new blog for andres valenzuela photography......

Hi everyone! Thanks so much for visiting. My blog has found a new home. From here on out all new posts will be found at:

www.andresvalenzuelablog.com

You can also connect with us at:

www.andresvalenzuela.com

www.facebook.com/andresvalenzuelaphotography

www.twitter.com/andresvalenz

Looking forward to connecting with you and thank you again for your interest in our work and or lives. :)

- andres and kim

come to the edge.....

'come to the edge' he said
'we are afraid' they said
'come to the edge' he said
they came.
he pushed them...and they flew!

- guillaume apollinaire

As my wife kim and I were pondering leaving my full time job of 10 years and embark on the risky proposition of doing photography full time, one of our closest friends quoted this to us. This amongst other signs confirmed our desire to jump off the edge and into the open unknown.

Like you we have dreams. Like you we have visions of what our lives could be. And like you we want to see them come to reality. And so this continuation of our journey here takes an interesting turn into what we believe moves us closer to our hearts desire.

We love what we do! What an honor we get to document with our own unique perspective the beginning of families! We get to document and freeze moments which none of us ever want to end. We love the opportunity we get to meet excited and in-love couples!

We also love the freedom this new business venture will give us. Freedom to pick and choose what we do and where we do it. Freedom to respond to whatever needs come before us. My wife and I have a love relationship with the third world. We have both experienced it and long to be in contact with it, pour our lives into it and do our little bit to touch lives there. We can't wait to start connecting with people in places like Haiti, Kenya, India, Ecuador and many more. We can't wait! And we can't wait to take you; our friends, family and fans; into these places via our photography and our trips.

We are beyond excited and yet also afraid. Because we have no idea what is next, we have no idea how things will play out, we don't know how it will be provided for. But we do know that we are in the right place and moving in the right direction and we are in good hands, VERY good hands! :) And so we move forward. With a reborn tenacity for making the work of our hands on this earth matter and a reborn compassion for helping others in need.

Stay in touch! Wether it's this blog, our facebook page or website. We can't wait to share our lives with you!

- andres and kim

Our Wedding Video

We have been soooo anxious to get this video from our video man Rob Adams. He has blown us away. The way he captured our wedding day is just awesome. It feels like he is floating all throughout the wedding day!

Rob we are forever grateful to you for documenting our day in such a unique way.

MIL GRACIAS!!!!!

Kimberly and Andres - Highlights Video from Rob Adams on Vimeo.

Our Wedding Day Photos....

After going over 6,000 photos numerous times, narrowing down and narrowing down again, here's what Kimberly and I have been able to put together from our good friends and great photographers' collections. Just a few here and then below is a full slideshow of our favorite images.

If you're viewing on facebook you can see the full slideshow here.

We can't thank our photographers Kenny Kim, Tomas Flint and Vanessa Joy enough!

Enjoy!!

A taste of our Wedding Video....

Our fantabulous videographer Rob Adams put together a teaser trailer of our wedding video up online. It's such a tease cause it makes you want to see more!!!! As soon as he's done with the full video I'll share with everyone. in the meantime here's a taste.....

Updates, Updates, MAJOR Updates.....

So much to update you all on!!! So I think I have to split this up into a few posts.

First the most important of them.....I'm married to the amazing and beautiful Kimberly Webb Valenzuela. :)

Our wedding was sunday July 12 and we got a beautiful, beautiful day. We had the whole thing outside in Nyack and were so thankful for no rain.

Being a wedding photographer you get to see the whole wedding unfold and you are so in tune with what is going on. However being 'IN' a wedding as the groom is a whole different ball game! The day flew by so fast and even though I loved every second of it, I really didn't get to fully see, talk to everyone and experience the day in it's entirety. Throughout our honeymoon Kim and I kept saying that we could not wait to see our photos and video to actually see what the day was like!

I highly recommend any future bride and groom to put a good number of eggs in your wedding photography basket! Getting our day well documented was priceless! We have found that after the wedding was over we had nothing to remember the day by except photos.

