Listen to the song below while reading this. You won’t regret it.

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Last month, I visited LA for the Ryan Brenizer workshop (photos from which can be found slightly earlier in my blog). On my Sunday, I had a chance to meet a friend who I’ve known for about 10 years online and never met in person, the amazing musician Ainjel Emme. She’s super sweet in person and adorable too. She’s been working her butt off lately at a recording studio in Santa Monica and had just spent all day and most of the night in the studio the previous day, but she got out of bed before noon to hang out with me.

It was pouring rain all day, unfortunately for the marathon runners including two women from Victoria who I met at the airport when our plane was delayed. So, we didn’t get to go to the beach, and I’m definitely going to have to go back one day to do that. Ainjel took me out to Swingers for breakfast and then we went in to the studio to see what was happening. We ended up sticking around all day while engineer Todd and Ainjel worked on a mix for a song that she’d written for someone else. I played around with my camera, taking photos of the studio and Ainjel, and just enjoying the tunes and being able to see what working in a studio is like. We headed out for a Fat Burger and movie later, then came back to the studio where I crashed on the couch a bit while the musical geniuses worked their magic all through the night. Then it was off to the airport to catch my flight home, far too early in the morning.

Here are some of my photos from around the studio. Check out one of my favourite songs by Ainjel, “In the Clear”, in the player above or check out her website.

I took this in the dark with my ipad as a light source.

I’m a little late on posting these as I’ve been preoccupied with album design lately. Two weeks ago, I spent 5 days in Las Vegas for the Wedding and Portrait Photographers International (WPPI) conference at the MGM Grand Hotel. I stayed at the hotel, walked around the tradeshow for countless hours, spent a whole night dancing and then went to a sunrise concert, and met a ton of amazing photographers. However, I didn’t manage to take my camera out of my bag very often. I took a few photos, but mostly I was caught up in the experience of it all.

On Monday night, there was a big dance party that everyone headed to in their finest clothes. We got our photos taken at the Smilebooth (for the record, I may be the worst photobooth poser in the world). My tiny top hat made by Mischief My Dear (check out her shop to get the cutest rainbow starred top hat) was a huge hit with everyone.

At 5:30am that morning, Krista and I got on a bus that took us out into the middle of the desert for a sunrise concert put on by With Etiquette (a place to get great royalty-free songs for wedding slideshows).  Below is a video made by the amazing wedding videographers Still Motion about the concert, followed by a couple of my photos from the morning.

On our last night, we finally took a wander down the strip to check out the fountain show at the Bellagio, which is a very fancy hotel.  We also saw the chocolate fountain inside, which a room service man at the MGM made me pinky swear that we’d see.  Here are a few of my photos from that night.

Maybe next time, I’ll take more photos when I’m not so distracted by all the new and sparkly lights.

I thought I’d revisit one of my favourite photos I’ve ever taken, even if it was taken with my old Digital Rebel and kit lens, re-edited tonight. Whenever I hear Irish music, I always think of the month I spent in Ireland last April. It makes me wish I could go back. I can’t even watch the movie Once because it makes me miss Dublin too much, even though it’s a beautiful movie with gorgeous music.

This photo was taken at the Cliffs of Moher on the west coast of Ireland, which reminds me a lot of the west coast of Canada – rainy, windy, and cloudy, but beautiful. The beaches are similar to our rocky beaches on Vancouver Island, but the grass is much, much greener. I think my dream wedding would be at O’Brien’s Tower (information on booking your wedding here) at the Cliffs of Moher, maybe an elopement with an awesome reception back home after.

I would love to photograph a wedding in Ireland, especially at the Cliffs, but anywhere really. Contact me for no travel fees on my full day wedding photography package if you’re getting married at the cliffs, or in Ireland in general.