Here are a few images we grabbed at Samantha’s 18th birthday party.  I can’t wait for our portrait session with the lovely Samm!

Here is Master Topher and his son Bruce doing a demonstration in Ilustrisimo:

Bruce and Brandon demonstrating:

Master Topher showing me the “fighting form”:



Bruce looks like he’s about to knock his opponent out!

Brandon looks like he’s having way too much fun in the ring:

Brandon gives his opponent some pointers after their sparring match:

And here’s Bruce giving me some pointers during my sparring match.  “Keep those hands up!”
The lovely Catrina Catalano, my opponent that day.  Don’t let the pink gloves fool you, she packs a mean punch!

Since it’s somewhat of a milestone birthday, I suppose I should reflect back on my twenties and welcome a brand new decade of experiences in my life.  I had so many fun, crazy, and memorable experiences the past 10 years.  College blew by so quickly…so many new friends came into my life that have made a huge impact on me…so many amazing learning experiences.  Just as college is about to end, as I’m dragging my feet and delaying its end, I reconnect with Jojo after 3 years of no contact….instantaneously we combust…absolute connection…picked up right where we left off. Suffice it to say, Jojo is my partner, my rock, my motivation, my compass, the balance to my impulsive spontaneity, the logic to my raw emotion, the Vulcan to my Klingon, my equal in mind and soul, my laughter and joy, my light in the dark.  I am not whole without him.  There was do doubt in my mind that he was the one, the one with whom I could envision my entire life’s journey, with all its wonders and hardships. Oops, tangent! Where was I?

Oh, career life is kind of a blur…my life is seriously not about any 9-5 job I’ve ever had…which is why I skip directly to 1 year ago today.  June 17, 2008, the day I turned 29, was the day we officially announced the start of our wedding photography business, Felici Photography. Here’s our very first blog post.  It’s really cool looking back on that statement: “I’m looking forward to June 17, 2009 to see how far we can take this (and to celebrate the big 30)!”  Now that this day is here, and I think about how far we’ve taken this business, I feel overwhelmed with happiness.  We could not be luckier to have the success we’ve had for our first year in wedding photography.  We’ve both worked very hard, and to see the results thus far is amazing.  All I can say at this point, is that I am looking forward to June 17, 2010 to see how much farther we can take this!  LOL!  I have even higher hopes, bigger dreams and expectations, and so much more I want to learn. I can hardly wait!

The four of us drove up to the Colony Palms Hotel in Palm Springs…it was very cute, quiet, and plush.  Several decadent meals and rays of sunshine later, we were back in San Diego feeling revived and refreshed.  I highly recommend that everyone take a day off to just relax and decompress, it really does wonders!  Just for fun, here are a few photos from the weekend.

Champagne brunch at the Purple Palm Restaurant at the Colony Palms Hotel:

Highway 111 on the way back from Palm Springs:

Janice’s dog, Mochi!

I took my friend Mignon to Crystal Pier in Pacific Beach, we met this slovenly fellow:

Hungry as usual, here’s me stuffing my face with paella at Costa Brava in Pacific Beach.  This restaurant, btw, is awesome! Food is delicious, hospitality is wonderful, I felt like I flew to Spain for the night!  Thanks for the photo Mignon!

Spanish dancers…love the attitude in her face and posture:

These feet were stomping so fast:

I highly recommend Costa Brava for a great night out.  So that wraps up my weekend of extreme relaxation.  Now it’s back to working out, eating healthy and in moderation, and editing editing editing!!!  I’ll be back soon with photos of our latest engagements and weddings!

“Trapped In India”

“P”

“Turrets in Front of Me”

“Sky SM”

“Santa Fe”

“Copley Taxi”

“Boathouse Wine”

“Stalks”

“Nurse Nanay”

We are very lucky this last image came out.  This was shot this past Monday evening, just minutes before my Nanay (grandmother) took her last breath.  My grandmother died at the ripe old age of 91 after a long and wonderful life.

