I want to introduce to you a good friend of ours... She's the one rockin the Minnie Mouse shirt right in the middle and her name is Nina Villarin. This good friend of many years has embarked on a new journey in her life.  A 4th grade teacher by day in the city of Chino Hills, CA and a youth leader by night, Nina has for longer than we can remember, has been praying about this "thing" in her heart.  This "thing" that somehow got in there was as scary and real as anything she could ever think of but it never went away. So what's this "thing"?!...this "thing" in her heart was a calling to go out and be a Missionary and spread the good news of the Gospel to people in other countries.  How cool is that?! With wanting to be a missionary, especially one out of the country, it is not as easy as you think.  There were so many things to consider (the Bible talks about this as "counting the cost")...I mean why go right?!  A good job, lots of friends and family!  Why would she want to leave all that awesomeness behind?! After years and years of praying, and more praying...God really opened the flood gates and she got accepted to YWAM (Youth on a Mission).  And believe it or not, despite all that awesomeness  we just mentioned, she still followed her calling. For the next six months, Nina will be out in the Mission field serving her first love, God.  We were sad to see her go, but she will be learning a lot and experiencing something greater than anything we can imagine. Nina, we were sad to see you go but glad to know that is what you wanted. If you are still scheduled to come back in December, little John or  little Lauren will be waiting and will be fighting you for floor space.. hehe :) If you want to see what's happening in Nina's life, check out her blog and drop her a little love comment.  Oh and if you totally *heart* what Nina's doing she still needs to raise funds for the time she'll be away...remember she's not getting paid for this! =)  So if you want to some way get in contact with her, shoot me an email at john@johnlauren.com and we'll hook you up. Oh and before I forget, if you missed yesterday's post about our Q&A see below!

PART 1 : Q&A Yesterday we had some awesomeness chatting with a Bride to be and during our conversation like we always do, we dropped the super put you on the spot question..."do you have any questions for us? Well it got me thinking about when we booked Me Ra for our wedding and boy did we have questions!  We ended up on the phone with her for over an hour!  And get this...we've never even seen or met or even spoke before! hahah.  Me Ra actually put a funny post of when we first spoke on her blog...check it out. With that said, I wanted to throw this same question out there for anyone of you that keep up with our life...I mean business (Lauren loves to write about anything and everything!) through our blog.  So if you've got questions like..."how's Lauren feeling?", "what's she look like now?" ask away!  Oh and yeah, if you want to ask some photography questions, you can do that too =) With that let me shift gears and talk about Linda+Dennis Part II, the second part of the today's post. Before we drop engagement slideshowness on you all I couldn't help but give a few more sneak peaks of some of my favorite shots of the day... We found this one green door towards the back of the Observatory that actually was indented from the wall about a foot...we love funky "one off" doorways =) I think if I had to pick any one shot to keep, it would be this one...the sun came in at a perfect spot over their heads and her eyes are almost piercing...add that to a sort of antique look...there you have it, my favorite image of the day. Keeping up with the modern architecture of this part of the Observatory, I took a more modern approach in processing this shot compared to the one above.  Like seriously, you can't go wrong shooting in a semi-empty hallway with glass walls towering 2o feet above you...how sweet is that?! For engagement slideshowness ***Click Here*** Don't forget to leave a comment or questions and we'll try to give you an answer! Happy Tuesday everyone!

Last week we got to hang with Linda+Dennis at the Griffith Park Observatory for their portrait/engagement session...a place that's been frequented by us about as many times as we've climbed Everest, so you can imagine how stoked we were to finally make our way up the hill and peep out the view.  It was definitely hot that day and we ran into a crowded Observatory but we still a blast.  We started the day with a few casual shots... and ended the day rockin something a little more formal... One of the things that we love about Linda+Dennis is that they both come from different cultures...if you couldn't tell by shot above, Linda's Chinese (rockin' the red!) and Dennis is Filipino (rockin' what we call a Barong Tagalog - it's the Filipino version of a formal American suit made of super light weight fabric).  To honor both traditions, Linda+Dennis are going to have this awesome whole day event of a wedding that starts with an all decked out traditional Chinese Tea Ceremony followed by a traditional American ceremony at a near by church.  Is that sick or what?!  It's going to be a sweet day of awesome picture galore that we can't wait to shoot! Here's another one of my favorites that Lauren captured for two reasons...remember the Barong Tagalog?  I love how you can see just how super thinly woven the Barong actually was with all the sunlight in behind him.  Second reason...don't you love how the Linda's ring almost pops out of the picture =)  If you couldn't tell, we love natural light and every time we shoot, we try to use the sun as much as we can!! =) As for the slideshow, it's just about done so don't forget to check back in tomorrow when it goes up!  Think of these shots as a little appetizer! =) Linda+Dennis - you guys rock and we can't wait for your big day!

