DeFalco Photography Blog

Venue: Coronado Marriott
Coordinator: Sharon Cole   
Flowers: Tess Silk Flowers
Linens: A Perfect Table
Cake: Crumbs of Paris     

Beth and Jay were married at the Coronado Marriott on April 25, 2009. They brought friends and family with them from North Carolina to be a part of the wedding. Spending time in Coronado is always a pleasure, and everybody involved with the wedding loved it. We had a sunny, breezy wedding day despite a forecast for drizzle. Yay! The day definitely lived up to everyone’s expecations. The ceremony was beautiful, with a view of the San Diego skyline across the water, and everyone danced like crazy during the reception.

Ellie the Wonder Dog came all the way out for the wedding too. She even walked up the aisle.

 ”Go time”

 
The room looked amazing with the lights, linens and flowers.

The view of downtown San Diego from the Coronado Marriott at night made for the perfect parting shots.

When I blog about weddings,  I always like to share a few details about each one, along with a handful of images, but I don’t usually talk about what went into making them or how I feel about them. I’ve been looking through images from the recent wedding of Beth and Jay at the Coronado Marriott, and as is usually the case, I’m having the hardest time picking out just one or two bridal images to post. I’d like to share a few of my favorites of Beth and say a few words about why photographing  the “getting ready” is one of my favorite parts of every wedding.

There’s always a certain amount of excitement and tension in the room as the bride gets ready with her girls, because everybody knows that it’s not just a dress fitting, or a rehearsal : today is THE big day. Not very many people get to see a bride the minute her dress is laced up, or when her veil is being secured, or when she holds her own flowers for the first time. There is something very special about watching a bride see herself in the mirror for the first time once she is finally ready. It’s truly an honor for me to be there each time, and it’s a big part of what I love about photographing weddings. 

Speaking as a photographer, my challenge is to find a way to make a beautiful portrait, regardless of the location. The first thing I look for when I show up to any wedding is where the light is coming, and then I figure out where and how I’m going to do the bridal portraits. Once the bride is ready, she usually looks to me to know what to do next, so I have the honor and the privilege of making those first few bridal images, and the day always just gets better and better from there. The first images I look at when I get home are the bridal portraits! I know how much these images mean to the bride, her new husband, and her family. For every girl that grew up thinking about how she’d look someday, as a bride, it’s my goal to create the images that she’ll remember the day with for the rest of her life.

Here are a few of my favorites of Beth just as she finished getting ready at the Coronado Marriott. The rest of the wedding will follow shortly in a new post! 

If you read my earlier post about Staci and Peter, then you know that they were married in a civil ceremony last year before Peter went to Iraq. Peter volunteered to serve in the Marine Corps during a time when it was obvious that going to Iraq was very likely. Staci and Peter wished to have their vows blessed in church once he returned home to Bakersfield safely, and I was fortunate enough to be their photographer.

The blessing itself was short and sweet, and we had plenty of time between the blessing and the reception to shoot in a few spots around Bakersfield. I believe it was Staci’s uncle who provided the Oldsmobile Nintey-Eight for the day, which was so cool! We spent a bit of time downtown and then headed out to the country club where Peter’s family lived for a few shots on the back nine. I think you can tell just by looking what a sweet couple Staci and Peter make. I truly wish them all the best.

This is more of a personal post than I typically write. Everything I usually post here is about the work I am doing, but obviously there is much more to life than just work, and sometimes there’s even more to it than photography! (eeek)

I have traveled around much of the USA and everyone who knows me is aware of my love of Paris. I recently had just enough down-time to make a quick trip somewhere….. I didn’t have to be anywhere or shoot anything for almost two weeks. Paris is great and there’s so much to see and do there that it can be a great get-away, but I was not in the mood to ‘get away’ so much as I was in need of ‘getting in touch.’ I had often thought of making a pilgrimage to one particular ahsram outside of Bangalore, India, in the small city of Puttaparthy. It had been on my mind for over a decade, but I never really felt like it was the right time to go until now. Within a day of having the thought, I applied for an Indian Visa and I bought my plane ticket for the following week. It was a bit nerve wracking waiting for the Visa to come, since without it, my non-refundable ticket would be worthless. Luckily it came in six days…one day before I left. 

