7th Annual SF Crawfish Boil (and my girlfriend's birthday!)

Today was my girlfriend's birthday and so I took her to San Francisco's 7th annual SF Crawfish Boil that was held at Marina Green. Here she is with [expired now] ID so we can get our drink on too.

Don't we all look terribly different from our outdated ID's? hahah

We arrived around 10:40am and it was a good thing we did so. The line started to get longer by 11am [which is the time the event opens].

First hour had free beer on the house and so if we were smart enough, I would've brought my Nalgene wide mouth bottle and poured the beer inside and come back again. But for what it's worth, we got 4 cups total so not too bad to wash the goodness that was abound.

After waiting patiently for the fresh crawfish to be ready for consumption, we shout for joy as they moved that large kettle down our way. My gf and I were lucky since we were the first table to be served.

While folks around were taking pictures and in being in awe, I was prepping myself on how to grab as many as I can with the given paper plates.

Here we....
....goooo!! Damn look at that fresh goodness. This was the last photo I took, rushed it in my pocket and grabbed 2 full plates.

My haul.

After eating this goodness, I told myself I'm going to look up some creole recipes. The crawfish was so good with enough southern spices to delight. Plus, the boiled corn and potatoes were bomb!

I only got one more plate afterwards because people were being ridiculous. People were PUSHING AND SHOVING and reportedly two got into a fight and threw punches! Jeebus people, relax! While it is only food, people were upset that they couldn't much. I would be upset too since it is $25/ticket but I will say this event can use more organization in getting the food to the hands of paying [and hungry] people.

When I did get that second serving, one guy behind was elbowing out to make room so I screamed in his face: "SERIOUSLY??! YOU GONNA ELBOW ME RIGHT NOW??'' Ok, that looked intense than it really was but it was unbelievable what food + hungry paying people equate to.


My girlfriend working the little crawfish for the little meat. It does require some work to get a bit of meat!

I remembered that CheesyCam himself was gonna be here with a few of the DSLR enthusiasts to cover this event [and enjoy the crawfish too]. Check out his blog for some really great DIY projects, tips, and tutorials to get the bang out of your buck!

Afterwards, we needed some dessert and we headed to our favorite restaurant in Sausalito, Avatar's Restaurant. We came here for our favorite dessert: Avatar's Dream.

I can't even describe this dessert other than it's ice-cream like vanilla/chocolate....

...covered in pistachios resting on a sea of mango and rose syrup. I tried describing it to my best. =)

Before..
After!

Ashok, the main guy running this place takes a pic with Cher. We've been here several times and he's always delighted to see us.

Wonderful day today [I forgot to mention how beautiful the day was! Hot day for SF] with SF Crawfish Boil, dessert at Avatar's, and my girlfriend's birthday. Yee!

Before & After: Bolaños Wedding (1 Photo)

Before

After

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Before & After is a new series sharing my images before post production and after once image is finalized, exported, and ready for web and print.

Hired a New Assistant!

...and he's a top-paid assistant. Mr. Squirrel was hired from the agency Golden Gate Park.

Found this little dude for hire when I was doing one of my senior shoots in San Francisco. This curious one kept following us and probably was in delight to see that wonderful light source my [real] assistant Gee was holding haha

Good times and thank you Mr. Squirrel for making my senior [and I] laugh hysterically during the shoot.

I am published!!!....National Trails Day! (06/05/10)

....ok to be fair, a photo of me and a quote was published from Saturday's National Trails Day event in San Francisco's SFgate.com/Chronicle on June 6, 2010--so nothing of my photographic work was published. I found this event online and thought it would be a good morning to spend with my girlfriend. Plus, volunteering is never bad!

photo by David Paul Morris, special to the Chronicle; my girlfriend Cher and I among other volunteers.

Here's a link to the article written by Nanette Asimov, a staff Chronicle writer. Be sure to read it so you can see how "I am published"! =D :
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/05/BAEK1DQLAI.DTL

Here's a few images that I took on our day volunteering at Presidio's Mustard Gas site [yes, back in the day as I learned, this area in the Presidio was actually used as a practice area for soldiers and mustard gas!]

Me and my Timberlands ready for a morning's work of volunteering!

We had the chance to chose which teams to go to and so we decided to go with some weed pulling under the Gray Foxes!

We did have to sign a release/waiver form courtesy of REI who was one of the sponsors for the event.



