Rochelle and Travis… where do I start. I met Rochelle about 15 years ago, she was a bible study my Mom lead at our house, which I believe was called G4G or girlies for God… which is so horrifically cheesy that I’m ashamed to be apart of this family! (Just kidding Mom, love ya). Any way, Rochelle was a “girly” (girlie?) and we stayed friends pretty consistently from that point on.

Rochelle would occasionally call me, wanting advice on what to do about this and that, or she would just need to talk about some boy that was causing her trouble… but then there was Travis, there wasn’t anything but good flowing in from Rochelle about Travis. In fact she talked about how great this guy was A LOT, so it came as no shock to me when I found out they were getting hitched! Lucky for me, I got the calls like I usually do, but now she needed help with all the “creative stuff” for her wedding.

Her wedding was photographed at the beautiful and popular venue, my favorite local venue, Koetsier Ranch. The wedding highlight video was shot by us (see below), and the photos were shot in collaboration with Christopher Robb one of Rochelle’s friends from college.

This is one of the first times we focused a lot more heavily  on videography, everything was shot on the amazing little Canon EOS Rebel T2i Digital SLR, the equally fantastic  Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 ZE Planar T* , the Canon Telephoto EF 135mm f/2.0L and everything was supported by a Redrock shoulder mount and follow focus rig. Audio was recorded on the Zoom H4n.

Chris and Alisa where a blast to work with, I’m always appreciative of a laid back couple. I’m even more appreciative of brides who wear fun shoes.

There are two things that make this wedding stick out in my mind:

-The first being the new technique we came up with that consists of “Super Clamping” and “Magic Arming” our Nikon D700 camera to the limb on a bush right behind the ceremony and camouflaging it with leaves. We then set the camera off using our Pocket Wizards at the appropriate times throughout the wedding. But the funny thing is, the little ring bearer who was also the son of the groom, heard the camera clicking during the ceremony and walked over to the bush to investigate (see photo below). We will do an entire blog post on this technique soon… Just got to finish editing all my spring weddings that piled up.

-The second thing is something Alisa did during the ceremony. After finishing her vows to Chris, she leaned down and made the same promise to Chris’ little son, which I thought was a very cool gesture and just about cried, I had never seen that done before.

All that being said it was good to be back at Seven Sycamores Ranch again, I’ve had really good luck so far working with that venue in the past.

It was also good to be back taking some good group photos at Goods Goods =)

Good Tuesday to everyone, I’m still up burning the midnight oil to finish up Shelby’s Senior portraits. It was pretty hard for me to pick which ones to share, we took a pretty wide sweeping set of pictures covering lots of styles. She was a very quirky, artistic young lady, and quite a talented photographer herself! You can check out some of her work here and here. Shelby at one point attended Central Valley Christian, but then transferred to Golden West High School, where she is a soon to be graduating senior! My favorite part of her shoot was rolling around in her jeep at sunset, brought back lots of fond memories.

To see the whole set, go here (your going to have to ask her for the password though)

I actually met the Griffin’s while photographing their house for the December 2010 issue of Lifestyle Magazine.

Enjoy!

We won an ADDY!  We won 5 actually. But the most prestigious was for “Moon Goddess” as Lifestyle Magazine called it. The Moon Goddess editorial spread earned us a GOLD! Which automatically entered us into the running for the state wide competition in the same category, where we received a SILVER! I’ll post picture of that when it comes. We are super excited about all this! Thanks for sending us up to Seattle to do that amazing shoot Karen!

Everett Washington commercial photography for the August 2009 issue of Lifestyle Magazine

Visalia native Cindy invited us and the staff of Lifestyle Magazine up to her Puget Sound getaway on Hat Island just a short boat trip away from Everett Washington. Hat Island is only accessible by private boat or ferry and the island has no paved roads or businesses. Zach and I decided to drive to the shoot instead of fly, which allowed us to bring all of our copious gear, and enjoy the scenery on the way. Zach lived in Portland as a kid so he gave me the grand tour on our way through (which we are working out a way behind schedule blog post of that trip now). We then hopped on the boat and went to the island. Once there we worked hard, took tons of photos, BUT then got to go crabbing and kayaking. Not to mention we ate like kings the entire time we were there.

Next we headed back to the mainland and shacked up at the Edgewater Hotel in Seattle (which we stayed at for free, man i love my job sometimes) and met up with my cousin and her hubby for drinks.

Then we drove home, all in one shot, not cool… Silly Zach had a doctors appointment.

Forrest Cavale: Visalia Wedding, Portrait and Commercial Photographer

One Day Without Shoes is the day we spread awareness about the impact a simple pair of shoes can have on a child’s life. On April 8th, 1/4 million people went a day, part of the day or even just a few minutes, barefoot, to experience a life without shoes first-hand, and inspire others at the same time. We set up a photo booth at the 210 Cafe in Visalia to help do our part to share the love. Drop it MODERN© graciously donated a pair of back drops for everyone to play with. Enjoy!

To see all the photos go here!

Don’t forget to tag yourself and your friends! Might as well “Like” our Facebook page while you are there too =)

Forrest Cavale: Visalia Wedding, Portrait and Commercial Photographer

As many of you experienced, we had a storm of seemingly biblical proportions  today in the central valley. I got caught outside and when I finally got back to my car my jeans looked as though I jumped in to a pool. Thankfully my years as a competitive swimmer have taught me to always have a towel in my trunk! I was driving through the country just outside of Sanger when there was a break from the storm and I saw an amazing double rainbow. Here are some quick snaps as I jumped out of my car for a few seconds.

My neighbors daughter was in town yesterday, and she needed some photos for Hazel’s first birthday party invitation. Happy Birthday Hazel! She’s kind of ridiculous cute isn’t she =)

I had a little bunny rabbit bouncy toy rudder banded to my lens, it didn’t take her long to to get a hold of it =)

Forrest Cavale: Visalia Wedding, Portrait and Commercial Photographer

My mates and I ran up to Tahoe for the weekend, had a splendid time, so much so I decided to share it with you!

Whats the matter Tom?! Smell something funny?

We played some card games…

Skipped some rocks…

Climbed some rocks…

Swung on some swings…

Ya’ll should come next time!

Forrest Cavale: Visalia Wedding, Portrait and Commercial Photographer