Angie & Rob were married at the Vellano Country Club in Chino Hills.  Matt and I were subbing for Happy Photos.

“Change, like sunshine, can be a friend or a foe, a blessing or a curse, a dawn or a dusk.” (William Arthur Ward)

A promotional photo I took for the band Opus Dai is now being seen worldwide!  …And by “worldwide,” I mean Japan (heh heh).  The following is a promotional poster for the band’s Japan tour with my photo on the far right:

A pre-poster-ized version of the picture:

Harvey & Harvey, father and son

This family is so fun it should be illegal.

Veronica & Jessica, mother and daughter

Jessica is a stellar professional makeup artist, but I think her secret to eternally youthful looks is how much she laughs.

See?  Illegal.

••This entry was cross-posted here automatically from Molly's Official blog, located here: http://www.luminaireimages.com/blog••

Many thanks to Jason Meyer for inviting me to help him photograph this brilliantly-colored wedding. Here are a few of my favorites from the bridal room prior to the ceremony:

The Orange County Humane Society is up to their ears in bunnies!  I can personally testify that once you realize they are NOT like cats or dogs, rabbits make for excellent pets; they are quiet, low-maintenance (compared to a dog), and excellent for folks living in apartments or other small living quarters.  Do your research, however—rabbits need space to run and rooms with open cables and wires need to be bunnyproofed!

It’s funny how us Southern Californians (who live in what is technically a desert) welcome the winter rain like how people everywhere else welcome the summer sun.

Not that most of my regular readers care about this, but I figured out how to get rid of Carbonite completely from my computer…all by myself, I might add.  Instead of signing up for posting privileges in forums I never frequent, I’m just going to post what I did here and with any luck someone searching the web for this solution will find it via Google.

So. Carbonite is still relatively new for Mac users and I downloaded the software for a trial run, and decided I didn’t want it.  IF ONLY uninstalling it were as easy as right-click-delete like how it is for other apps.

After following Carbonite’s own instructions on uninstalling it, I saw that the icon was still appearing in my navigation bar, a dialogue box for the service still popped up when I tried to restart, and Carbonite’s data-daemons or whatever they were were still appearing in my activity monitor. SO annoying!

(The little “lock” icon is Carbonite’s)

After looking through forums that described solutions that didn’t apply to me (possibly because I’m running Snow Leopard which at the time of this writing is still pretty new), I went back to ActivityMonitor [Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor, and make sure "All Processes" is selected] and noticed that while some of the applications were running under my user name, others–including Carbonite’s shiz—were running under “root.”  No wonder I couldn’t seem to get rid of it.

So I enabled the root user for my computer and logged in.  Once in the root account, I went to my main hard drive (”Macintosh HD”) and looked into both the “System” and the “Library” folders. LO AND BEHOLD, despite zero traces of Carbonite in my regular user account, the program still had a full folder in the Library here in the root account!  I threw it in the Trash, opened ActivityMonitor (again, I am in the root account) and quit the Daemons that were running.  Once they were quit, I was able to empty the trash and that troublesome app is gone for good!

I should add that I am not a programmer or hacker.  I merely have a spotty, Google-educated handle on all things programmerly and I’m probably not the best person to answer questions regarding anything besides what is exactly (and I mean EXACTLY) in this tutorial.  Good luck!

YES!  Time for more furry faces from the OC Humane Society!

Mia has an adorable snaggletooth!

Tooti and her luminous eyes

The Humane Society has an unusual number of rabbits right now, likely due to bunnies bought as babies during the Easter season and promptly dumped during the summer as they grew bigger and their owners lost interest.  Look at those curious ears!

Poor Chloe II hates living in a noisy, scary shelter!

The OC Humane Society staff tells me that sadly, cats and rabbits with black coats are generally not as popular as their lighter-colored cousins :\

Dylin’s picture makes me laugh. Sitting so pretty and so eager for a photo!

