Jon Claxton | Photography

So, I just got back from another engagement shoot with Bill and Deb.  This time, we were in San Luis Obipso, rather than San Francisco.  Bill and Deb scored a sweet hotel at Avila Village Inn.   I had never been inside the place, but I highly recommend it to folks staying on the Central Coast (www.avilavillageinn.com).  From there we did some drive by shootings at various locations around Avila, Los Osos (almost), and San Luis Obispo.  I was impressed by Deb and Bill’s skills after the first engagement shoot.  This time, they were just flowing from one look to the next, pretty seamlessly.  They made shooting incredibly easy.  Anyway, here is just one of many great photos that I have of them from this afternoon.  

Valentine’s Day 2009 marked the first day of marriage for Vivian and David Zarate.  As a second shooter to Keith Dunlop (www.kdiphoto.com) I had the pleasure of spending most of the pre-ceremony with David (the groom), who couldn’t have been more nervous inside, but remaining cool on the outside.   I thought that the above black and white, couldn’t have said it better, showing David waiting patiently for his bride.  David came through just fine though.  Maybe it was those pre-wedding shots of tequila that helped calm his nerves in the end.

Can there really be a worse idea than having a beginner snowboarder (that’s me), carry his one-week old Canon 5D mark II in his hand while snowboarding?  I really couldn’t think of one at the time, but somehow I managed to not break my neck or my camera while in Kirkwood this last weekend.   Most people would probably opt for a point-and-shoot camera in that situation, but I couldn’t get over my excitement of Canon’s new HD technology in the 5D body.  I saw some footage on Vimeo (http://www.vimeo.com/3155182) of some other guys filming themselves with the new 5D mark II, and the footage looked awesome.  What I failed to recognize at the time, was how experienced those guys were in the video.  My footage looks absolutely boring in comparison.  However, I am in the process of trying to clip some footage together to make it look awesome.  Not sure if this is really even possible, but I’ll post a video when I finally get it done.  In the meantime, here is a self portrait (low res) of Lulu and I with the fisheye on the 5D mark II (my new baby).

Update:  I slapped a short video together last night.  The footage isn’t all that great, but it was fun to put together. www.jonclaxton.com/kirkwood.wmv

(I don’t think that I converted the HD correctly, so it doesn’t do the camera justice.  God, I need a Mac….)

With the trusty aid of my iPhone, I navigated my way through the rainy streets of San Francisco last Sunday to find Deb and Billy in their sweet Glen Canyon neighborhood.  From there, we piled into Billy’s rig for what was to be a really fun engagement shoot in the nearby neighborhoods.  Billy and Deb were up for pretty much everything.  We dodged the public transportation, shadey folks hanging out in the Mission District, and even Mother Nature herself.  I’m looking forward to the shots we get when Billy and Deb come to San Luis Obispo in a couple of weeks.  Hopefully we’ll dodge the rain like we did in SF.

I just spent Saturday shooting a rad wedding at the Presidio in San Francico with Keith Dunlop (www.kdiphoto.com).  It was the first wedding of 2009 for me.  The bride and groom were the kind of people that make the six degrees of seperation actually maybe four or five.  Both Jon and Eliza were old inhabitants of San Luis Obispo, during their undergrad years at Cal Poly.  Eliza is now a biology student at U.C. Santa Cruz and Jon is a mastermind of software.   I feel like my degrees of seperation were reduced when I heard that guests of theirs flew in from all over the world, including Africa!!  Like the guests, the speeches and ceremonies were also laced with culture, with influences from Eliza’s Persian culture and Jon’s Latino background.  Personal fav for the day:  The Mariachi band leading the guests from the chapel to the officers club!!  You can check out the venue at:  www.sanfranciscoweddings.org