We were so grateful to have three fantastic photographers and great friends capturing our day. Kenny Kim, Tomas Flint and Vanessa Joy were so great to work with and they documented every detail of our day.

We now have to go through over 6,000 photos and are working on narrowing them down to plenty for you to see. In the meantime here's one from the thousands that we liked.

More photos from our wedding and also from our amazing honeymoon in Ireland and London coming soon. Can't wait to share with you all!

Everybody needs a facelift.....

I've always felt that branding is a key part of any successful business/project and in recent months I felt like my old logo needed a bit of a facelift. I have to give crazy mad props to my friend and initial designer of my original logo, Anthony Strickland. He is a sick designer whom I worked with at the ol' Nyack yearbook for 4 years. 

So as I was traveling and meeting lots of cool people in the photo industry I ran across a really cool guy named Marlon who happened to be a graphic designer and he gave my logo the redesign it needed. I loved what he did with it and am so happy to start rolling it out this year in slideshows, my new website (also rolling out later this year) and other areas of my business. 

Marlon and I went back and forth several times and through several different edits. He was so patient and gave me the necessary perspective I needed to realize the direction the logo needed to go to have the impact I wanted. I'm so happy with the final result! If you are looking for a great patient and talented graphic designer (who also designs websites and personalized blogs!) check him out! 

Thanks so much Marlon! You're the best! 

Made it to Sunny Florida!

I made it safely to Fort Myers, Florida. I'm staying at this pretty sweet resort! It is 80 some degrees and not humid! Rare for Florida, so it is AWESOME! See the pool below from my room? That's where I'm headed now! :)

Saturday Arts day in Rockland...

Since most of my saturdays during the summer this year I'll be spending at fun weddings, I am enjoying the few I have now to relax and hang out. 

Today I got to see the very cool '8th wonder of the world' on the big screen at this historic landmark theatre in Suffern, NY. The movie itself was full of sweet cheeziness, but my friends and I loved it!  It was crazy to think that this movie was made in 1933! that's 75 years ago! 

Later tonight I got to see another historic event when Nyack High School presented 'The Phantom of the Opera'.  The makers of Phantom handpicked only 6 schools in the country and Nyack was one of them. I also knew a couple of the guys in it, so it was very cool to be there. The show was incredibly impressive. I kept reminding myself that these where high schoolers doing this cause it was so great and I could not believe these guys pulled this off so well. My friend and soon to be my assistant for a few months, Brice, played Ubaldo Piangi, and was hilarious!  

Now i'm off to bed. Going to WPPI early monday morning! 

I want faith like this....

Today I witnessed something that shook my inner being.  It's really almost impossible to put into words but I will try...for my sake in processing what I experienced.....

I attended a funeral for this beautiful 9 month old baby girl. She died this past friday and our whole Nyack community felt so much for her mom, dad and older sister. At the funeral service tonight while many of us came to comfort and show support, we left with a renewed sense of strength and encouragement from the people that we were supposed to comfort and encourage. 

In the midst of such unimaginable sorrow Chris (dad) spoke and displayed an unthinkable amount of faith and joy that could only come from something other than this world.  I saw a man grounded in something so strong that even the death of his own baby girl could not shake. 

I was so shook and strengthened in my own faith by this family and specially by Chris. I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like to lose your baby girl after only 9 months of life. Yet this man stood on a supernatural faith that I could only look at admire and desire. 

Ana Isabel Rules!

I work crazy hours and for the last few months have just not had time to clean my place. so I hired this awesome housekeeper named Ana Isabel. She came to my place today for the first time and did her thing! When I got home tonight the place was spotless! I hope to get a picture of her sometime so you can meet her. She is a sweet and humble lady and am so excited she is my personal housekeeper! 

This may be my best move ever! 

Day Off!

I had my first full saturday off today! First one in...I don't even know how long...! 

I slept in and then bummed around my house, did some cleanup on my computer and just was lazy! felt so good! When's the last time you had a full day off to do nothing and feel like you had to do nothing? Not sure when the next one will be for me so let me go and continue to do nothing....:) 

Oh I guess I did do one thing, make that picture widget of some pics of myself on the right of the blog! 