I’m excited and freaked out at the same time…I’m actually going to be showing my photography at an art show this Saturday!  Giselle Anguizola, founder of GirlJam California, is hosting an entire weekend that celebrates the role of women and their contribution to early American dance, specifically roots jazz culture.  To compliment this event, she is hosting an evening presentation of the arts at the Sister Lodge in North Park, immediately following Ray at Night (an art festival held every second Saturday of the month in North Park, San Diego).

Giselle has kindly asked me, as a local female photographer, to show some of my photographs.  And I am so proud to do so!  If you happen to be coming out for Ray at Night this Saturday, please stop by and say hi!  Or just come out to the show anyway to see my work, a few other local female artists, and learn lots about women in dance history! Here is the info:

I went to a great show this past Saturday at the Casbah, we saw Eleni Mandell live!  She is an American singer-songwriter based in Los Angeles, California, and she flies pretty low under the commercial radar.  Don’t be fooled, she’s awesome.  Her voice is strong and soulful, and she uses it to draw you into her songs like a tractor beam.

Last week was a bit of a whirlwind, we drove up to Las Vegas and back in 2 days for the WPPI Convention and Trade Show at MGM.  This annual convention is huge for wedding and portrait photographers, I took in so much information in such a short amount of time.  This was our first time attending and I’m glad we went, it was definitely beneficial.  The best part was the WPPI Print Competition, we got to see so many amazing images by the best photographers out there.  I’ll be looking to enter some of my images in future competitions.

And then before that, we went to the US 50km National Race Walking Championships!  My second cousin Rachel Lavallee, 2-time Canadian national champ, walked the 20K and won the women’s division!  Even more exciting, she beat her own personal best!  Our good friend Tim Seaman also walked the 20K and won, he is a 2-time Olympian and holds all the US records in race walking.  He walked alongside his newest prodigy, Trevor Barron, who is expected to blow all of Tim’s records out of the water someday.

Since I rambled on incessantly for this post, I’ll post a few photos from the championships to balance it out.

Here’s Jojo waiting on the sidelines, shooting with his vintage Canon FTb film body:

The 3 champs, walking it out!  From left to right: Trevor Barron, Tim Seaman, Rachel Lavallee.

The 3 champs racing neck and neck!

I don’t know this guy’s name, but I believe he may have won in one of the divisions.  He was giving it everything he had here:

Rachel and Trevor in the lead!  Tim’s off in the background trying to catch up:

And catch up he did!  This guy holds all the US records…of course he can catch up!

By the way, Rachel and Tim make the cutest couple!  Here he is congratulating her after she won the 20K, he’s beaming with pride!

We’ll be back next week with some fun images from this weekend’s wedding!

We also heard from Matt Diaz and his spoken word.  I’m usually not a fan of spoken word, but Matt really found a way to engage and connect with the audience.  His voice, his body language, and his words were piercing and moving.  I’ve heard him speak before this, but tonight it felt like he wasn’t holding back anything!

The night finished off with the extremely talented Joseph Wiggan, rhythm tap dancer from Los Angeles.  He did his thing acapella and mesmerized us all!  Seeing an amazing performance like this, and getting to be within a few feet of the artist, was intense!  I love dance, especially tap, so this was such a treat for me!

Today was a day of appreciation of art in all its forms, I finally got to see Coraline today!  Coraline is a stop motion animated film by Henry Selick, story originally written by Neil Gaiman.  This movie was awesome in every aspect! I’m a huge fan of Neil Gaiman, he wrote the Sandman comic series and many other sci-fi and fantasy books. I’m also a huge fan of the director, Henry Selick.  He also directed the Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach, one of my all-time favorites!  Coraline was such a fantastic work of handmade wonders and imagination gone wild!  I also spent some time on the Coraline website, super cool. Here’s a flower I made:

Now, off to do some packing, we leave for Las Vegas tomorrow morning! We are attending the WPPI (Wedding & Portrait Photographers International) convention and tradeshow and I can’t wait!