San Diego Beauty Portraits | Stephanie

We were given the amazing opportunity to take some beauty portraits with Stephanie. She wanted to take the portraits on location and we decided to take her to one of our favorite locations in North County to shoot. We were back at the Elfin Forest. We didn't just stick to the Elfin Forest for the whole shoot though. There was this location that we had seen in the past that was just off the side of the street that had a lot of tall grass, so we had to go out there to end the session out there. 

We had an amazing time together and the photos turned out amazing. Check out some of the photos here:

San Diego Beauty Portrait Photographers: Ernie & Fiona Photography
Location: Elfin Forest | San Marcos, CA

Follow some of our behind the scenes work on our facebook and on our snapchat. If you are interested in some beauty portraits, we would love to hear from you. Email us and let's talk more. 

Snapchat: @ernieandfiona

365 PORTRAIT CHALLENGE | 2 OF 365 | Sarai and Peanut Butter

We are doing a portrait challenge where we want to take a portrait every day for the next 365 days. We are on day 2 and I already have had my daughter on both the photos from Day 1 and Day 2! I better find some new subjects or this will be a 365 challenge of Sarai. I did take a few photos on the day, but this was still my favorite of the bunch.

Sarai LOVES grabbing a "stoop" of peanut butter in a spoon and chomping down. She also is very camera aware. When you combine the two, we get something like this!

San Diego Photographer | Portrait per day challenge | Be Still Photog

What a freaking cute kid. While we do this challenge, we might just end up with a ton of photos of our fam and kids, but that is never going to be a bad thing!

The reason why we are photographers is to capture lives. If we didn't do it for our own family, then we would be doing it wrong! We capture amazing photos for people all the time and we better make sure to capture the amazing moments with our own family.

San Diego Photographer | Portrait per day challenge | Be Still Photog

This portrait challenge is going to be fun. We will definitely be getting more subjects for the photos, but we know that we will have plenty of our kids in the mix.

You can check out our previous portrait posts here or you can just check out the photos from the 365 project here.

Photo details: ISO 800 | 35mm | f 1.8 | 1/125 sec Photographers: Be Still Photog | Ernie Padaon | Fiona Padaon

Family Portrait Photography at Elfin Forest

San Diego Portrait Photography with the Grant family. We did  a family portrait session with the Grant family out at the Elfin Forest in San Marcos. The family was amazing! The kids were awesome!

We loved capturing the different moments with the family and the light was gorgeous! Check out a few of the photos of these cute little kids that we captured out there.

San Diego Family Portrait Photography at the Elfin Forest in San Marcos

San Diego Family Portrait Photography at the Elfin Forest in San Marcos

San Diego Family Portrait Photography at the Elfin Forest in San Marcos

San Diego Family Portrait Photography at the Elfin Forest in San Marcos

San Diego Family Portrait Photography at the Elfin Forest in San Marcos

San Diego Family Portrait Photography at the Elfin Forest in San Marcos

San Diego Family Portrait Photography at the Elfin Forest in San Marcos

San Diego Family Portrait Photography at the Elfin Forest in San Marcos

I loved the matching shirts that they wore on the day!

San Diego Family Portrait Photography at the Elfin Forest in San Marcos

San Diego Family Portrait Photography at the Elfin Forest in San Marcos

San Diego Family Portrait Photography at the Elfin Forest in San Marcos

Dad held the kids up in this tree. 

San Diego Family Portrait Photography at the Elfin Forest in San Marcos

San Diego Family Portrait Photography at the Elfin Forest in San Marcos

San Diego Family Portrait Photography at the Elfin Forest in San Marcos

When you see a flower bush like this, you have to take the moment to pick some flowers! 

San Diego Portrait location: Elfin Forest, San Marcos San Diego Portrait Photographer: Be Still Photography and Video | Ernie Padaon | Fiona Padaon

Trash the dress shoot at La Jolla Shores

  Today is the anniversary for our good friends, Kenny and Ashley Robbins. We didn't get the opportunity to shoot their wedding, but they did ask us to do a trash the dress shoot with them over a year ago.

Check out some of the images from that day with a little extra retouching added. Our editing has grown a little since we did the shoot with them, so we wanted to enhance the photos a bit with our latest touch ups.

