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Ian's Green Journal
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| Originally published at Wedding Photography Blog by Los Angeles Photographer Ian Grant. Please leave any comments there. 
I’m posting this so when I inevitably lose my luggage/maps I can always look back here.
Dec. 19th – Fly from LAX > Auckland
Dec. 21st-22nd – Arrive Auckland / Leave a couple hours later on propeller plane Auckland [north island] > Nelson [top of south island]. Go kayaing in Abel Tasman NP, sleep there. Go to seal island and deliver message from Los Angeles seal island. [2hr]
Dec. 23rd – Drive from Nelson down to near Gremouth. Sleep on beach / Look for penguins. [5hr]
Dec. 24th-25th – Drive from Greymouth to Franz Josef/Fox Glacier, see glaciers/look for lost hikers [3hr]
Dec. 26th-27th – Drive from Franz Josef to Mount Cook NP, look for more lost hikers buried in glaciers. See icebergs. [6hr]
Dec. 28th-29th – Drive from Mount Cook to Te Anau, see seals/Milford + Doubtful Sound and tourists [hr]
Dec. 30th – Fly from Queenstown > Auckland on propeller plane, spend the night there
Dec. 31st – Fly from Auckland > LAX |   |
| Originally published at Wedding Photography Blog by Los Angeles Photographer Ian Grant. Please leave any comments there. We see a lot of wedding venues every year, and after everything is said and done Firestone Winery is still one of our favorite venues to travel to. Jany and David first saw our work from Joe and Kelly’s fantastic wedding last year, and like most people who discover Firestone, instantly knew it was their ideal destination wedding location [Joe and Kelly even wrote a huge Firestone review they were so pleased]. Jany and David flew in from Ohio and brought their closest family members along for a wonderful sunset ceremony under Firestone’s new Vineyard Mesa tree, right near their Crossroads Estate location.
Joy Proctor, who is a wonderful Santa Barbara wedding planner brought us along again and put together some wonderful details. One of the highlights of the new Firestone location is the ability to use their rustic barrel room, which was gorgeously lit by candle light.
To see more of our work please visit our wedding portfolio at distinctphoto.com.
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| Originally published at Wedding Photography Blog by Los Angeles Photographer Ian Grant. Please leave any comments there. 
It seems like every year or so I outgrow whatever portfolio site I have and then have to do this massive upgrade to a new system and it forces me to go through the multi tens of thousands of wedding photos I have compiled. I actually kind of like it though. So, if any of you haven’t seen my new Distinctphoto.com site, go check it out- it has all my favorite landscapes on there too which I’m pretty proud of. Once wedding season finally calms in the next few weeks I’ll finally be able to go back and start posting all the blog entries of the exciting weddings I’ve shot [see above]. I’ve got probably a good 25 entries in the works with some amazing brides to flaunt! | | |
| Originally published at Wedding Photography Blog by Los Angeles Photographer Ian Grant. Please leave any comments there. 
I like to drool over camera gear, and I’m lucky to be able to call my expensive hobby my job. With that said, whenever a new camera comes out I kind of get giddy even if they’re not practical at all for me. Such is the case with the new Canon 1D Mark IV. My main camera is currently the Canon 5D Mark II which is really almost overkill in a way for what I do, but it makes me happy. As much as I like them, the 1 series are what I call wrist busters. When you combine the heavy L lenses with an already heavy camera you come home from weddings with a busted wrist from lifting them around all the time. I already have a hard enough time with my 5DMII, I come home from weddings and slap Icy Hot all over my arms- adding another few pounds on top of my already heavy camera is straight out of my nightmares. So anyway, new Canon 1 series, very cool, drop $5k and go pre-order yourself a new camera! | | |
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Sorry I've dropped off the face of the planet for the last month, actually it was kind of expected- it's been an insane wedding season and September was our busiest month. No fear- I have some really fantastic photos to share that are going to put last year's to shame. In between editing and delivering weddings [ie: 4AM] I was unable to control myself and whipped all my Switzerland photos together. I really think it's my best travel set I've ever done which is saying something because I still really love my Ireland photos from a couple years ago. Anyway, with that said- I have all my favorites up on our new magically new Distinctphoto.com. Click here to see and I hope you enjoy! | | |
| Originally published at Wedding Photography Blog by Los Angeles Photographer Ian Grant. Please leave any comments there. 
It was such a pleasure to shoot to shoot Jesse and Miranda a few weeks ago up in San Francisco. I won’t get into details just yet [I'll post their entry soon] but we just got one of the sweetest thank you notes in our email box.
Ian & Tanya,
Where do we begin?! The photos of our wedding are absolutely stunning! I truly can not thank you enough for what a spectacular job you & Tanya did. During the day you were so discrete. You never felt intrusive. And yet, when I look at the pictures, you seemed to have been up in every nook & cranny! Lol. How did you manage to be so inconspicuous but still catch every moment??
When we initially looked for our wedding photographer we wanted someone who could take gorgeous, contemporary photos. But, now that the big day is over with, we have a different perspective. You gave us SO much more than that. Not only did you meet our expectations in giving us amazing shots with great editing effects, but you caught memories & froze them in time. You caught little nuances & details that I didn’t even notice at the time (like the way my dad was hanging onto my arm and the expression on my mom’s face). And the emotions you caught. . . wow!!! That is the most meaningful to us.
I’m sorry to ramble on and on. But, we are just so grateful to you! We really feel so appreciative. Because, after the wedding we were trying to replay the day in our minds, then when we got your photos we saw that you had captured everything!!! Man, some of the photos look like they could be in a catalogue. Just BEAUTIFUL! And the colors! They were so vibrant; I don’t know what you did!!
