Jon Claxton | Photography

Through the power of facebook I met jewelry artist Nikkol Rae Fletcher, who is 1-degree of separation from my friend Nikki Caldwell at Fluid Bloom Designs (www.fluidbloom.com).  Of course, as San Luis Obispo would have it, Nikkol and I end up knowing many other 1-degrees in town.  Anyway, Nikkol shot me a quick message after seeing some recent flower photos that I took for Nikki and she wanted to know if I would be interested in shooting some pics of her jewelry.  Of course, I can’t say that I’ve always dreamt of shooting jewelry, but after meeting up with Nikkol one fine Sunday afternoon, I quickly enjoyed the challenge of setting up a studio and dealing with all the lighting challenges that it brings.  You see, I only had two strobes, an umbrella, a bounce, and a soft box.  The challenge came when I began to notice reflections within Nikkol’s finely polished stones.  So, with thoughts of “MacGyver” dancing through my head, I quickly improvised, using almost half a role of papertowels, a plate of glass and some masking tape to build my product tent, and thus eliminate some nasty reflections from the umbrella, and the ceiling.  Nonetheless, I think everything turned out pretty good.  Not to mention Nikkol and I had a couple great laughs after stepping back and looking at what we created.  Nikkol if your reading this, “Yes, we should have taken a photo of the ridiculousness.”

You can find Nikkol’s jewelry in several stores within San Luis Obispo County, including Hand’s Gallery and many others.  I’ll be sure to re-post Nikkol’s website when it is up and running, but in the meantime, I leave you with my photoshop mosiac to enjoy the beauty of Nikkol’s artwork…..

After a good long week in the desert, I came back to the Fluffy One and realized just how ridiculously shaggy that 84 year old dog was looking.  Before even unpacking my bags and washing up my stinky clothes, I corralled Buckwheat into the kitchen for a shave-down.  In true character, Buckwheat flopped on his side and proceeded to doze off while the trimmers vibrated their way across his rib cages.  The final product wasn’t all time “Best in Show” quality, but then again, Buckwheat isn’t out chasing ladies, so his new hairdo will have to do for now.

Saturday morning, I woke up early and packed up the truck, ready to head up to Big Sur for a little birthday campout for my buddy Brian Cully.  Before heading out of town, I stopped by Mariah Soloy Belt’s house in Los Osos for a little photo shoot of some bridal bouquets that she had prepared for the Central Coast Bridal Fair (www.centralcoastbride.com), which was to take place the following Sunday at the Madonna Expo Center.  As a result waking up a early and drinking two cups of coffee, I somehow ended up at Mariah’s house just a bit too early (45 minutes too early actually…and shaking from caffeine).  Mariah was a good sport, though.  She finished off the last touches on her bouquets and got me all set up in the house for some shots of her latest projects.  This photo above was just one of many beautiful bouquets that Mariah prepared.  If you know a bride (or are a bride) who is looking for some truly beautiful bouquets and other arrangements, you should check out www.mariahfloraldesign.com

Here is a web gallery of Mariah’s arrangments from the day:  www.jonclaxton.com/MariahFloralDesign

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….)

After several months of hard work, John Moule, who lived the life of biologist for several years, has finally transitioned from keying out plants in the Jepson Manual to dumping trash cans full of grain into his new vats at Creekside Brewing Company (www.creeksidebrewing.com).  Last Friday John, and his partner Eric, got ther alchohol license and are now open for business.  So for those of you that are reading this blog from San Luis Obispo County, take your hard earned recession dollars and get yourself to Creekside Brewing Company on Broad Street and enjoy some of John and Eric’s brewski’s.  Look around the place and you might also find these 3 photos hanging up which I had printed locally by proDPI (www.prodpi.com).