October 13th, 2011:

On a gorgeous Sunday afternoon I packed my cameras and wife into the car for a drive up PCH.  Felicia and I were on our way to El Matador State Beach to meet Chrissy and John for the first time to shoot their engagement session.  They are getting married next July in downtown, so we suggested we meet at this rustic beach for something totally different.  What I didn’t take into account was that there would be no less that 12 other photographers on the beach shooting family, engagement, band, scenery and just about any other photography you could imagine.  The beach was a veritable studio which fortunately provide enough nooks and crannies for everyone to shoot in. Chrissy and John we’re totally chill and dodged photographers like they were celebrities. Never even blinking at all the cameras.

It was right around this time when my camera went “click, chunk, click, TH-Chunk!” followed by a series if gasps and weezes before it gave me an “Err 99” and the shutter completely died. I popped the lens off and looked inside to see that the shutter was looking like a wadded up ball of aluminum foil.   The last 9 frames looked like this.

For years I have always carried backups for our backups but this is the first time we ever had a piece of gear fail.  Figuring it’s just part of the business, I tossed that body in my camera bag, pulled another camera out and kept shooting.  A couple days later, I dropped the camera off at Canon in Irvine, they gave me a loaner camera (one of the benefits of Canon Professional Services) and they promised to have it back to factory condition in 48 hours.  Sweet.

The sunset quickly became epically Californian and as my white skin slowly took on a pink cast our wonderful couple started getting their feet wet.

Congrats again to you both! See you again soon!