One of the things that Sara and I have enjoyed so much about photography is the awesome community of wedding photographers that we’ve had the opportunity to meet.  Whenever we get together with other wedding photographers, we get to not only talk shop, but we get to share friendship and a common bond!  A few weekends ago, I got the chance to visit and talk shop, SEO, and share stories with a few cool folks from around the area when we met up in San Francisco – you should check out their sites when you have a sec!  (Hint…wedding photographers LOVE blog comments, so go over there and show them some love.)

Ashley & Chris from Ashley Summer Photography.  Check out their blog!

Kameron & Lyndsay from Shooting Gallery Phototography.  Check out their blog!

Lawrence Chan from Furious Photographers.  Check out his blog!

Ashley and Chris live in the Bay Area not far from us – and Kameron & Lyndsay are also Bay Area folks (just a little further east and occasionally in SF.)  :) Lawrence will travel the world (as will all of us, right?!) but is based in OC/LA.

So fun having new friends…

Chris

We’ll be sharing some images from our new-and-exciting “THE photobooth” soon.  If you’re an RSS or email subscriber, you’ll need to click the link in the email/window to see the show.   – Chris

So, yesterday I was packing up our gear for an engagement session (that we did last night) and around the corner come the kids.  They never ask us to take their pictures (if we were your parents, would you?!) but for some reason, they saw I had the camera and Luke said, “Daddy – picture!”  

Let me insert this caveat: I’m extremely confident that Sara has never once asked our children to say “CHEESE” when there’s a camera in front of them.  I’ll let her write the post about why that’s a bad idea, though this may be a good primer for it!!  I can’t say that I’ve NEVER said it to them, but I do consciously think about NOT saying it, especially when I’m looking for a good smile.  Because kids saying “cheese” is pretty much a recipe for a cheesy, fake smile.  

For whatever reason, though, as soon as I had the camera in front of my eye, both the kids started saying “cheese” in their own way, and this is what I happened to get out of that 10 second moment:

I happen to LOVE this picture.  Oh, yes –  it’s not well composed, there’s a big fat doorknob in the background, the door opening to the left of the picture is distracting, they both have crazy hair,  Luke has a piece of some kind of food in the lower right corner of his mouth, and the smiles…well, the smiles aren’t “real.”  But I love that Lucy has her arm around Luke.  I love that Luke is trying to show me every single one of his teeth, as though that’s the point of taking a picture.  I love his scrunched up nose and her toothles grin.  It’s really fantastic.

If you’re in for that sort of a moment, go for it – ask ‘em to say “CHEESE!”  See what you get!

Ok – thanks for reading my random post.  I’ll leave the real photo tips up to the master…stay tuned.

Happy Sunday!

Chris

We packed up the car on Wednesday to head to SoCal for a quick family vacation to Disneyland.  Sara’s grandma is turning 80 and we’re here to celebrate her birthday and spend some time at the Happiest Place on Earth. The weather has been incredible and we are having a great time.  Last night we met up with our great friends Rebecca, Brad, and Merrilee – all who drove over an hour to come see us.  We had so much fun with them and they were such good sports while our kids were clearly on hyperdrive.

So, we got a new video camera for ourselves for Christmas and we have to say it’s the coolest thing ever.  It’s called a Flip, and it’s a solid state HD camera (meaning there are no tapes). It records an hour of HD video and has a usb stick that flips out (hence the name “flip”).  Check it out!!

Here’s a quick video we took last night when I took Luke to meet Mickey.  I was juggling my iPhone trying to take a picture of the scene at the same time – sorry if it’s a little jerky. We think it’s pretty cute!

We’ll be back on Monday – until then, have a great weekend!

Luke Meets Mickey from Sara Goetz on Vimeo.

- Chris

We have a lot of work cut out for us in the days ahead – updating the blog, website, and just plain relaxing with family.  This month has been a crazy one in so many ways.  We are looking forward to some downtime with the kids before life commands us to get back to normal in January.  Until then….

