Santa Cruz Photographer for Weddings, Families, Commercial, Food, Lifestyle and More!
Hey you. Yeah, you. Thanks for visiting my blog. Check here often for the latest and greatest photos by Chris Schmauch. I shoot weddings, food, architecture, families, events, models, products... well you get the point, I love it all!
Click on the "Categories" link up top to find posts related to certain types of photography. Most of my stuff is restaurant-related (architecture & food) or people-related (weddings, engagements, families, etc.)
Click the "portfolio" link to visit www.GoodEyePhotography.com, where you can order prints from over 130,000 photos in my always-expanding archive.
Oh, a little about me: I'm 32, happily married with two little girls, and am passionate about both Photography and Design (hence the business name). I'm a Nikon shooter, love both Macs and PCs, have that type of personality that gets along with anyone, am totally unflappable, and, well, I'm pretty good at what I do.
Visit often, and if you need to book me, don't hesitate to call: 408.431.4808!
Junnoon offers a delicious Saturday brunch featuring these folded creations called “dosas” which are a refreshing departure from, say, omelets. Pair your favorite dosa with one of Angeline’s cocktail creations and enjoy watching the foot traffic on University Avenue from Junnoon’s patio.
May 24, 2010 - 9:47 pm [...] my typical new-client-gets-a-little-bit-of-everything photography. A couple months later I took a few shots to promote their outside brunch dining area, which is really nice. Fast forward two years, and [...]
There’s a new exhibition open at the san Jose Museum of Art in downtown San Jose called “Superlight.” It’s the second bi-annual showing of the Zero1 Festival, art-directed by Steve Dietz. Steve invited myself and fellow Wave employee Mitchell Alan Parker to preview the exhibit the day before opening. Enjoy the pics and check out the exhibit if you can. More pics here.
You can now get the full spa treatment at Yoga Source Los Gatos. Sure, it’s small, but this place sports the best Yoga experience in the Silicon Valley, so the Spa’s gotta be worth checking out! I’ll let you know next time I get a hot rock massage or whatever. More pics here.
Josiah cooked up some new creations for his Spring Menu at Sent Sovi. With work as beautiful as his, my job is, well, easy. Check out the rest of the pics here.
Supposedly a major icon in Singapore is the “Merlion,” which this aptly-named restaurant has entwined into its identity. Check out the rest of the photos here.
I met with Mike (the owner of Le Papillon in San Jose) today to get some fresh interiors of his restaurant. He wanted detail shots that give visitors to his website the feel for the place without doing the customary “room” shots. I thought it was a good chance to use the 50mm/1.4 and 85mm/1.4 on the D3 to really get some good isolation on the details. I think the results speak for themselves. Here’s a few from the gallery.
The Wave did a story recently on learning to fly… I met up with Mary Ann Dach, a flight instructor down at Magnum Aviation in San Martin. She was super-nice, although a little nervous in front of my big camera. I encouraged her to throw on her large, dark aviator glasses after which she seemed more at ease. Ironically her next student turned out to be my next door neighbor! Small world. No, I didn’t go flying that day. Here’s a few pics from the larger gallery.
I can’t believe I’ve never checked this place out before. It’s pretty unassuming from the outside, but the interior is amazing, and the see-thru wine cellar is incredibly unique! Here’s a few photos from the gallery.
Visited a South San Jose tattoo parlor today. I don’t have any, but I can definitely respect the artwork going on here. The people are fascinating and it was fun to watch & photograph. Here’s a few from the gallery below.
Shot some interiors/exteriors and dishes at Wine Cellar today. The sister/brother owners (Lisa & Steve) are super-nice & very accommodating. I ate the tuna tartar (not pictured) as it’s just so dang tasty! The rest of the shots are here.
On the right is Steve, one of the owners.
I love the color in this shot – it’s just a glass of water but the quality of light and reflections/refractions turns it into a work of art!
Pampas, a Brazilian Churrascaria-style restaurant is about to open in Palo Alto. The owners have done an amazing job with the space, creating a high-end atmosphere but intended to be “family-friendly” and casual. They even have portable DVD players to distract their younger customers. For more photos, check out these galleries: interiors, headshots, and details.
