Friendship Circle Dinner

There is this wonderful organization run by Chabad of Newport Beach called "the Friendship Circle". It teams up teenagers with kids with disabilities. They play together, go out together, go to functions together, and just do what friends do. It does wonders for the kids and for the teens.

I had the oppurtunity to shoot one of their get-togethers (soon to be blogged) as well as this Dinner celebrating the all those involved in this amazing organization (especially the teenagers).

It was held at the Marconi Auto Museum (hence all the fancy cars), with the (delicious) food and layout done by the magnifique Pedouth Isti.

Thanks for looking.

And one more for good luck. This one doesn't have any pictorial merit, but I do find it funny.

"1995 Ferrari F50...the F50 was created to show off the latest Tecnologies; its V-12 engine was based on the 1987 Ferrari F-1 car."

WAPF + NTK + Jewlicious

In the past year and a half (or so) my wife (the fetching Mrs. Berkowitz) and I have been getting into a very healthy and organic lifestyle. We are very into traditional foods and food preparation and are very much of the opinion that food is more than the sum of its parts. Estee ferments much of our food, makes ridiculously awesome sourdough bread (ingredients: Flour, Water and a bit of Olive Oil), soaks all of our grains, and ferments deliciously effervescent Kombucha. We stay as far away as we could from processed foods, white flour, sugar and any refined oils. We love our saturated fats, whole raw milk, and succulent meats. We do not count calories, vitamins or any other attempt to boil down our nutrient needs to a number game. We don't read the nutrition "facts" we read ingredients. This is something I really believe in and will write more about some other time.

One of the people who helped us very much along the way is fermenter extraordinaire, maker of Kombucha, water conservationist, blogger, Yahoo group starter and repairer of worlds: Uri Laio.

Recently I had the opportunity to photograph a workshop of his at the Jewlicious festival in Long Beach. Twas a fun workshop with fun people. I give myself a blessing that all of my photoshoots should be this much fun.

All shot with my trusty Nikon D700 and new, old, new (my second, both bought used) 35mm f/2 el cheapo el awesomo lens.

Enjoy!

Chanukah Comedy Night @ Chabad of Laguna Beach.

I like my iPad. I do. But when it deletes an entire post because my finger brushed against the wrong button I feel like feeding it to the cows hanging out a few feet from my car.Being as most of my writing is completely ad hoc, and follows my thoughts of the moment, I'm going to have a really hard time rewriting all that was written. Rethinking all that was thought. Retracing whatever steps my mind took on its mad journey towards the "post" button (I'm pushing the save button every other word now).

Here goes:

Part of my wonderfully varied professional life is teaching a bunch of Tweens (also known as the Bar Mitzvah Class/Group/Dudes/Peoples-of-the-younger-sort) about our wonderful Jewish Heritage (I think, come to think of it im not exactly sure what I'm supposed to be teaching them (Dear Rebbetzin Goorevitch, that was a joke. I know exactly what im supposed to be teaching). The indoctrination process takes place at the quaint Chabad of Laguna Beach, located smack dab (who made up that one?) the world renown Pacific Coast Highway (and unlike the cheap knockoff in Northern Cali, this one is actually on the coast).

This same forementioned (my iPad refuses to recognize that as a word. Is it right?) Chabad house hosts an annual (?) Chanukah Comedy night (because they both start with a "C", that's why on Purim, many Chabad houses host "Paloozas" (not that anyone actually knows what a palooza is)). And being that in between teaching, cow watching, designing, and flying around with a cape and tights (you didn't know that was me? That's because I combed my hair to the side and removed my glasses) I am also a semi-professional photographer, I was asked to capture the memories on my cheap Chinese flash cards.

I was quite excited. A. There was food. B. I could test out my new ridiculously expensive new lens (Nikkor 85mm AF-S 1.4G for the techinally inclined) in an environment where it could shine. I am happy to say that it exceeded my expectations (which were quite high already). Sharp as a woman in labor's tongue, fast as a nursing woman's mood changes (that's a joke. My wife is awesome.), quick to focus, and — (bet you don't know where to find that dash on your keyboard) here's the awesome part — keeps the focus on moving subjects! Hooray!

I used my flash and fake fong diffuser for most of the shots (until the comedy part started, then they were all available light).

The Pics (a lot):

Looks good. Eh? I think this was with the 55mm micro.

That's EJ. A graduate if the Chabad of Laguna's Hebrew School, a past student of mine, and an awesome flutist.

Deep in discussion. Those are my star indoctrinees.

I told the guy on the right that we had three kids under four and my wife was expecting (we were since blessed with a beautiful Ephraim Zusha). He though we were absolutely insane. On another note, I must say, I am getting much better at this flash thing.

I'm not sure why I have so many pics of Dino. Must be his ultra photogenicness (hmmm, my iPad refuses to recognize that as a word also. Weird).

The Bar Mitzvah class got to introduce each of the candle lighters with a cute personalized poem. 'twas nice. dino here is trying to memorize his part. 'twas nice. dino here is trying to memorize his part.

