I first heard Mary speak at WPPI last year at a panel on the trade show floor.  I sat in the audience and was taken by her talent and honesty.  Last week I had the opportunity to attend Justin and Mary's Walk Through a Wedding workshop in San Francisco.  

And that's exactly what we did.  

We went through every stage of the wedding from the getting ready, to the wedding at the beautiful St. Marks church in the city, to the reception at the ultra cool (I wanted to say "jazzy" but there has to be a better word that doesn't make me sound like i'm 87!) speakeasy of Bourbon and Branch.  The theme was a 1940's inspired "Boxcars and Bugle Boys" and our models were the lovely Elizabeth and Ryan.  Justin, with his technical savvy, and Mary, with her calm spirit, were dropping knowledge at every stage of the day.  They freely gave of their experience and expertise.  They are talented photographers as well as gifted teachers.  If you get the chance to go.  Do it.  Seriously.  My girl Rupa told me to do it and I'm passing on the good word.  

For me one of the beautiful things about photography is that there is always more to learn and for me it is an ever evolving art.  I learned so much that day that I have already begun to incorporate with my wedding clients.  I also got to meet a group of talented photographers which is always double bonus time.  Thank you to Justin and Mary for the super fab day!  I thank you and so do my clients.  

I took and developed this picture of my beautiful mom when I was 15 years old.  I was taking my first high school photography course.  It was here that I got my first introduction to photography basics.  Digital cameras for the average consumer were years away so I shot everything on film with my mom's Nikon FM 35mm from the late 1970s.  I kept many of my favorite images from my time in this class and love looking back at the images I wanted to capture.  It was one of my favorite classes and I'm thankful to have been given the exposure to the craft.

Recently I have wanted to get back to shooting film for some personal projects.  I needed a little kick start and found just what I needed when I purchased the Find Guide by the talented Jonathan Canlas.  I highly recommend it for anyone interested in shooting film.  In a word the guide is RAD.  Full of grade A knowledge and inspiration this book has me back into the film world as an intrigued and excited hobbyist.  Here are a few images I recently shot on my Canon EOS 3 on Kodak Portra 400.  In addition to the Nikon that I still use I also picked up a Bronica medium format camera that I'm excited to start experimenting with.  

For now I'm thrilled to be learning something new through practice and lots of trial and error.  I love the simplicity of film in the way that it looks.  I'm looking forward to sharing more images in the future.