Some dear friends asked me to photograph their family at East Ave Park up in the beautiful Hayward Hills. Ok, so they need to work on a better name for this place because it really is one of the nicer parks in the area. For one thing, it has a massive grass hill that hides a good portion of the park. It’s got nice trees, and of course a playground. A perfect spot for family portraits!

I really like being able to photograph children in an environment where they can be completely free and unperturbed by a near stranger with a big ol’ camera chasing them around. They don’t care one bit unless that kid happens to be a 2 year old girl who isn’t feeling well. Not one of us could get her to settle down except for a little secret weapon I brought with me — our baby! My wife and I got to the park early to enjoy the unusually warm winter day and took our own portraits.

Thanks Wood family for the great time and I hope Isabell is feeling better by now!

There’s a crazy challenge some photographers inflict upon themselves called “365″. It’s a picture a day of anything for one year and can be of any subject or theme. It can be random life, like my friend Paul’s 365, or it can be quite specific and collaborative like this one on clouds.  I’ve long resisted doing this simply because it takes time and lugging out the camera gear every day seems like such a chore.  But a funny thing happened to me last week that has given me great motivation to do a 365. We had a baby.

I won’t fill up the blog here with a picture a day, but rather upload a collage every week or so. I hope to put up tips and behind the scenes info for folks to try out with their cameras at home. I’ll occasionally put away my expensive gear and demonstrate how to take pro photos with a $100 point and shoot. Check back and leave a comment on what you think!

In the past few days, Hazel has entered the 3rd trimester. Now we haven’t actually done many photos of her thus far, so it was time to start catching up a bit. I took more than 100 photos but I’ll edit down to just a few for this blog entry. Oh, and a few of me as well. My wife is proving herself to be a worth photographer but of course she had a professional model to work with here.

Dear friends David and Karen and their children. Thanks guys for the good time!

Friends Peter and Cheryl have two beautiful children, whom they let me photograph on a recent January afternoon. Just near there house is a grass hill and a pretty ridge as a back drop — a perfect place to shoot. Thanks Thomas and Elizabeth for the fun time!