Hamburg, Germany - Workshop Day #5.

Here on day of of our 10 day road trip, we have covered through Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, back to Germany and on Tuesday, off to England. Here are some of the shots of the Calumet workshop today!

This couple was so sweet, they were great to volunteer as our models and did a stellar job.

Everyone loved seeing my camera in the air. The question 0f "have you ever dropped it" is the question i get asked the most!

Here below is an example of the perspective difference between shooting from standing and from laying down. I most always try and get low to get my favorite perspective.

This is an example of overpowering the sun with two sunbounces, the before and after, with the SAME camera settings, I love these California Sunbounce reflectors!

So for those of you who are interested, the Sunday Free workshop in Zingst on the beach will be on Sunday at noon. email geller@sunbounce.com for more info!

Sunbounce tour (me thinking about light...)

Robin Keller from Munich posted this image of me, thanks for that shot!

Robert Hall, Paso Robles CA, Wedding Shoot { Nick and Richelle }

Nick and Richelle's big day was huge success and I was greatful to get to work with them and some of our favorite vendors! Its always a pleasure to shoot at Robert Hall Winery with our good friend Brenda, and to party it up with Melissa from Kramer Entertainment.

Munich Workshop

Here is the Studio we shot in while we were in Munich, it was a warm day, 34 degrees! But we had a great time. We covered the following topics,

Leadership & Influence
Shooting Right the 1st time
Live shooting demos
Photography business systems

Calumet & California Sunbounce European Tour 2009

This is the 2nd Calumet & California Sunbounce "Master of Light" tour. It is an honor to be out there. I'm very excited as this is the second time we have done this tour. The last time was in the Fall of 2007. This time however they have added more cities and I have new material to share. The Workshops are a half day and start at 10am. Check out www.calumetphoto.de/events From Germany can call to make a reservation for the city listed on the website. Here are the cities that we will visit!

Munich (mon)
Dusseldorf (tues)
Amsterdam (wed)
Knokke (thurs - The Santa Barbara of Belgium)
Hamburg (fri)
Berlin (sat)
Zingst (sun)
(off day, fly to birmingham)
Birmingham (wed)
Birmingham (thur)
Birmingham (fri)

Stay tuned, as I will be updating images from the workshop. Its so beautiful here in Germany and I'm glad to be back!

London

No time to blog, I'll wait until I have some cool pix and some great stories! I'm here in the UK and speed touring London. I just wish my wife was here. Tomorrow I head to Munich. Have a great weekend folks...

Trevor and Ciera

Trevor & Ciera are getting married at Edna Valley later this year. They were super fun to shoot and I'm looking forward to their wedding. Thanks for coming down from the Bay area guys!

Spanish Hills Country Club, Camarillo CA { Mike and Allie }

Rachel and I had a blast shooting Mike and Allie's weddings at the beautiful Spanish Hills Country Club, in Camarillo CA. It was our first time shooting at this venue and we look forward to more opportunites to work at this photogenic location! Flowers for the day were designed by Florist Allie Friedman from These Buds a Blooming, and the cake created by Cake Artist, Joeleene Medina with A Sweet Design. Thanks to all- esspecially Mike and Allie and their energetic bridal party for letting us share this day with you!

The Photobooth Experience

I'm super amped, because we just relaunched our new Photobooth website, we have changed the name as well, from SLO Photobooth, to The Photobooth Experience. We realized that the level of experience our customers share with us inspired the change. We have learned that when they sit in the booth, the "calm and private" feel they describe, and the fun they have with their friends inside being silly and themselves. We did redesign the site with the amazing Show it Sites. Its been fun to re-learn a new business with generating buzz, and learning how to listen to clients to make every single element of the client experience top notch. Its been exciting and we now have 2 booths! Due to popular demand the booths are traveling across the state! So far they have been to Lake Tahoe, San Diego, Parkfield which is outside Paso Robles, All over San Luis Obispo, Alamo in the Bay Area. Many more state wide events are booked up and its been fun to see grandparents, brides, grooms, and little flower girls and their dates go inside and have fun. Check out the site!

The Photobooth Experience

San Francisco Engagement Shoot { Marc and Kristina }

Marc and Kristina met up with me on a WARM sunny day in SF and we shot these images around town, it was crazy chasing the Trolley and hoping on and off, a HUGE workout for me, hanging off and trying to not get knocked out by oncoming traffic and other cable cars. Overall we had a great time and came away with some unique shots I loved! Thanks guys...

Marc is a huge Giants fan, which is cool with me...

Posing in the middle of the street is my favorite dangerous thing to do. It seems like whenever there is a camera and subjects/models/people together, you get an immunity from getting hit card. We jumped on it and snatched this killer shot!

San Francisco Engagement Shoot { Jared and Carolina }

Recently I was up in San Francisco for a shoot with one of my couples for this summer. I think I've shot in San Francisco 5 times already this year, Jared and Carolina are getting married at the Bridges Golf Course in San Ramon, its funny, cause i grew up 2 miles from this course way before it was built, years ago! So they actually know a guy who was in a band I was in in College, Scott. Scott would fly me around to my weddings in a rented cesna and my assistant would pick me up in his parents Mercedes SL500. We rolled, baby. People would ask, "who is that guy"? I'd say, "oh him, he's my pilot". They loved it, haha, but seriously, we had a small operation that just loved to serve people just as we do now, and I drove so much, flying was the coolest thing ever. I still drive a lot, but i fly twice the miles i drive now. Yea, that means I drive 45,000 miles a year. I love it though, we have clients all over the state and its fun to visit them.