 Happy Anniversary... Happy Father's Day Almost... June was a busy month for me, but with all this we get to go on vacations, which we love! And I am a little bit late in posting the whole happy birthday post, but I must. For our first wedding anniversary, I always dreamed of going to Japan and eating all the great sushi and seeing all the wonderful sites, but with the babe, there would be no eating of any kind of sushi, so, no trip to Japan, just a trip to good ol' Las Vegas! We did so much walking and that was good for us, but we were so tired. For his Father's Day Almost, we just had a nice family dinner at my parents house and his parents joined along. But for his birthday, we went to San Diego! Not only did we go to San Diego, but we had a lot planned out which made it even better.  We arrived Friday night and ate at Old Town Mexican Cafe in Old Town San Diego. This place is always busy, consistent in how their food tastes, and has the best homemade tortillas ever! Every chance we get, we try to come to this restaurant. If you ever make it down to San Diego, it is a must that you pass  by and even order some tortillas to go! It was getting late, and with the babe, I was so tired we headed straight to the hotel. We stayed at The Bristol Hotel located in Downtown San Diego.

It was a modern boutique style hotel. Our room was so cute, and the bed was so comfortable. We ended the night watching The Boleyn Girl because I read all the books and hadn't watched the movie yet, which by the way, go and read the books, it was so much better. The next day was our funfilled day of fun for John's birthday. Whenever we go on vacations, he has everything planned out with where we are going and what we would be doing . No t is left uncrossed, really! This time, he wanted me to plan everything, talk about pressure! We had breakfast at The Daisy Cafe located in our hotel.

 

Really cute with great kitchen furniture. Had the typical breakfast and we were ready for our days adventure.  Our adventure was not a physically challenging adventure, more like a eating taste testing adventure. More on that later. We first went to Coronado Beach.

We both had never been there, and you have to go! The houses are all so cute and so different, not like our track home! We got so many home ideas that we would like to do to ours. It was really a beautiful little place to be. It made me want to ride my bike, but I'm scared I'll fall and hurt the baby.... John thinks I'm so weird! Next on the list was our Red Velvet Cupcake Taste Test Event. I tried so hard to research so many different places in San Diego to pick one up, but I couldn't find too many places. Cupcakes Squared Inc we tried at the Borrego Springs Wedding. Cute squared organic cupackes so they weren't red, but a way healthier dessert. Since we tried those, we thought, let's put that on the list, but try other we haven't tried. First stop, Influx Cafe. It was the cutest coffee shop I had ever seen. It was like the minimalist feel, good conversations around the room, and cupcakes waiting to be bought.

They had consistant texture, great color, yummy frosting, and topped it off with a strawberry on top. Super cute and homemade.

Next stop, The Daily Scoop. They are known for their homemade ice cream and has these huge cupcakes. They were so huge, we just shared one. These had a more traditional look to them, but were still super yummy.

The last stop was this cafe called Rebecca's Coffee House. I loved the look of this coffee house. It was huge with vintage furniture everywhere. It reminded me of the furniture my mom and dad had at our old house in Montclair, Ca. The smell of all the sandwiches were so yummy! They occasionally have cupcakes there, but we must have gone on an off day, they didn't have any! I was really sad, but ok cause I was actually getting really full from all the food. So, from the two we tried from that day, and the other one from that awesome wedding in the dessert... our favorite was.....