Wii Day!

So I'm a HUGE soccer fan and wanted to watch the live match between Boca and Milan this morning at 5am. Since I don't have cable I asked my friend kiki if I could watch it at the place she babysits and lives.  She said sure! So early in the am before the sun is even out and in the middle of a bad snowstorm, I trek all the way there and watch what turned out to be an awesome 4-2 Milan win (kaka is soo good!). 

The fun didn't end there, since this Wii thing came out last year it has been the hottest new thing out there so much so that you can't get it anywhere without standing in crazy lines or having some kind of inside scoop at your local walmart or target of when they'll be handing out the infamous 'number tickets'. Kiki decides she needs to stand in line this morning at 5:30am and go for one for her dad. 

SO at half time I took her and dropped her off. I said to myself if there is still some left when I get back to pick her up after the game I should pick one up (I could sell it on ebay for $500 even). I had played it once before and it looked like so much fun! 

So of course wen I get there they still had numbers (I got 57 out of 90 something). As they let everyone in the store the excitement was too much! I was actually getting a Wii that I didn't realize I needed!!! 

As we left Target there were some people at the back of the line already too late since they had no tickets left, yet they waited to see if they still got lucky. As for me and kiki we both walked away with a Wii each in hand! 

........later today I set it up at home and played the Wi Sports games it comes with as well as the Wii Play games....this thing is every bit as cool as they make it out to be! :) Come over and let's play!

How it started...

My interest in photography came early when my dad got a nice Olympus SLR film camera when we moved to Africa. I remember loving to use the 'big zoom' lens that he had to get pictures of everything but specially people's expressions real close! It was in High School my senior year that I finally got my hands deep into the heart of photography. I got the chance to take a photo class and also be one of the yearbook photographers. Not only did they give us cameras to use, but we were able to develop our own stuff! I got to know the darkroom real well and was fascinated by how pictures just 'appeared' after putting the exposed paper in those chemicals. I learned a lot from my teacher and to this day I give a lot of credit to Dave Tiezen for sparking my interest in photography. 

When I got to college there wasn't really any photo opportunities for me to pursue and I was more obsessed with futbol anyways. However once I graduated from Nyack an opportunity came up to be the Staff Adviser for the college yearbook. I joined and picked up an SLR camera for the first time in years and remembered how awesome it felt to hold one of those puppies! I took photos of everything, all the school events, music, concerts, sports, whatever. I convinced our administration to get a digital SLR and so the Nikon D100 became the first digital SLR I was able to get to know well. 

Soon enough I was ready to upgrade and started using the Nikon D70. At this point in time was when I got my first real job opportunity from Julie who had just graduated and needed a photographer for her wedding later that summer. I hesitantly accepted the offer and studied like crazy that whole summer before the wedding. After all I had NEVER done a wedding so I couldn't screw this up! The day came and I found myself getting so caught up in the whole day, the emotions, the camera settings, lighting, the stress of making sure that you catch those moments and everything else that came with the day. At the end of it all I was exhausted and felt like I had just played a 90 minute soccer game! When I finally gave them their pictures Dan and Julie loved them which made me so excited and hungry to do all that all over again! 

I was hooked!

However I didn't really want to offer my services unless people actually wanted them. So I waited to see if word would somehow spread and through the help of some friends letting other couples know I got my next job and then the next and the next and then next and as they say the rest is...well... history in the making! 

It's been absolutely amazing how couples have spread the word from one wedding to the next and how I've been able to meet up with these couples and capture their day for them. I am always so honored that I can be so close to what is one of the best days of their lives and be able to see and capture those amazing moments between them and their close friends and family.  

I'll be posting some more of these images from back in the day in future blogs....as well as some more current stuff!

So I gave in...

So I finally decided to start my own blog. It sounds funny cause I thought these things were silly, but here I am now eating my own words!

I'm actually excited about doing this since I will be doing more showing than writing. I hope to be able to post images and thoughts from my many photo adventures, jobs, clients and experiences. But I also will be posting about my life. I absolutely love photography so this is just an extension of what I love to do.

Enjoy and I hope you come back! :)