I chose the most efficient route, which was from LAX to London, then straight on to Bangalore, India. Because the layover in London was only two hours, it worked out to almost 24 hours of travel time to India, covering 10,500 miles. I made the same journey in reverse on the way home. I didn’t end up sitting next to another person on any of my flights, and the general rule in the ashram is silence. For me, this meant that from the time I got on the first plane, to the time I got home, I had very little conversation. Try going for 7 days without talking sometime! It turned out to be a valuable experience for me.

In any case, photography in the ashram itself is prohibited, but I did bring one camera body and lens to grab a few shots during my last afternoon in India, outside the ashram. Over the whole trip, I shot less than 75 frames, so this was definitely a trip about looking within much more than my usual looking through a viewfinder. Even on the other side of the planet, I found myself having many of the same thoughts and preoccupations that I had before I left, which goes to prove the title of this post! 

I love the quality of light…leaving L.A., just turning back to the coast after take off. 

As the sun goes down over the Pacific (above), it’s coming up in India on the other side of the world.(below)

This is the public gate to the Ashram, known as the Ganesha Gate because of the shrine just inside. 

Looking to the right: 

If you stand just outside the Ganesha Gate and look across the street, this is what you see:  

The ashram has it’s own dairy full of cows. At the entrance, you will see this statue of Sri Krishna.

My only picture of myself in India..shot from the back of a rickshaw scooter. 

On the rickshaw tour, I visited the specialty hospital near the ashram, where all services, including surgery, is performed at no cost to the patient. Even if I had a major procedure there, I would not recieve a bill.  

The entrance to a temple

My favorite number..a classroom in a very rural school outside of town. 

I saw the monkeys around the ashram quite often, so I was happy this one happened to be on the ashram wall as I passed by. Aside from all the bats hanging up in the trees, the monkeys were the most interesting to watch! 

This is the other gate to the ashram known as the Canteen Gate. I asked for permission to take a photograph and it was kindly granted.

Late Winter and early Spring are always really busy with engagement sessions. My wedding season is about to hit full swing this weekend with the wedding of Beth and John at the Coronado Marriott. They are coming in from North Carolina for the wedding and from what I can see, their guests are really in for a treat! We met down in Coronado as they finalized their menu and other details, so we took the opportunity to take a quick walk and grab a few shots. 

I’ll  be photographing the wedding of Erin and Mike this July at the  Bali Hai in San Diego. We met at Torrey Pines State Park a couple of weeks ago for their engagement session. Even though I was born and raised in San Diego ( and I even went to Torrey Pines H.S. for a year ) I had never actually been into the park before! I’m glad we went…it’s beautiful!

  Incidentaly, this is where Mike popped the question…      

Coming up in May will be the wedding of Christine and Mike at the Torrey Pines Hilton. We met early this year at Windansea Beach in La Jolla. 

Each of the weddings I mentioned above are being coordinated by Sharon Cole  , and I appreciate that she has brought these clients to me! The season is really about to get going, so I’m looking forward to sharing new work again soon. 

I met up with Staci and Peter in Downtown Bakersfield recently for an ‘engagment session.’ I put it in quotes because Staci and Peter actually did get married in a civil ceremony, shortly before Peter deployed for Iraq over a year ago.  Staci and Peter also brought along their dog Chesty…he’s the coolest dog EVAH! Thankfully they also brought treats, which really helped when we needed to pose him!

 
 
Chesty!!! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Kara and Rusty were married at the Sacred Heart Church in Ocean Beach,  and aftwerwards they treated their guests to a four hour cruise aboard the Hornblower “High Spirits” for their reception. It made for a long schedule, between getting ready at the hotel, the wedding itself, hitting sunset clifffs after the wedding, and finally, the cruise. It went by really fast!  