Great service, great cupcakes, great environment. The owner was really nice and took time out of his day to chat with us.  The overall environment was great and I hope they stay in business for a very long time. i plan on coming here every time we stop in to San Diego. The next place was a surprise for Jp. He works really hard and always asks me to massage his back or his knee that had the surgery. I'm not very good and Jp is so good to me, I wanted to suprise him by scheduling a massage at Bella Tosca Spa and Salon. He loved it way more than I had ever imagined! He totally played the part. He wore the flip-flops they provided, wore the robe, took a shower! I wish we had gone there earlier so he could enjoy the spa and sauna, but he didn't. He said he had a great deep tissue massage. Me being prego, I didn't want a massage cause I didn't want to lay on my stomach for that long. I thought I would just be uncomfortable, so I just read magazines and waited for him to finish his experience. I'm glad he had a great time. we definitely need to go back so I can give it a whirl. Last on the list was a BBQ spot I wanted John to try. Part of Top Gun was filmed here and had that old bar feel, but... no air conditioning! It was really hot, but we did it for the experience. Kansas City BBQ is the tiny building right behind the Palm Trees.

This pretty much ended our trip to San Diego, it was a pretty late lunch so we just headed back home. But alright, for those of you who were wondering how big I am now, it's really a fake shot cause John was telling me stick out my belly, but here you go! Totally fake, but I would like the new addition to get used to modeling hehe! But, this is how I look like after a full day of eating! It's crazy

 Happy Birthday husband, I hope you had a lot of fun with us...

When we went to shoot our last wedding, it's safe to say that we weren't sure what exactly was in store for us when we got to Borrego Springs other than we were shooting in the desert! =) But regardless, like all weddings we shoot, we always have to come prepared. Besides all our camera gear, camera bodies, lenses and all, we also bring our lighting gear. So what does that consist of?! Well right now this is what our lighting set up entails: - 2 Nikon SB-25 flashes - 2 10' Avenger Light Stands - 1 60" 60" Umbrella w/ Removable Cover - 3 Pocket Wizard Plus II's - and a 28" Apollo Softbog Again it's nothing fancy smancy but it allows us so far to get the shots we want. So today, I thought it'd be fun to share with you a time that we used OCL or Off Camera Lighting during our last wedding, along with some before and after pics as well as the final shot that I wanted. To make it easy I'll break it down into parts... The Environment: One of the first things we do the day we arrive at the wedding is scope out the diggs of where the Bride is getting ready. In this case, with the sun almost directly over the room, the only place light is really entering the room was through the door. The windows, because of the suns' position at that time, were sitting under shade so...no help there. What was cool about the room, besides the temp, was the fact the the door sat right in the middle of the two windows. The Shot We Want: Being that our best light source was coming through the door, there was no second guessing that that's where the Brides' dress was going... As we waited for all the Bridesmaids to come with their dresses, we start to use the curtain rod as the place to hang all the dresses. There were 8 total dresses, all of which were around the same length. With that said, remember "the situation"? There were two windows on each side of the door so we hang 4 dresses in front of each window. Great right?! Yes and no... Although I liked the way the dresses were positioned against the light coming through the window, there still wasn't enough light coming through. Even at an ISO 800 and my shutter speed at 250th of a sec, it was still too dark. I probably could've just dropped my shutter speed down to say 100th of a second but I didn't want just a brighter shot, I wanted the beautiful yellow dresses to pop! Are you guys still with me so far?! The Challenge: I wanted to get the yellow dresses to "pop" with color and match the illumination of the wedding dress hanging in the doorway. So how do I get more light to shine through the windows?! The Solution: 3 Pocket Wizards (one on my camera, the other two on each of the flashes) and two Nikon flashes sitting on two light stands! With all that said, the solution was fairly simple...let's make our own light shine through the window! We place a light stand behind each window in other words, outside of the room, attach a pocket wizard to each flash and set them all on channel one (same as the PW on my camera as well) so that when I take the shot, both flashes fire simultaneously. This is nearly the same shot as the one above but after a little trial and error... So finally I got the flash to the right setting and distance from the window and here's a shot more along the lines of what I wanted... The Outcome: What's great about this shot that we love is that besides a few minor bumps to contrast, this is how the shot turned out straight the camera! NO PHOTOSHOP NEEDED! =) And lastly, here's the final shot I wanted to achieve from the start, after it was all said and done... Whew! See, that wasn't that hard right?! The secret to all this is the plain old saying "practice makes perfect". Now, by no means have we perfected our craft but the better you know your equipment the easier it'll be to get the shots that you want! Remember there are probably a million and ones way you can use OCL! So let your creative juices flow and give it shot and once you do, we'd love to see and even post your results! Send them to blogit@johnlauren.com. Enjoy your weekend everyone!