Yo yo yo yo!

Well, the results are in and you guys voted to make Sipper Photography one of the Top 5 wedding photographers in Orange County for ’09 on the FoxLA website! How cool is that?

It woulda been great to win, but, seeing as how a year ago, we weren’t even on the map, it’s pretty exciting for us!  We couldn’t have done it without the help and support of all of our friends, and clients over the past year.  It really amazes me how far we’ve come in such a short time!  Seems funny to say that, since Dana and I have been together almost 10 years, and have shot together for nearly that long.  It was only about a year ago, we finally got everything together, and really went full bore into doing what we really love to do!
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As usual, it seems, we’ve been pretty busy!  Last weekend we spent Saturday up in Santa Ynez, hitting some wineries and meeting new people.  Sunday we had a great photo shoot at the beach, where it just happened to be about 80 degrees and perfect!  Sunday night we had dinner with our friends Kerry and David of CameraDojo.com, and their wives at Daimon’s Teppan Yaki in Huntington Beach.  It was a great time, and cemented the idea for me that if this photo thing goes south, I would love to be a Teppan Chef!  That just looks like a fun gig to have!
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This weekend, we are, once again, hitting the road and heading out to see Dana’s family in Arizona.  Should be a good time, we have 3 photoshoots scheduled on Saturday, and the rest of the time, just hanging out with the family.  It’s a nice time of year out there now… not too hot, yet!  And, it’s not cutting into my May-October Blackout Months, so it’s all good!

If any of my peepz in the AZ wanna hookup, gimme a shout-out… we’ll set something up!

See ya later !

J+D

Hey kids!

It seems it’s been a few weeks since the last installment of the Weekly Wednesday post, or as Dana likes to call it, “Jeff’s rant about something post”!  We’ve been pretty busy and had a few, much more interesting things to post up, so the Weekly posts have slipped away a bit.

So, like I’ve said, we’ve been fairly busy.  Between shoots, and appointments, and seeing friends, our calendar has been pretty full.  This past weekend brought us dinner with our friends, Kerry and Karen, a photoshoot with the Andersen family, and their newest edition, Josie, dinner with my cousin, Kristen, and her friend Kristen, and we shot some Gift baskets on Sunday.  All the while, both of us were dealing with a bit of head cold all week.

It’s a good thing we love what we do, I mean, really… how could we not?  We get to make friends with amazing people, and we make pictures people love.  I could thing of waaaay worse ways to spend our days! 🙂

This weekend seems to be more of the same, with a photoshoot for a Charity we are working with up in LA, and a bridal show at the OC Mining Co on Sunday evening.  If you are in the neighborhood, you should swing by, and say HI.  I think it is a $5 fee to get in, but they have food, and you might win a free engagement session with us!

I might even try and sneak a bike ride in this weekend with OCRR!
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Speaking of bike rides, I love the time change.  It’s giving me a chance to get out a couple times a week to ride after work with my bike club.  So far this year I have more miles than I had ALL of last year.  Last year was a really off year for me.  Just by looking at the numbers, I can tell where the extra 10 lbs. I’m carrying came from!  They should belt away pretty quick, once I get longer and longer rides in!
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For those of you in the Chandler/Mesa/Tempe Area of Arizona, Dana and I will be out there April 10-11.  We have a few shoots setup, but might be able to squeeze you in!  Also, for any photographers around there, if you wanna meet up for Drinks and to talk shop, hit us up… our schedule at night is reasonably free! 🙂
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Well, that should just about wrap up what’s happening in our neck of the woods.  Just keeping busy, living the dream! 🙂

J+D

Hola Amigos!

It’s been a little while since we’ve posted a catch up post.  We’ve kinda been all over since last Friday.  Here’s how it went down…