I could go on forever. . . so I better end this somewhere, ha ha. We’ll refer you to others in a heartbeat & we wish you much success!! Give us a week or so to decide on which photos we want printed in the book. We’ll get back to you shortly.
-Miranda & Jesse
Thanks so much guys, and it was our pleasure! | | |
| Tanya and I both feel really blessed to have as many fun couples to photograph with this year as we do. Nicole and Joel are both very much part of that group! Not only are they great to be around, but their wedding is at one of our favorite venues Firestone Vineyards up by Santa Barbara! We also get to work again with our favorite planner, Joy Proctor of Joy de Vive Wedding Planning. If you remember from our previous Firestone post, the venue is simply tops, so there's going to be some amazing photos to come!
For their engagement session, we decided to shoot out on the Palos Verdes peninsula. As luck would have it, Southern California's June gloom had officially set in, but we decided to give it a go anyway and I really think the pictures speak for themselves. Nicole and Joel are a fantastic carefree couple, and we can't wait to shoot their wedding in a few months!
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| As some of you may have followed, my friend Nick and I were able to escape for the weekend and go camping up in Mendocino County of California. On day one we drove overnight up to Fort Bragg from LA and stayed the night at Mackerricher State Park along the beach. During the day we explored Mackerricher and saw some baby seals and later on we headed down to Jug Handle State Reserve which I'd highly recommend. Just the peninsula area overlooking the water was worth it alone.
While it was coastal cloudy in the morning, the later in the day it got, the more rain started coming in which seriously hampered a lot of picture taking. By the end of the night it was downpouring and everything covering us got soaked. Thankfully after some serious time spent we were able to get a fire going which made everything better. The highlight without a doubt was seeing 6 Banana Slugs which are the largest slugs in the world!
I'll be posting day two's photos in the next couple days, hope you enjoy!
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It was a very cold and rainy camping adventure on the Mendocino coastline [this is me as I'm about to get pulled out to sea by a freak wave]. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| This weekend my friend Nick and I are heading off on one of our absuredly long roadtrips again! This time we are traveling from Los Angeles to a little coastal town called Fort Bragg in Mendocino County [about 3/4 up the California coastline]. We're going to be camping at Mackericher State Park right next to the Pacific with potential wolves waiting for our tired bodies. From there we're taking Highway 1 down to Salt Point State Park and camping there as well. Bookmark this page as I'll be uploading camera phone photos from the road, I'll have to keep a running tally of how many miles we do. Till then you can look at a picture of Riley and see how much he already misses me.
For a small sampling of previous 'death-trips' as we call them please see:
• 2007: The Channel Island Deathtrip
• 2007: The Petrified Desert Deathtrip [camera-phone updates]
• 2008: The Oregone Deathtrip [also camera-phone updates]
We're probably going to be on the road and posting from roughly 2am'ish Thursday - 3pm Sunday.
Please visit IanGrantPhotography.com for awesome camera phone updates through the weekend!
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So, if I didn't mention it already- Tanya and I packed up our pets, garden, and photo supplies and moved quite literally two doors down [approx. 20 feet north]. What this means is a] an OFFICE! b] a new home for Riley the dog [uh, the office] and c] more space than we know what to do with! We've been living in a pretty small space for the last few years and when a new place opened up, we decided to make the change. We're both kind of pack rats and this was revealed in the move, so now we're able to spread out a bit and really get rid of that overall claustrophobic feeling. With that, it's also gives us tons of space for beautiful landscapes on the wall! We fit one wall with some great images from my last Ireland trip and the other from Harris Beach State Park, and yet another with some vintage Salton Sea photos in white frames. What was left was the biggest wall right behind our couches. What better way to fill it then a giant 60x40 canvas of a blue Big Sur photograph! I'm pretty psyched as I don't think I've ever seen any of my photos this big, but I'll have to report back on how it looks. I'm a little scared/nervous though, this is going to be so cool! | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| How cute are these guys? Hiking and general outdoorsy stuff are some of Matt and Nayla's favorite activities, so it only made sense for us to head off to Point Dume State Beach for their e-session. Point Dume [somewhat near El Matador, one of our special spots] is one of their favorite getaways, so it was nice to be able to see a new great location in LA. There are tons of little amazing hideaways in LA, Point Dume is definitely one of them...it's also home to the final scene in Planet of the Apes with the Statue of Liberty!
We caught some really amazing sunset light and found a very inquisitive lady-bug in our little adventure. Overall we got some of my favorite engagement photos yet this year, and I've been looking forward to sharing them with you!
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| Recently I've been shooting lots of headshots in the area, and it's always a fun exercise to try and get the best portraits out of the client. One of my more recent actresses was a girl named Rhianna who just moved out here to LA. I heard back from her within a week and turns out she's already booking gigs from her shots. Good luck!
For more of our images see our Los Angeles Headshots gallery
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| Stephanie and Max are such a great couple and a real treat to be around! I've been really excited about shooting their wedding as they booked us partly on the fact that I'm a landscape photographer and the landscape up where they're getting hitched [in Fillmore, CA] is fantastic. Very old west and rustic. I think the photos we're going to be able to get up there are going to be amazing, so we're setting aside a little chunk of time to get some really great portraits. With that said, we met the other day over at UCLA to get some engagement photos- they both met at the college and we thought we'd take advantage of its great architecture and spacious campus. Enjoy!
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| Our clients Jesse and Miranda have their hearts set on doing a nice modern style wedding so when it came time for their engagement session what better place to shoot than the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Downtown Los Angeles. If you haven't visited the concert hall yet, you can spend easily a good hour just walking around the place without even stepping foot inside. It's a piece of architectural amazement and I think we really took advantage. We're going to be shooting their wedding in August up by San Francisco and are really looking forward to it!
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Ian's Green Journal
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