A quick pic of some of the many volunteers that came and met at around 9:15am at Inspiration Point in Presidio.

Thankfully we were given gloves as we soon learned that pulling weeds is actually tiring and can be a blister-on-hands making chore.

The teams separate and head to the specific sites that we will be working at.

A quick fun fact: did you know that California not only has a state flower [Poppy] but also a state rock?! So! Our state rock is.... the Serpentine!

You saw earlier that we had to sign a release form, yea? Well it's worth it not just because we are giving our time back to Mother Earth.. but also because we got these cool athletic sweat wickering shirts from REI!

Our haul for the day! More than a dozen large bags of weeds [Purple Velvets, Rattlesnake grass, Foxtails and other weeds] on the truck!

Our reward? Delicious chicken [or veg] burritos and some really good salsa verde to spice it up courtesy of the organization!

We all ate here... what used to be a dumping site for the army but is now cleared as part of the restoration project.

And I will say that burrito was well deserved after we "got dirty" for sure. We all washed it down with some Hansen's Natural Cane Soda as well.

Pictured here with our tour guide/instructor for the day was Jason Erickson.

Thanks to National Trail Day and San Francisco for having this event available to those willing to volunteer and to have a great time in general giving back to Earth! Definitely will look forward to more opportunities like this!

BTS: Matt Cab's "The One" Videoshoot (05/31/10)

These are behind the scenes photos of friend Matt Cab in Polarity Post Studios in San Francisco shooting a promo vid for his song "The One" with MotionScope Studies shot on Memorial Day.

All these pictures are shot with :gasp: a film camera loaded with black and white film! =) So enjoy the nostalgic feel.

I've worked with Matt Cab before for some promotional photos earlier in the year and this time around, it's MotionScope in full effect doing a promo vid. Pictured above is one our videographers Francis doing a handheld video shot of Matt.

Matt being a gentleman by opening the door for me as we exit the recording room and join up the rest of the crew in the main room.

An impromptu set up of Matt on the keys.

Sound engineer Ryan Frias was on board for the production of the video. His skills on the sound design is nothing short of amazing and I really can't wait to hear this album when it comes out.

Pictured above is Matt and Ryan Brown, the main videographer and co-partner of MotionScope Studies checking the filmed shots downloaded on the MacBook Pro. You can also see MSS's newest photographer intern Nicole on the right.

That's me pictured above talking to Matt and Ryan about this current video production and future projects.

I brought the iPad to kill some time since I was there for moral support and BTS images. It also made a cameo in the video since Matt did use it... [look for it when the video is out!]

Pictured above is Ryan Brown and Matt who is playing a bit on the iPad for a shot.

Pictured left to right: Ryan Frias, Ryan Brown, Matt Cab, myself, and Francis Basco checking out a music video on YouTube for a quick source of inspiration.

The last shot that was filmed for the day is actually to be used in the very beginning of the video. It's the "entrance shot" and under request, I believe I'll be making the cut for an on-screen cameo =D

Also, it may not seem a lot, but Francis [pictured on the left], is holding about $1900 worth of audio equipment in hands. Butter fingers not accepted!

The production talent and crew (left to right): Francis Basco [videographer], Ryan Brown [Director/Videographer], Matt Cab [talent], Ryan Frias [sound engineer], JJ Casas [moral support/bts photographer], and Nicole Velazco [bts photographer].

For a quick preview of some video captures, look at Ryan Brown's blog post on the preview:
http://www.brownday.me/matt-cab-the-one-promo-video-preview

Ad Campaign: Molecover

With a number of photoshoots and editing behind me, I have more time to push forward the ad campaign I'm directing for Molecover.com. I had the opportunity to meet the founder of the company and sit down to talk about how we can elevate the visibility of Molecover. We ended up with a San Francisco-based campaign to showcase the Molecovers and Moleskines in various popular San Franciso spots.

The first series of this campaign is at Golden Gate Park. Stay tuned for images from this ad campaign that I'm producing! For now, enjoy the first series below!

Click the images to enlarge!

Shot of the Molecovers at the Boat House in Stow Lake

Molecovers in front of Conservatory of Flowers

Molecovers take a visit to Academy of Sciences

A Molecover pictured at the Music Concourse in Golden Gate Park

Molecover sitting on a bench in front of de Young Museum

Stay tuned for the next San Francisco x Molecover series coming soon!