Last Friday we took off to Palm Springs so that I could ride in the Tour de Palm Springs.  It was a bit more challenging than I thought… that, or I’m in a little worse shape then I thought!  Either way, we scored great weather, in between storms.  It was about 40 degrees when I took off on what ended up being a 65 mile ride.  I had planned on riding 100 miles, but was having some knee issues, and at mile 35, they had a bailout route to shorten the course up a bit.  I took this route, and had a great time!  The people that put on the ride, and all the people that volunteer did an amazing job.  The rest stops were fully stocked with great food, and everyone seemed to be having a good time!  While we were there, I did run into a couple people I talk to over on Twitter.  Black Bottoms Cyclewear, and MotorTabs.  I can’t say enough good things about both companies!  Great products from both, and I dunno if I would have enjoyed my ride as much without the killer fleece vest, and the amazingly delicious MotorTabs drink!
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We dodged the bad weather, once again, as we drove out to Fabulous Las Vegas on Sunday morning for the WPPI.  Dana used her lead foot, and we got out there in a little over 3 hours!  The WPPI is the Wedding and Portrait photographers convention that takes place every year, and lemme tell you… it is AMAZING how many people show up for it.  All the big name shooters in our industry were out there along with people from all over the world to check out the tradeshow, and all the latest and greatest in the world of wedding photography.  I had just as much fun pointing out the big name guys as Dana had playing roulette!

When we arrived on Sunday, we met up with our friends Kylee and Franjo, who are getting married later this year, and wanted to get some engagement pictures.  They decided to go all out, Franjo rented a bad ass James Bond style tux, and Kylee had a killer Calvin Klein dress on.  Lemme tell you… their pics look super HOT!  We’re working on them now, and will probably have a blog up early next week.  Stay tuned!

Even better, during the shoot, our friends Kerry and David from CameraDojo came out and videotaped the whole shoot for fun!  I’m hoping they got some good stuff, as it’s always fun to see how we look when we work!  I think they are heading back from Vegas today, so we’ll talk to them later on to see what they got.  They run a great website, and podcast with TONS of information for photographers of every level.
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We saw so many vendors and people we knew, either in real life, or online while we were out there.  Finally nailed down an album company for our higher end albums, and found a couple great printers to work with.  It’s so nice to work with great people, and great companies!  It really makes me happy to be doing what we are doing!
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This weekend looks to be a little more laid back, but with a boudoir shoot on Sunday!  Can’t wait for that, it should be lots of fun!

J+D

Hola Amigos!

What’s happening out there?  It seems we’ve been slacking a bit with the Weekly Wednesday posts recently, and that needs to change! We’ve been crazy busy, meeting new people, taking great pictures, and generally, BUSY!  Busy is GOOD, right?  At least we’ve dropped some great picture posts lately!
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So, for those of you on Facebook (and face it, who ISN’T on Facebook anymore… even my mom is!) what do ya’ll think of the “25 things” posts that have been going on lately?  I, for one, can’t seem to pull myself away from reading all of them.  Even people on my Friend’s list that I’m not super close to.  I get to find out all sorts of new things about them!

Even better than playing MyFarm!
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So, other than being super busy, I’ve been getting back on my bike, and riding pretty well.  Rode a 43 mile ride with about 2200 feet of climbing last Sunday.  I thought it was going to kick my butt, but I felt pretty good afterwards!  I have the Tour de Palm Springs next Saturday… 100 miles, and not a ton of climbing.  It should be a fun ride.  A little bummed that my buddy, Tony, isn’t going to be riding with me this time.  Tweaked his shoulder helping a woman change a tire.  Next year!
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And speaking of Sunday… did you watch the Superbowl?  Looks like my Pittsburgh Steelers squeaked it out, and beat that other team from AZ.  Being a lifelong Steelers fan, it’s always nice to see them win!
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So, another cool thing happened this week.  Over at CameraDojo.com, our friend Kerry, who hosts the weekly podcast gave us a little shoutout in an interview about using video with Vu Bui, of the Bui Bros.  He mentioned our video that we posted about a month ago, and how it could be used as an example to show clients how we work.  Of course, he made fun of my mad video skills, or lack thereof.  No worries… Kerry is a cool guy, and, along with David Esquire, put on an educational, and entertaining Podcast.  Great for photographers on any skill level! 🙂
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Geez, Jeff can just go on for days, can’t he? Love ya babe, but the wifey is here to put her two cents in! Well, I am sneaking in on this post to share with you a wedding vendor in which I met with a few weeks ago…busy meeting new people as Jeff said and an awesome person at that. I had the pleasure of meeting Rebecca Calagna of Rebecca Calagna Events, she specializes in Event Planning & Custom Party Designs. Rebecca and I chatted over lunch at Panera Bread about our two businesses and our personalities just meshed so well. She is totally talented and can help you with your wedding or special event in all facets including custom invitations & favors and such. All around Rebecca is a great girl, with a great style and I hope our two styles collide a lot in the next years as we work together.

Well, I think that is all for J+D this week! Happy Hump Day to you all!