We went with the Robbins out to La Jolla Shores for the shoot and had an amazing time. You can check out some of the amazing images we got from the day. The skies were amazing when we went out for the shoot. The light was perfect.

We were able to get so many amazing photos down on the rocks by the water.

At one point we did get into the water and had some fun with that.

We will end it with the silhouette shot of the two of them and the sunset behind them. 

Trash the Dress Photographers: Be Still Photog | Ernie Padaon | Fiona Padaon Location: La Jolla Shores | La Jolla, CA

Christmas portraits with snow.... snow in San Diego?

  It is that Christmas season, so we had to figure out a way to make snow! That isn't really easy in San Diego, but we had a few tricks up our sleeves.

We tested it out with our little munchkins at the studio and I think they had a blast. Our snow....... mashed potato flakes!

It looked absolutely amazing for the session. Just try to keep it out of your eyes. Our little kids wanted to use the "snow" and just toss it right up in the air!

Photographers: Be Still Photog | Ernie Padaon | Fiona Padaon Location: Be Still Photog

Family portraits at Stone Brewery

  Last week, we did family portraits at Stone Brewery. A brewery is not exactly the first place that you would think about doing a portrait session, but think about the close availability of brews right after the session.

You can even have a brew during the session. This is perfect for all the gentleman that are not stoked on having their photos taken (almost every guy).

Stone Brewery up in Escondido has a number of great locations to take photos as long as there is not a mass group of people sitting in the garden area.

At some point, I would love to do some engagement photos and a wedding there. It seems like a great spot if there is not a lot of people around.

We went at a random hour and had nice access to the area to have our portrait session with the family. Check out some of the photos of the little children with their Christmas lights and all:

Family Portrait Photographers: Be Still Photog | Ernie Padaon | Fiona Padaon Location: Stone Brewery | Escondido, CA

Here are some of the misc shots that I didn't even use on the blog, so I will just drop them right here for you. It just didn't feel right having a beer photo next to the children. :

Wedding Photography: You do what you gotta do to get the shot

Sometimes you just do what you gotta do in order to get the shot... even if you are wearing heels. That photo above is of Fiona during one of our wedding shoots and she is working to get the angle that she wanted for the wedding dress. She is standing with one foot on a chair and another foot on the picnic table and she is looking to get that shot. What did I do to help her out? I took a photo to share the moment with her later. Isn't that what I was supposed to do? I did have a camera in my hand/ :)

These moments happen with both of us often and there are a number of shots that each of us take of each other during a shoot that shows some of the mess that we do get into.

There was one time when I tried to walk across the marsh of a lake and ended up standing knee deep in mud. I almost lost my shoe that day!! I don't know how many times that I have ended up knee deep in water during a beach shoot. We have never been afraid to get a little dirty in order to get that shot.

Next time I might just help Fiona out when she decides to climb on some tables for a shot. That would be after I take a photo of her first.

San Diego Wedding Photography: Be Still Photog | Ernie Padaon

Instagram adding portrait and landscape orientations

Instagram has released a new update that will allow for portrait and landscape orientation for photos. I think it will be cool to allow everyone to post a photo in those different orientations and will be awesome for photographers.

Here is the official release from Instagram:

“Square format has been and always will be part of who we are. That said, the visual story you’re trying to tell should always come first, and we want to make it simple and fun for you to share moments just the way you want to.”

We were already posting most of our photos with the landscape orientation to be a little different from the rest. I do like the idea of using the portrait option though more. I didn't like posting portrait shots in the past since it would add white borders to the sides and would make the photo look strange and small. Now the portrait option will take up more space on a timeline and grab an extra millisecond of attention for people.

Make sure to follow our work on Instagram: @bestillphotog

Time to give this new update a test drive to see how we like it all. I think it will be an overall great thing for everyone. I did like the clean look of squares everywhere though.

San Diego Fashion Photography | Backyard Session

  San Diego Fashion Photography: Be Still Photog | Ernie Padaon | Fiona Padaon Models: Blyss Macias | Audrey Aitchison | Casie Germonto

It started to rain a bit on Tuesday morning and it gave us a little itch. We never really had the opportunity to shoot in the rain and have always loved seeing some of the beautiful shots that people post. We wanted an opportunity, so we let peeps on facebook know that we would run a shoot if it were raining later in the day.