For this shoot we went to some cool spots around the city. It was kind of windy, so we did some indoor shots and I used some natural light which I love using when its foggy outside.

I love it when couples can vary up their looks, they were great at the "pensive" and thoughtful looking shots.

Even though Carolina's hair was windblown, she was looking stylish with Jared and they had a great time.

I always love to get cool stopped motion shots, where other stuff is blurry, I think my shutter speed was around 1/15th of a second. It was very dangerous in the middle of the street, but totally worth the shot! Totally San Fran.

Oahu, Hawaii Workshop June 28th - July 1st 2009

I wanted to We have rented a house on the North Shore and are gearing up for an fabolous 3+ day intensive workshop with stunning portfolio shooting sessions, in depth look at running a business for the right way. Plus we'll have ample beach time and lots of Q&A, portfolio and website reviews as well. Check out the details for the workshop here!

"The difference between today's photographers and tomorrows success stories are the knowledge they obtain, the passion they have, and their drive to be excellent at everything they do."

I've learned so much in the last year, from my mentors, Jon Maxwell, Dave Ramsey, and others that I'm am very passionate about sharing this knowledge with this industry.

Life is too short to have a stressful or lukewarm business. Become a Leader, Serve & Influence others, Create Freedom, Live. Stoke your clients out.

If you want to sign up, email seminars@mikelarson.com and I'll let you know if there are seats available within 24 hours.

Wrap up from Philippine Photography Conference (Congress 2009)

Here are some shots from Carlito Pullan and as you say here, "Salamat Po" (thank you) for sending these!

We did a demo shoot for the workshop part of the conference, and we lucky cause the weather cooperated!

below we used the California Sunbounce to light up the models, even in party cloudy light, this reflector helped out a lot to give some kick!

Here they are giving me the Award for coming out, I felt so honored and surprised! I am always blessed and stoked at how kind people are as I travel around the world!

Thanks to my friend Louis Pang who is in the dead center of this image taking a lot of shots of me talking, and helping out! I did an interview with him for his new website helping photographers in Malaysia, I'll be excited to see and post that when it comes online in September!

Camera Toss with 200+ people

OK, so this was a first for me today, at the WPPP, Philippines Photography convention, there was several hundred people there who came out to watch my camera toss. I had to have it up high enough to clear and get everyone. I think that I hit a new height. So does this count as the most people in a hand tossed shot, that we can submit to the Guinness Book of World Records?
Mr. Swan, can you top that?

Thanks guys to all the people who were part of this! Feel free to use the image to blog!

Philippines Photo Convention 2009

I just got in to the convention today and the people are so great
here! Besides being the only blond person here which is kinda crazy,
everything is awesome. I wanted to quickly attach a few photos from
today from my iphone.

Thought for the day

So while i was on the plane to the Philippines during my first 12 hour
flight leg, besides actually getting my email in box down to 9
emails, (its only happened 4 times in my life), I was listening to
John Maxwell, who always challenges me, he said this on his Common
traits of uncommon leaders series:

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives,
do good anyways. If you are successful, you will win false friends
and true enemies, succeed anyways, the good you do today will be
forgotten tomorrow, do good anyways, honesty and frank-fullness make
you vulnerable, be honest and frank anyways, the biggest man with
the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest man with the
smallest mind, think big anyways, people favor underdogs, but
follow only top dogs, fight for the underdogs anyways, people really
need help but often times they attack you if you help them, help them
anyways.

Just food for thought. So here you go, all great leaders have made
this choice, to win, to complete, to not stop, never give up, and to
not allow someone to sway their principles or let others pass them
up, you only get one shot at life, so go BIG.

- Mike Larson

Mexico Mission Trip

A few weeks ago, I headed down to Mexico with my wife to meet up with
our church who was building the new house for the team that is moving
to Mexico, in conjunction, with Calvary Chapel Tijuana. My brother in
Law Evan was the general contractor and they built this building. It
was fun to frame the roof, I got to frame the inside walls and do a
bunch of other cool stuff. I LOVE construction, its therapy to me.
It was a blessing to be down there, because Meagan, who was our first
studio manager back in the day, since the summer/fall of 2006! She
now almost 3 years later is moving full time to Mexico where her heart
is. Fully lingual, I've tried to learn from her as well. Meagan is
still coming up to do weddings and some other remote work, so she is
still part of our team! Thanks Meagan.

Middle of bike in 56 mile segment

I'm so amped!!! I'm gonna finish!!

1/2 ironman Wildflower race, ready to go!

I just picked up my bike now and I'm getting excited! The last 6
weeks of training has been dicipline camp for me! I'm in the best
shape I've been in, for two years. That feels good! Thanks to all the
friends who have been training with me and challenging me. Tomorrows
race is a 1.25 mile swim, 56mile bike, and a 13.1 mile run, the
toughest 1/2 ironman course in North America. Check it out at www.tricalifornia.com
. It's the wildflower triathlon! I think almost everyone of my
clients and friends this year has someone or knows someone racing.
There are 7,500 athletes in total, I'm just glad my wife is racing
another of the shorter races on the same day as me! She's such a hot
racer.