All of Rusty’s 9 siblings were there ( Yes, NINE ) along with a bunch of family and friends from both sides. Rusty’s family is local, as Russ Sr. has been a family dentist here in San Diego for decades. Kara hails from further north in California.    

Everybody was checking the program before the ceremony…”Who goes first?” 

The Ceremony went perfectly!  

On the way to the reception cruise, we stopped off at Sunset Cliffs for more group shots and a few more of Kara and Rusty.

The recpetion was a real treat for everybody. I’ve shot on the High Spirits before and it’s always been a real pleasure. Even though so many of us live in San Diego, it’s surprising how many people never get out on the bay!  

  I

always like to close the night with a parting shot, and here is Kara and Rusty’s. We took a few extra minutes to light them up at the end of Broadway for a cool goodnight shot. : ) 

Way back when….like, waaaay back when, I was given a camera by my grandmother. It was an old medium-format body with two lenses that she’d bought sometime in the early 1970’s when she was taking photography classes. This camera was basically a box with a lens on it, and an eyepiece on top that you looked down into to see the focusing screen. There were no batteries, no light meters, no auto focus, etc.  I am a self-taught photographer, and that is what I learned with. I had a little ‘Luna-Pro’ light meter that I used to measure light with, and after a while I developed a feel for how to get a good exposure.

I settled in Athens, GA at the end of 1992, having driven across the country by myself to see what it would be like to live outside my native San Diego. Part of why I chose Athens was the music scene, because it was a college town and home to REM, which was one of my favorites bands at the time. I was able to bring my camera into the 40 Watt club a few times, and I just came across the negatives from one of those nights just last week (they were in a shoebox). I scanned a few just to share here for fun, because it was the night the 40 Watt hosted a long line up of bands for a charity show. Michael Stipe of REM sang a short set with local songwriter/singer Vic Chesnut. Today is Michael Stipe’s birthday, so I though it would be a fun to share a few images.  Here are a couple of frames, scanned from the negatives: 

When it came to shooting in low light, I really didn’t know what I was doing back then. I had a Vivitar 283 flash on a bracket, ISO 400 film, and I just flashed the bejeesus out everything I shot. I cringe now, thinking of the flashes I put a few audienes through! Well, times have changed, and now I can shoot at crazy high film speeds with super expensive wide-aperture lenses and forego flash all together…so I haven’t popped a flash in a music venue for years.  

It has been over a year since the last time I photographed Bella and her family, and I’m pleased to say that everybody is doing really well. Bella’s personality just grows and grows along with her, she’s such a character. I was really happy to be able to spend a few minutes doing some back yard portraits with her around the Thanksgiving holiday.  Kids are so much fun to photograph, especially when they are into it too.  

This first one was a special request by Bella after eating a brownie : “Got Milk?” 

Okay, we did manage to get Mom in there for a few!

The last time I saw Michelle and Eric, we were shooting their engagement portraits at Disneyland. You might recognize them from the blog, or their images on the my main site. I travelled to Los Angeles for the wedding at the Park Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles in October.

The Park Plaza Hotel hasn’t really been open for business for decades, but becase it’s such a cool building and so wonderfully preserved, it’s very popular as a set for the motion picture industry. It’s really something to have a building like this all to yourself for a wedding! Michelle  and Eric put together a very special evening for everybody with a great mix of nostalgia, history, and promise for the future all at once. 

All the tables were named after films that used the Park Plaza Hotel as a set! 

Michelle and Eric surprised everybody with their dance. They had rehearsed it for weeks and it was definitely worth it. Everybody loved the dance and they looked so great out there, using up the whole floor from corner to corner. 

It was dark outside by the time the ceremony was over, so we took a few minutes to go outside and shoot around the lobby while everybody was dancing the night away.