One of the honorees with the wonderful Goorevitchs.

I always forget this couples name. I was the mashgiach at their sons wedding. Bonnie something. Whatever it may be, they are a really neat family.

The kids doing their introduction/poetry thing.

Yay!

Now starts the comedy part. The dude was mighty funny. Comedy is like pickles for me. I never want them, but once I have a bite I think "wow. These are good, I should have them more often".

I love how this lens locks in the focus in low light. Yummy.

Demonstrating how one could drive and take off ones sweater at the same time. Every time I look at these pictures I laugh.

For some reason I loved how the shadows looked.

The Tomkins. Parents of the famous Jake. Proud owners of a Mammoth Mountain bumper sticker.

Not sure what I like about this one.

This was hilarious. He was showing how whenever there is a bench with a table, people sit on the table and put their legs on the bench. So he invented a row above the tables so people could put their food there. But instead of putting their food there, they sat on them and put their feet on the table. And on it went. I guess you had to be there.

Mushka hates having her picture taken. Ha.

I love old couples.

And the Goorevitches.

Overall I was very happy with the shoot. There were no pieces of art, just good captures of a fun night. I feel like there was consistency from shot to shot, there was good use of flash and the best part: hardly any post processing. Just corrected exposure on a few and batch processed them all through Photoshop with a few minor actions.

What I really should use more though is a moderate wide angle. I'm really eying the new Nikon 35mm, however, its very pricey and I've heard it has some focus issues. We'll see. But it would complement the 85mm perfectly. I'd hardly ever need another lens (I'm trying to convince myself. I'm sure if I try hard enough I could do it.).

And for the record, I ended up typing this in the SimpleNote app and copying the whole thing over. You'd think wordpress would get its act together. Nope. I shouldn't complain. It's free (but is anything really free? Sorry. Not going down that path. I need to sleep).

Good Night.

SGI Summer Fest

According to the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge, animals are divided into

those that belong to the Emperor, embalmed ones, those that are trained, suckling pigs, mermaids, fabulous ones, stray dogs, those included in the present classification, those that tremble as if they were mad, innumerable ones, those drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, others, those that have just broken a flower vase, those that from a long way off look like flies.

I'm in awe.

In love.

Oh how I would love to have met the author of this arcane work. Alas he is long dead and embalmed. If he ever existed in the first place.

I discovered this remarkable work in the opening pages of a so-far brilliant book on photographs and photographers who photographed them (two nouns and a verb, I like the sound of that, maybe I'll make into a movie of sorts). The book is called The Ongoing Moment by Geoff Dyer (who by his own admission does not even own a camera, and who also wrote a book titled Yoga For People Who Cant Be Bothered To Do It). When I'm through with it I'll update y'all with a slightly more informative book report.

This past Thursday I photographed the summer festival at Silver Gan Israel. So far I've attended the camp as a camper for 9 years, counselor for 3, learning director (actually that was part of the counselor job), and now as a photographer. All were fun, though the counselor years were definitely the most fun (this may be due to the fact that I hardly remember the years as a camper other than jumping off the roof on a Shabbaton when all the staff were sleeping, watching sunrise and sleeping through the rest).

The kids performed (I hated that part as a counselor, I think we tried it the first year and then just let the girls have the stage all to themselves and their dances), we ate, and then there was this dunking show (which was neater than I thought it would be, which usually happens).

On to the visuals (all taken on my newish 24-70, which I'm still working on mastering, will let you know what i think of it soon. So far all I can tell you is that it focuses faster than Michael Johnson can run a foot):

This kid has the coolest blond hair. I was trying all day to snap some shots of him, and he kept running away.

I love kid-eating-pics.

Gimme some of that ketchup love.

No, mom. I will not sing, I will not dance, I will not look at the crowd. In fact I'll just look at that really interesting wall back there.

Another eating shot.

Alon's Kids. Cute as anything.

No, there was not trampoline there. No really. Really.

Wonder where he gets his eyes from.

Now for some Monochromes:

Excuse me young sir, how much did that hat cost?

Nice backlit kids playing laser tag.

I'm not exactly sure what he's screaming at but it must be pretty intense.

Priviet. Roma and Esther.

Rosh Hashana Card

This is a Rosh Hashana card I made for Chabad of West Orange County during the construction of the shul (which has since been completed, and is gorgeous). The grungy theme was to reflect the building (verb) aspect, dirt and all. The picture is a stitched panorama with my trusty (actually, not very) point and shoot (which has not been turned on in well over four months now).

And the back of the card:

Anyone guess where the text of the blessing is from?

Yearbook Cover

This is a yearbook cover I did for the Hebrew Academy. The idea and the tree (well mot of the tree) was drawn by the high school students and the texture, background grass and text was done by the berk-meister (me). The background is actually a few layers of some out of focus lights from some lights hanging in a tree at the good old cow farm (what were light doing on a tree? Dunno, some Chanukah thing I guess.).