom, dad, Shelly, you’re everything to me and I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for you three (but Shelly still needs to clean her room and feed HER dog!). I love you guys!

Yesterday’s e-session with Allison and Josh was a HOME RUN! and yes, pun-intended. No wait, it was actually a GRAND SLAM! They took my theme/style of “all about you” to a whole new level, by picking three very unique locations that told quite a story of who they are and how they met. We started the afternoon at Allison’s old stomping ground: University of Southern California; then headed to the place where Josh met her, Saddle Ranch at Universal Citywalk (we got pretty specific and re-enacted where AND how they actually met each other for the first time); we ended the wonderful session by shooting at Josh’s childhood dream place: a beautiful baseball field in Santa Clarita. Allison had told me a few months ago that she wanted her e-session to be very unique and personal. I’m going to give her and Josh a huge A+ for doing just that in flying colors :).

I just loved how the “three parts” of the day came together to describe Allison and Josh; we had a place that was very special to Allison (USC) and another to Josh (where he plays baseball). We then brought these two lovebirds together at the place they met (Saddle Ranch) to make this story complete, yet to be continued on their wedding day in November. Thank you Allison and Josh for inviting me into your lives yesterday and sharing the many things that you love about each other. Also, thank you for treating me to some yummy food at Citywalk and giving me a ton of laughs at the baseball field :). I hope you guys make some amazing baseball trading cards with these e-session photos; I can’t wait to see how they look on 11/7! I will have to get a set with your autographs :).

My uber awesome cousin Mary sent me the photos that she took of us from my trip to SF last weekend. In addition to shooting an e-session (please see previous post), I ate a lot of yummy food, climbed rope structure, and mentored Jacob on how to use a DSLR :).

Acting like 10-year olds:

I think this is my first fobby, peace sign photo, along with my Federer-like black shoes and socks:

Mini-me!

Lastly, it’s about time I got myself a point-and-shoot camera! It’s been somewhat of a drag bringing my 5D when hanging out with family and friends, or when the place I’m going to only allows small cameras. Plus, I’ve been meaning to shoot some videos for fun and post them on this blog. Now I can with my new Canon PowerShot SD790 IS!

The Clippers held their final Spirit audition at the Spectrum Club in El Segundo this past evening. Since I was out of town this past weekend, I wasn’t able to make the initial audition on Saturday :(. Unlike last season’s audition, members of the new team were not announced afterwards. The 35 beautiful and talented finalists will have to wait until this Friday to see who makes the 2008-2009 Spirit Dance Team, which will be announced on Clippers.com.

The audition was intense yet fun. It was certainly super awesome to see a few familiar faces from the past two seasons, as well as some new ones that will be be part of the upcoming season’s team :). I’d like to thank the Spirit staff members, especially Audrea, for giving me the opportunity to document this event again. Here are just a few of the several hundred photos I took earlier tonight. Be sure to check the Spirit homepage for more photos and announcement of the new team! I’ll try and update this post with some action shots of the winners this Friday. Until then, enjoy these shots…

We took a few, quick profile shots of every finalist before starting the audition. Note: pardon the really bad, tunsten/fluorscent-cast in some of the images – it’s just nearly impossible to get properly (white) balanced-shots inside the Spectrum gym, and I’m a bit too lazy to fix it in post-production right now :). Want to take a guess on which 16 makes the team?

Some pre-audition warm-ups:

A few big-picture views of what took place inside the gym:

Finally, a few familiar faces from last season :).