I know I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve been working on some new media projects, not the least of which is the redesign of the upcoming and much anticipated Faded & Blurred 2.0. It’s a pretty large project, my first using the Joomla CMS. So the last couple of months, much of my free time has been buried in learning how to work within the Joomla framework. We’re launching the site very soon, so please give me your feedback, when you’ve had a chance to check it out.
I did take some time out over Thanksgiving to get out of town and take some pictures. Nikki and I went up to San Francisco for a couple of days and photo walked the City. San Francisco is one of my favorite cities in the world, and it’s one that I would love to spend a great deal more time exploring. All in all, we shot somewhere in the neighborhood of 1500 photographs during our visit, some of which I present below.

You can see more of my photos on my flickr page and also on Nikki’s blog.

Over the weekend, we took to the streets for the third Faded & Blurred photo walk. It was a gorgeous afternoon with 60 or so of our closest friends, walking through the Playhouse District of Pasadena. After the walk, a group of us met up at the Yard House for lunch (and to give Frank a chance to Tweet his beer…sort of a tradition). We also talked about the upcoming Help Portrait project that Faded & Blurred is so honored to be involved in. Not wanting to let the beautiful late afternoon light go to waste, we made our way to the Pasadena City Hall where we happened upon Miss Panamerican, who was kind enough to let us photograph her in an impromptu session. All in all, it was another great walk. I’m really looking forward to the next one in Griffith Park on the 25th. Also, mark your calendar for next month’s walk: Downtown After Dark. We’ll be walking and shooting in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, November 21st. Meeting time and location will be posted on fadedandblurred.com in the next couple days…Stay tuned.

“The Eyes Have It” was the theme for week 6 of Photoshop for Photographers. This week, I showed a couple techniques for making eyes really pop in your photos. Both techniques are very flexible and completely non-destructive to the main image. Stay tuned for video tutorials. Thanks to Frank for letting me use the above image of his son Dash.
Also be on the lookout for more info on the first “Faded & Blurred” photo walk, hosted by Frank Wisneski and myself in Venice Beach on August 29th. Details on this walk and more soon…

FALL CLASSES
I’ll be teaching two classes at Tri in the Fall. The Web for Photographers will be on Thursday evenings from 7-10pm, and Photoshop – The Art of Compositing will be on Tuesday afternoons from 1-4pm. I’m not sure what to expect from the afternoon time slot, so be sure to sign up. Oh, yeah…now just do the work!

I know I still owe you a class update for Photoshop for Photographers, which I’ll try to get done today, but I wanted to post a quick congratulations to my friend and fellow Tri Instructor, Frank Wisneski, for taking the top honors in our Chinatown group on Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photo Walk. Frank now moves on to the national judging, where Scott Kelby will choose the winner of the grand prize, valued at somewhere near $11,000. The grand prize includes a Nikon D700, which Frank will undoubtedly give to me since he shoots Canon. You can see the winning shot on Frank’s Flickr Page. Honestly, I’m so excited for Frank’s win. In addition to being a great shooter, Frank is a top-shelf instructor at Tri. If you’d like to find out why, join us on our first “Faded & Blurred” photo walk in Venice, CA on the 29th of August. Also, look for a special announcement soon both here and on Frank’s Blog about a great new project.