Sunset trip to Waterfront Park with the kids

We went down to Waterfront Park down in Downtown San Diego to meet up with some friends and we couldn't help but take a few photos of the kids enjoying their day. The sunset was beautiful and we had to just snap a few photos while we were out there. 

We were doing a 365 day challenge, that already has been derailed, but there are some principles that we want to continue from that challenge. We want to have our cameras with us wherever we may go. We want to be able to shoot whenever the light is amazing. We want to be able to capture great moments for ourselves and for others. 

We may not have a photo a day for 365 straight days, but we definitely will be looking to capture moments every chance that we get. 

Here are a few shots from Waterfront Park last night. We love our little ones! The sunset was gorgeous. 

Jake + Stephanie | San Diego engagement photos at Moonlight Beach

San Diego engagement photos at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas with Jake and Stephanie.

We were able to capture the engagement photography for Jake and Stephanie out at Moonlight Beach. They will be getting married in July at Big Bear. They are such an amazing couple and we were so excited to be able to capture moments with them at Moonlight Beach.

San Diego Engagement Photos at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas

We were also asked to capture their proposal a few months ago at Stone Brewery.

They love the beach and love the idea of getting onto a lifeguard tower for some of their photos. We walked on the beach and enjoyed hanging out with each other.

San Diego Engagement Photos at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas

San Diego Engagement Photos at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas

San Diego Engagement Photos at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas

Always have to have some fun while you are out on the beach. 

San Diego Engagement Photos at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas

If the lifeguard tower is open, you just have to get up in there and take a few snaps. 

San Diego Engagement Photos at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas

The beach session with these two was amazing. They got to hang out for an awesome day, while we just sat back and captured the two of them. 

Loved capturing the day for Jake and Stephanie. Loved being there with them and we congratulate them for an awesome wedding that they will have.

San Diego Engagement Photography: Be Still Photography and Video | Ernie Padaon

Halloween Photo Booth

We threw a Halloween party at the house and set up a quick photobooth with a camera sitting on a tripod with a video light on top and let people take some photos. We set it up all the settings to limit as many blurry pics as we could. Check out some of the fun photos that people took. 

Halloween with the cutest superheroes

Check out our little superheroes all dressed up for Halloween. Sarai wanted to be just like her brother and wanted to be a superhero, so she put on her Superman onesie. We were able to sneak a few moments in her Princess outfit, but she was all about Superman. Caleb was Captain America. Could you tell that he didn't want to take any photos? He really didn't, but we offered him a lollipop and that is all that it took.

Check out our little mini photoshoot with the littles for Halloween:

Kirsten + Amare Sneak Peek | Maternity Session at Marian Bear Park

 

I know we specialize in San Diego wedding photography, but it is not the only thing that we do. We just love capturing moments and capturing people. We love being able to share emotions and personalities in a photograph.

Yesterday we went out with Amare and Kirsten for a maternity session at Marian Bear Park. The location was beautiful. We have been here twice in the last week. Both Amare and Kirsten made the photos come alive though. They are a fun couple to be around and we shared a lot of laughs. We can't wait to share more from this shoot.

We still remember the excitement of having our bundles of joy. Our kids are the greatest gifts ever and we love every moment with them. We love that we get to capture these moments in time for other families and that it can be something that they can look back upon over and over again.

San Diego Wedding Photography: Be Still Photog | Ernie Padaon | Fiona Padaon Location: Marian Bear Park

UPDATE: Here is the link for the new blog post with Amara and Kirsten. Click in to see some of their photos from their day.

Proposal Photography | Proposal at Stone Brewery

 

San Diego Proposal Photography: Be Still Photog | Ernie Padaon | Fiona Padaon Venue: Stone Brewery | Escondido, CA

We were asked to capture this awesome moment for Jake and Stephanie. Jake had it planned out that he would ask his now fiance to marry him at the location that they spent hours at. They literally shut the place down when they were sitting on this bench talking to each other for hours. They were in the garden at Stone Brewery where the two of them hit it off and Jake wanted to bring her back there a year later to get down on one knee and propose.

