———————— FINAL UPDATE ————————————

Freedom House is the best thing Santa Barbara has to offer. If you get a chance, you have to see the view from his house. On the final day, Mike Larson from Mike Larson Photography came by with his lovely wife Rachel to give us a short talk. He even demonstrated his cool camera toss trick! All in all, this was an awesome weekend. Photographers from Seattle, New Orleans, Arkansas, Sacramento, New York, etc. were all under one roof networking and sharing with one another. It’s good to be a photographer. Big thanks to DJ, who knows how to throw a slumber party. DJ Another shout out goes to Crystal. She is the best assistant anyone can ask for.



———————— END UPDATE ————————————

We had a blast yesterday! Talk about intense learning. DJ taught for 8 hours straight and jammed packed so much great info. At night we got to head down to a great sushi joint called Piranha and had great dinner. Unfortunately it was pouring in rain but that didn’t stop DJ from taking us out for a photoshoot. Santa Barbara was hosting the international film festival that weekend so people thought we were bunch of paparazzi’s. Here’s some photos from the day:






Okay, time to get the party on again…

I love Santa Barbara. I think I can live here. Even on a gloomy day, the view outside of DJ’s living room is simply gorgeous:

I had to finish editing updates for Mike Colón’s workshop images (See below). Here’s everyone gathering around getting a sneak peak at Mike’s blog…

Getting ready for the slumber party….

Party On…
DJ’s first slumber party workshop is off to a great start. We have people from all parts of the States here all eager to learn from one another. I love how they are so open from the start. Here’s DJ leading the discussion…

It’s going to be a fun day tomorrow. Get some rest and see you back again!

Final Update: Whew, it’s been fun & tiring experience! Here are the final set of photos from Mike’s 4 day intensive workshop. Hope you guys enjoyed the photos. Be sure to check out Mike’s blog to see the video and the complete update!

The next set of images are some pics taken by Master Mike and his new Nikon D3 – these were taken straight out of the camera. I must admit, D3 is pretty impressive! But I think it’s the photographer not the camera!

Day 3 – We covered off-light flash demo. It rained like days of Noah but that didn’t stop us from going out and having this fantastic photoshoot. Here are some photos from day 3. My friend Arden came to model for us. Everyone loved her.

Who needs Frank Caliendo when you have Britain’s best – Tony “T the Brit” Blake doing Robert Deniro impression?

Will blog the images tomorrow. We need to sleep!

Day 2 Video:

Day 1 Video:

I was playing around with some of the shots from yesterday. Here’s couple of images (style influenced by my friend Jesh De Rox)

It’s really late here as Mike, David & I stayed up much longer than usual. Whew, what a day…We’ll go right to it. Enjoy!

DAY TWO UPDATE: Meet the Gang.

Wedding Session — Mission, San Juan Capistrano, CA

Whew, what a day! We had so much fun today at Mike’s workshop. It was great meeting so many photographers from all over the states. We even had one, Tony, all the way from UK! We need to sleep soon so we’ll let the photos do all the talking. Hope you enjoy it! Check out Mike’s blog tomorrow for a video update. Good night everyone!

URGENT PRAYER REQUEST: Please pray that I will not fall into temptation and sin by switching to Nikon. Mike has been brain washing me since the day I arrived. He has not stopped bragging about how awesome the new Nikon D3 is. He’s purposely shooting images in the dark with 6400 ISO showing off how superior Nikon is now. Sigh…

The Colón Experience Update: Coming Soon…
I’m here at Mike’s house with David Escalante getting ready for tomorrow’s workshop. We’re all eager to make this an unforgettable experience for all the workshop attendees. We can’t wait to meet them so we’re up late into the night preparing for this event.

Here’s Mike fine-tuning his ninja skills at our planning dinner at Fuji Yama’s to demonstrate during the workshop.

David is a software trainer for Apple. He knows macs like a theologian knows the bible. As you can tell, he’s getting sick of answering all our dumb questions.

Mike is finally hooked on Facebook. We got him to join one recently – he’s still not used to it so we’re teaching him differences between ‘pokes’ ’superpokes’ ‘writing on the wall’, ‘messages’, etc.

Any ways we are super excited about tomorrow – we’re gonna finish getting ready and get some rest. We’re going to try to update his blog & here daily with photos and video clips so check back often!

I just witnessed something unbelievable. I’m not even sure if I should blog about it but I think the whole world needs to know what just happened. We all know that Mike Colón’s Experience Workshop has made an impact on so many photographers. We just finished with his 8th workshop and this one was no different. But for one person, that impact will last for lifetime…literally.

Disclaimer: What you are about to witness was not, in any way, condoned by Mike Colón. It was voluntarily done by one of his workshop attendees, Phillip Glickman from Envisionography.

Synopsis: During the second day of our workshop, one of the attendees, Nathan, noticed that Mike had his logo branded on his belt. Mike explained to us that he has a branding iron made of his logo. Phillip told us that he also has a brand of the Christian fish on his left thigh. He then told us that he would brand Mike’s logo on his other leg if someone dared him. Obviously no one took him seriously. So we thought…

On the last night of our workshop, Phillip decided to put his money where his mouth is and decided to BRAND Mike’s logo on his thigh. I’ll let the photos tell you the rest of the story…

It was so hot that we actually heard the skin ‘pop’ and smelled the burning flesh!

Mike is speechless…

& shocked…

Mike is still shocked…

The close-up (can you see the hair and the melted flesh?)

The final result:

This takes marketing to a whole new level. Not even [b]ecker can beat this branding!

Finally, thanks everyone for your prayers. It has helped me to overcome my temptation of switching to nikon.

I will post more from the workshop tomorrow.

After spending 6+ years at U of I, Virginia decided to make the transition back to her home time in the east coast. She had a friend who thought that her brother(Justin) might be a perfect fit for her. So Virginia agreed to meet with Justin and they never looked back since. These two have so much chemistry and love for each other. Virginia is a good friend to me and I was happy to see her with such a great guy. May you guys continue to serve the Lord together! Thank you for allowing me to capture your special day. I look forward to continuing our friendship.

Edit: More pics

Here’s some more photos. My boy Joe G and I hanging out at a local Starbucks in the morning. Good cup of coffee and the Word – quite possibly the best combo in the morning. This boy loves the Word more than food – that says alot.

My buddy Matt Pyon who moved from Arizona – I just found out he lives right next to Volcano Tea. He couldn’t have found a better location. I had to get one.

The mighty trojan statue on USC campus. Their version of Alma Mater statue.

Met up with Arden for lunch. She stopped by on her way to a short filming. Matt & I like to call her Hollywood Arden now.

I had to introduce to boys to Thai massage. Here’s us on our way there.

They swear that Thai massage was one of the best experiences they’ve had. We topped it off by going to Beverly Soon Tofu house. Quite possibly one of the best Soon Tofu/Kalbi combo joint!

If you are facebook user & photog fan – Mike Col