More Birthday Pics

Dad Craig is usually intimidating and all business but we all know he's a softy inside. Check out the hat.


Look at the intensity as they're about to ram each other. Nicky wants to be Lightning McQueen when he grows up and be the fastest race car driver.

Here are a few more pictures from the other day. Taking pictures of kids is easy and hard at the same time. It's easy because kids are naturally photogenic with perfect skin and no one ever criticizes the way they look in pictures. In fact, most people are their own worst critics but kids are oblivious to this. The tough part is they're so hyper and it's super hard to hold their attention. Luckily for these guys, "Cheese!!" works. For your camera settings, definitely have it set on continuous focus and burst mode. Get good lighting and the pictures will turn out great - I recommend indoors near a window or outdoors in the shade with a good lens and no flash.

Lelany's 5th Birthday Party

Lelany loves Dora...however...


Dora was also the Pinata.




Ashley (you might remember her from Jazmine's quincinera) took the final blow to Dora.


Dora didn't have a chance.

I went down to Mexico El Campo yesterday for Lelany's birthday party for some pictures. It was chaos with her two sisters and brother but I managed to get some nice pictures. We had El Pollo Loco, cake, presents opening, and some pinata action (3 pinatas). All in all, a fun party. Lots of pictures in the coming days.

Guess who???!!!

It's interesting to see someone grow up before your very eyes. I stopped by yesterday to see Susy for her birthday and I saw Sienna, who is getting big. She can stand and crawl now and is becoming talkative with baby jibba jabba. Her hair is getting curly and she's lookin' cute. Apparently she stopped a 2 year old boy in his tracks the other day at this mommy/daughter thing. This boy was throwing a fit until he saw Sienna, then stopped and kept staring all happy. He did this twice! Be very afraid Kris...

Hotlanta Blowout: World of Coke & Aquarium

Here's a drink kiosk with all-you-can drink stations.


There was a slow-motion coke production line that shows how they're bottled.


This was the Latin America booth, which was my favorite.


Rita having a tasty-taste - she didn't like it (she doesn't normally look like this)


Some artistic giant Coke bottles - I liked this one because it was nerdy.




These guys are cute! Penguins are my 2nd favorite animal.


Piranhas!! They looked so cool. I wanted to throw a piece of meat in there.


Here's the tunnel, which wasn't even the coolest thing there.


My buddy Andrew taking a look above at the giant tank.

I'm back and exhausted. This was a business trip but I did manage to squeeze in that day of fun. As promised, here's pictures from the World of Coke, which is worth a visit if you're in Atlanta, especially for the all you can drink Coke products from around the world. My favorite was this South American soda named Simba. Also, here are some other cool pictures from the aquarium. I had a lot of time on the plane to retouch these so I thought I'd share.

I haven't forgotten about taking portraits. Coming this weekend is a birthday party that should have lots of kids.

Update: I have joined the Georgia Aquarium Flickr group. There are tons of pictures there.

The World's Largest Aquarium @ the ATL

The awesome thing about this wall is that it's curved, so you're standing underneath the surface on part of it, giving you the sensation of being underwater. It even had waves on top.




Don't let this picture fool you, this guy is over 30 feet (9 meters) long.


The beluga whale won everyone over with its smile.

I went to the Georgia Aquarium today and it was breathtaking. They had four 30' whale sharks and some beluga whales too. What was incredible was how immersive the experience was. Not only did they have the glass tunnel but they had this GIANT plexiglass wall (that makes a movie theater screen look like a 13" TV) that you could stare at for hours. The glass was over 2 feet thick! The whole place was arrange like Disneyland with different themed routes that you can take in each section. Anyway, there were a lot more pictures but I didn't want to post too many fish at one time. The bad thing is that this was super hard to take pictures of...the white balance is off so it looks a little too blue. Oh well, I'm not going to fix it.

I also went to the Coca Cola mecca and tasted 62 Coke products from around the world. Some were very tasty while others not so tasty. I'll post some more pics when I get back - I'm pooped.

Hotlanta!

I'm in Atlanta this week for a conference and I brought my camera and a light travel lens for some pictures - Rita (who's from here originally and is here at the conference) convinced me that this is a scenic place. So hopefully Friday we're heading down to the aquarium (world's largest) and around town to snap some photos. Here's a couple of pictures of the inside of the hotel (Marriott). I'm up in the 39th floor, which isn't even the top. It opens up into a center atrium area where you can look all the way up or down, kinda like the inside of the Luxor. Pretty spectacular sight...here's a picture from outside the doorway. Cool huh? More interesting stuff soon.

Future photographer?

Check out my little cousin Cassidy shooting a wedding I attended last weekend. Usually she's super hyper but somehow she channeled her energy to taking pictures with her Dad's Canon 30d. I only had my little Canon SD500 camera with a cracked screen so I didn't take any real pictures there. I thought I could manage without an LCD but it's almost impossible. There were a lot of people with nice cameras attending so I'm sure they had some good coverage without me playing "Uncle Bob" with my big camera. (Term used for amateur photographers, usually relatives, who show up with fancy gear trying to "steal shots" from the hired photographer. This guy is who "real professional" photographers love to hate). I just think it's funny that a lot of wedding photographers are insecure or get intimidated when someone comes in with fancier equipment and bigger lenses...but these Uncle Bob types get in the way of shots sometimes.