Chris & Sara, Lucy & Luke

We are back from the adventure of our kids’ lifetimes to SoCal and back.  We had an amazing time, took too many pictures, and really enjoyed seeing friends, family, and spending time together.  We have so much to share and will be blogging it all soon!  Are you my friend on Facebook or are you following me on Twitter?  Why not?!  Sara is working on getting her Facebook life up and running, but we updated tons of mobile pics from our trip via Facebook on my iPhone – it was really cool to share those pics with family and friends.  I’d love to be your friend! Just search for me – Chris Goetz!  You can look up Sara, too, and add her!  On Twitter I am goetzchris and Sara is saragoetz.

First order of business, though, is to unfortunately share that we’re having difficulty with our website – so, in the meantime, visit our blog or send folks here in lieu of sending them to saragoetzphotography.com if you’re blessing us with referrals!  Nothing like coming back from vacation to surprises, eh?

So – stay tuned as we get unpacked and up and running again and thanks for your patience!

Chris

UPDATE: Our webhosting company has restored our site!  Yay!  Resume normal viewing and referring.

I heard on the radio last week while driving to work that Mother’s Cookies was going bankrupt and was going to shut down their operations IMMEDIATELY. I was in shock. Utter disbelief.  You may be thinking to yourself, “Chris, honestly…they’re just cookies.”  You obviously don’t understand!

The COOKIE PARADE was a fixture in my mother’s pantry for as long as I can remember.  As a kid, one of my favorite things to eat were these cookies – that’s where my love was born.  I’d get the bag off of the top shelf, open it up carefully, and look inside for those cookies.  Oh, you know the ones I’m talking about.  There aren’t that many in the bag, and everyone in your family digs for them, so you’d better get first dibs or you’re out of luck.  I’m talking about this guy, in the middle:

I know, all you Circus Parade lovers out there…you like the ones on the left and right!  I included those in the picture because those are my 2nd favorite (and the favorite of my beloved Mother-In-Law, and….oh, Mom, don’t kill me on this one, but I’m pretty sure they’re your favorite, too!).  Better to know Mom-In-Law’s over Mom’s, right?  After all…they are Mother’s Cookies.  But I DIGRESS!

People, isn’t this SUPER DEPRESSING!?? I mean, I can handle the stock market wavering 500 points in either direction, but for the love of all things good in this world…Mother’s Cookies?  What will I do with myself? This special treat has been a food staple in my family for as long as I can remember!  It’s like RICE.  Like POTATOES.  Like MILK.  I’m NOT kidding.

So, what do I do?

Well, the first thing I did was I told Sara in a serious, yet almost begging voice, “Babe, Mother’s Cookies is going out of business.  Your mission is to BUY AS MANY BAGS AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN.”  Thankfully, I’m not the only one who shares my obsession with these cookies.  So, what did I see when I came home today?

That’s right – 6 bags – apparently on sale somewhere (no, I ain’t tellin’ you where!  are you kidding?!) so she snatched ‘em up. I’ve got a goooooood wife! I can’t decide whether it’s a good idea to eat one per day between now and when they’re all gone or whether I should sneak a bag into the closet and make myself sick by eating them all in one sitting.  I suppose I should be rational about all this, but I’m clearly struggling. I suppose I can learn to share if I must.

So, I leave this post a bit depressed…a bit heartbroken…and wondering what cookies I will have to try next.  I fear that no cookie or assortment (even the name – assortment! – isn’t as fun as PARADE) will ever live up to my expectations.  No way am I eatin’ no Chips Ahoy.  Please!

Consider yourself warned.  If you love these puppies, stock up if your market has ‘em!  And if you know a rich investor who’s looking to cheer this guy up – let ‘em know that Mother’s Cookies is for sale.  You could also mail me a bag and I would love you forever.

Please let me know if you have any news to the contrary! I would be happy to know that this is all just a sick joke.  And I’d love to know if anyone knows any *close* approximations to my above beloved favorites, the chocolate cookie and the pink & whites. Let’s be real – I love the cookies, but I can learn to love a substitute if the real thing is no longer available…

With that, I give the blog back to my wife!

- Chris

Thanks for a great night, you guys!

Chris