As interest perked up from people we decided that we would just fake the rain ourselves if the skies were not going to cooperate. We have sprinklers up on the hill in our backyard that needed to get some good use. We decided to MAKE IT RAIN.

This is what a dress-up day at our house turns into. Fiona was loving the idea of prepping the makeup and hair for everyone. Since we had two hair dressers and makeup artists in the crew, they just spent some time getting prepped and we had a photo day in our backyard.

Here is just a quick sneak in on some of the photos that we got. Can't wait to share more from the backyard session.

Special shout out to Brad Jones for being the powder guy!

San Diego Wedding Proposal photography| Stone Brewery

 

San Diego Wedding Proposal photography: Be Still Photog | Ernie Padaon | Fiona Padaon

We have done a few wedding proposals now and this one was definitely going to be the most challenging. When we were asked to capture this moment, we knew that the situation would be a challenge. It was going to be late at night and the lighting at the location was little to none.

For the proposal, we had to set up the location with some candles and a custom made box that he created and place it out on a bench that they spent their first date on forever at Stone Brewery. They would walk up on the bench and he would pop the question there.

Since the lighting was tough, we brought a video light and guessed a location that it would all go down and lit it up. Since this was supposed to be a surprise, we chose to sit back and hide and didn't want to pop off a bunch of flash. We had to open up the lens real wide and increase the ISO, but this was all about the moment. We didn't want to change up the moment and the reactions with their awareness of being on camera, so we kept the flash down.

Here is just some from the day. We will get them all fully cleaned up this week: 

San Diego Photography | Purple hair style

San Diego Photography: Be Still Photog | Ernie Padaon | Fiona Padaon Hair Stylist: Casie Germonto

There is always some sort of art project happening at the house. This time around, our roommate got her hair colored in the kitchen by Casie Germonto. Our roomie was looking to get some purple in the hair and of course we had to pull out the cameras and the light to take some photos.

While it was great to get some images for Casie to use for her portfolio, it helped us understand what some of the hairstylists are looking for in these shots. We try to provide some of these shots to the stylists after the wedding. We all are in the same industry and we will try to keep as good a relationship with all the people in that line of work. It could lead to a referral of some sort.

In our last wedding, we took some photos of the bride's and bridesmaid's hair and the stylist said that a photographer had never offered that for her in the past. We will take every referral that we can get.

Check out some of the colors in this hair though:

San Diego Photo Booth | Breezy Baby Shower

San Diego Photo Booth for Breezy's Baby Shower. Just some fun in front of the camera by the ladies. 

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Over the weekend, a photo booth was set up during our friend's baby shower and we allowed everyone to take their photos with the sweet backdrop that was created. We set up the lighting with a couple of flashes and placed a camera on a tripod and allowed people to fire away. Sometimes it is easier for people to have fun in front of the camera when they know the person that is behind the camera.

We brought the images back and put our flavor of editing on all of them and we got these great images.

San Diego Photo Booth: Be Still Photography

For booking, please check out our portfolio at bestillphotog.com. We would love to be your photographers for your event.

San Diego Engagement Photography | Joe + Andrea | Montgomery Field

San Diego engagement photography with Joe and Andrea at Montgomery Field. We were able to step on the air field with these two to take some amazing photos.

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We had a fun engagement session for Joe and Andrea at Montgomery Field. Joe flies a plane and we had access to the field and had an awesome time taking some amazing photos with them. This was definitely a unique opportunity to hold a portrait session with them on the air field.

The skies were perfect for their day and the photos from their session are epic! I don't know how many times we will get the opportunity to shoot at a location like that, but we will always be able to create some magic when we do, especially when we have people like Joe and Andrea to work with. They were so relaxed with the cameras on them and they were a great couple to work with.

We look forward to their wedding later in the year when they get married at the Aerospace Museum. It sounds like another opportunity to make some magic happen.

Engagement Photographers: Ernie Padaon | Fiona Padaon | Be Still Photography Location: Montgomery Field | San Diego, CA

Check out more of their photos from the shoot here:

One of our friends is getting into calligraphy for weddings and we wanted to use her sign in some of our photos to share her great work.