Jake had it all planned out and shared with us his vision. He took some candles from Stephanie's house and wanted it set up on the bench. He made a custom-made ring box that matched the candles and he wanted it laid out on the bench.

Jake would lead Stephanie out to a walk in the garden at Stone Brewery and get to the bench. When he comes around she was going to see the bench and he would then ask her.

Everything went according to plan and here are some of the captured moments from the day: 

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: The most important part

  San Diego Photography by Be Still Photog: Ernie Padaon | Fiona Padaon

This morning, I opened up a post from Chase Jarvis that he originally posted a few years ago, but he tweeted it out again today.

The simple tweet read "This is the most important part"

https://twitter.com/chasejarvis/status/631140534766047234

THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART! It is all about the love of photography. We know that the business part of photography is hard and takes up a lot of time. but the love of photography is what keeps us rolling. I could go out and just take photos on any day. It is my love!

If I didn't have to worry about paying off houses and putting food on the table, I could shoot a wedding without getting paid. I often tell my friends that book us for weddings that they don't need to worry about us having fun during their wedding day because we will be doing things that we love during the day. We love being able to capture the day for our friends since we know their personalities well and we would be able to capture their day even better because of that.

The business part is what makes the photography portion a job. That is how we have to pay the bills at the end of the day, but the love of photography is what makes it worth it.

Baby/ Family Portraits | Baby Charlotte at Walnut Grove Park, San Marcos

We always love getting referrals from our lovely weddings. We did a family shoot with the lovely Elmore's and baby Charlotte. They missed the opportunity to do some newborn photos, but still were able to get some beautiful shots with the family. What an amazing family to capture.

Proposal Shoot | Balboa Park | Sunset Cliffs | Jimmy + Dulce

Photographers: Be Still Photography (Ernie Padaon + Fiona Padaon) Location: Balboa Park | Sunset Cliffs | San Diego, CA

So... here was the plan. This whole shoot was supposed to be a family/couple style portraiture deal with the dog. It all took place in Balboa Park and we were going to end the day at Sunset Cliffs. At Sunset Cliffs, Jimmy was going to get down on one knee and ask Dulce to marry him.

Dulce and Jimmy have this joke about tying his shoe and proposing. It was going to be great!!!

When we got to Sunset Beach, I was supposed to tell Jimmy that his shoe was untied and he would drop to one knee to tie his show. He then responds "it is not untied" and I go right back to say "just kidding!"

Jimmy then would look to Dulce and say, "since I am down here...."

Check out the photos from the day.

Dance Photography

 

I recently got the opportunity to take some shots for a dance event and was reminded my love for the arts and for dance. I love music and the different movements.  I enjoyed my time out there and loved getting the opportunity to shoot something new. 

While shooting the event, I started out with my 50mm prime lens and took a few shots, then I knew I wanted to get tighter on the shots. I only had my kit lens in the bag, but I went for it. Even with a kit lens, we can make some magic happen.

It is all about knowing the capabilities of your gear. There was enough light to get some solid shots of all the dancers. I brought up the ISO more in order to compensate for the smaller aperture on the kit lens, but it wasn't a huge deal. The grain wouldn't even be that bad for people to hate the picture.

In the end, it is about capturing the moment and freezing the action. If people were shooting out of manual mode, they would have had some issues with the black backgrounds. Their camera would have blown out a few shots or they likely would be blurred out of their mind.

We delivered some quality shots on the night. What we felt was a great shot, wasn't necessarily a great shot to the studio. The studio was looking for form in the dancers, while we were looking for composition, exposure and capturing the moment. I think we found a good group of photos that we all thought were great.

For anyone that usually shoots these type of events, do you shoot out wide and then just crop it in post? I like to get things cropped right in the camera, but all the movement led to some cut off body parts. Just wondering how you all would shoot for something like this?