Costello the kitten

Pola and his heart-melting eyes

Sweet “Cherry”

“OJ” has the same markings as my cat. So pretty!

Hannah. Doesn’t she have a rockin’ hairdo?

Matt & I photographed Andrea & Zach’s wedding in April; when Andrea & I first began discussing her proposed trash-the-dress session, she initially requested that it include her new puppy, Sugar the papillion. The irony here is getting the dog washed means getting the dress dirty, OH YEAH!

( more soapy doggy goodness )

This week I had the pleasure of photographing fitness and nutrition experts Toneka and Linda of BWell Fitness. These ladies have summer bods year-round, and are brimming with pro advice on how to slim down and shape up without drastically altering your diet or lifestyle.  While other personal trainers act as support for an hour or so while they work out with you, Linda and Toneka focus on how you can maintain a healthy body 24/7, regardless whether they are there or not, or whether you’re working out or just doing your normal thing!

The ever-cheery Linda

And the stunning Toneka

At Muscle Beach in Venice, CA

Toneka = skillz

What a couple of sweeties!  Be sure to check out their blog for current and future contests and giveaways, particularly for brides looking to get in shape before their wedding day!

Will Hoffman’s video “16: Moments” illustrates what attracts so many people to photography, I think. It’s absolutely beautiful:

I advise watching only if you can spare five minutes to watch uninterrupted.

A special thanks to Nancy for inviting us to participate, it was fun (and yummy!)

Silvia Soler does her thang

Our booth

Mars Resendiz gets face time!

The best….my parking spot!!

Received yesterday from Joseph Wong, Margaret Wong, and Srinivas Panguluri, Founders of Project Wedding:

“Congratulations! You have received a perfect 5-star rating on Project Wedding! Your clients love the impeccable quality and service that you provide, and we are excited to award you with this elite distinction…testament to your talent and professionalism.”

My thanks to my client Chrys for her glowing review!  Check out Chrys’ interior design company here!

“Pound Song” from Lady & the Tramp

Summer’s here and so are more friendly faces from the Orange County Humane Society shelter, just a block up Newland from the beach!  The Humane Society is now also showcasing some of their dogs, cats, and rabbits at the Strand on 5th and PCH during the Huntington Beach Tuesday night street fair every week.  Check them out!

Bobby begs, “Please, pick me!”

I keep wanting to quote Jon Stewart and present this photo by saying, “Here it is, your Moment of Zen,” except it’s more a Moment of Joy, really.

That cake was delicious. Shout-the-heck-out to King’s Hawaiian Bakery for producing some heavenly chocolate chiffon.

Last week Matt & I drove to Vegas to celebrate with my good friend Nickell as she married her man Angel.  Nickell and I go WAY back, there was no way I was gonna miss it!  We had some fun too—normally when we’re in Vegas it’s during the mega photography event WPPI, so it was nice to relax, hang out in loose casual clothing, enjoy the humid heat and thunderstorms, and generally be Vegas tourists.

Our hotel room on the 28th floor had a great view, especially during the lightning storm.  Can you guess which hotel we stayed in?

Nickell shows off the goods. When we first met as freshmen in college, I made a snide remark about the week-long freshmen orientation in front of her. Her response was, “Ah, sarcasm. How I’ve missed it during all these stupid ‘ice-breaking’ events.” I knew then we’d be friends for LIFE, haha!

Nickell & Angel…happeh day!

Matt bathed in the glow of glorious Vegaslight.

Pretty much how it is!

••This entry was cross-posted here automatically from Molly's Official blog, located here: http://www.luminaireimages.com/blog••

Why walk down the aisle when you can DANCE??  In this video, the bridal processional is as lighthearted and choreographed as a grand entrance, and turns out to be a huge treat for the guests.  Kudos to this couple for their originality, and kudos to their bridal party for throwing their inhibitions out the door and going along with it!!

I can only imagine what kind of dance party the reception must have been!