Interior showing the bar and lounge area near the Alma-side entrance.
The seating along the sides of the restaurant. The low backlit brick wall creates a nice texture and adds to the tactile ambience.
The raised central seating area. There’s additional seating under this raised area that’s sunk into the ground, but that wasn’t photo-friendly yet.
Side seating with a translucent screen separating from the bar/lounge area.
Side seating shot from the raised central “plateau.”
General ManagerSaeed Amini
Executive Chef John Karbowski
Owners Tim and Masumi Reynders
Masumi Reynders, Owner
Tim Reynders, Owner.
Detail shot of coffeetable
Detail of the amazing lights over the bar
Detail of the screen separating dining from bar/lounge. I love the colors of the Brazilian art showing through.
Unique chairs
Lights over the bar
The “swords” or skewers for the rotisserie
Saeed shows us some skewered meat. Yum!
April 27, 2008 - 11:12 am
- The place looks fantastic! I would consider flying in from NY just for the chance to dine there.
mary jane
As a progressive, contemporary wedding photographer shooting in the digital age, it can be overwhelming to come back from a long day’s shooting with the daunting task of processing a couple thousand photos ahead of you. But if I wait a couple days before sitting down at the computer, it can easily become a week, 10 days, then the bride starts sending you discreet texts and emails wondering where her photos are. But do I ever fall victim to this procrastination? Of course not! I say, get ‘er done now and move on!
I consumed a few energy drinks and powered through Matt and Sarah’s photos, and I gotta tell ya either I’m getting better at this or my new equipment (Nikon D3, D300) is making the editing process more dreamy! I am so happy to be able to present the B&G with ALL 800-and-something edited photos on my website when they’re only day one into their honeymoon.
Here’s a slideshow of my “Photographer’s Top 100” photos. Enjoy!
Josiah’s latest installment in The Wave Magazine is a “how to” picture-story describing the making of the perfect “1 minute” french-style omelet that you can treat your dearly beloved to this Mother’s Day. Here’s a few pics from the whole session.
Eggs, arguably the most important ingredient in an omelet. On a side-note, Josiah says his old photo teacher informed him that if one can properly shoot an egg, then you’ve got your lighting technique down. He didn’t elaborate about whether it had to remain in the shell. Well old-teacher-guy, did I receive a passing grade?
Josiah shows off a little for the camera.
The finished omelet, with cheese, asparagus, crab meat and, of course, butter.
This is a quick snapshot of the interior of Sent Sovi in Saratoga, CA. It’s small [intimate!], but the food is prompt and the service is delicious. Or am I just delirious? Time to call it a night.
OK, call me a gadget geek, that’s fine (and totally true). Today good ol’ Brown delivered my much anticipated D3 camera body – Nikon’s current flagship full frame (FX) camera. I won’t go into too many details about what makes this camera so special, but its ability to capture almost noise-free images in low-light situations is staggering. This opens up a whole new world of “natural light” photography that has never been possible before. Go Nikon!
This is a nice self portrait in the bathroom of my office building. Shot with the 50mm/1.4, 1/100 sec, F2, ISO 720. And no, that’s not vignetting in the corners – that’s the falloff from the overhead lights.
OK, so even I don’t always get it right the first time (ha ha). Mental note: don’t shoot light objects on white backgrounds. Clients will not be happy. With that said, here’s a few outtakes from the second shoot.
Okay…so that’s a totally cheesy title, but Roux Louisiana Kitchen in Santana Row (San Jose, CA) is a pretty fantastic fancy pants restaurant. Featuring southern-style cuisine, it’s more comfort than calorie-conscious food, but you should know that from the name. The interior is stunning and the food is original and quite tasty, as I can attest to from sampling the plates I shot. Check out the photos below or the whole gallery here.
This is the sentry located in the men’s bathroom. I don’t know if the girls get one too!
These are some of the most popular appetizers. The mozzarella-stick-lookin-things are actually fried grits [tasty]. The big, seasoned potato fries are as they appear. The balls are called “hush puppies” which are basically dumplings/dough, deep-fried. I actually liked them but I don’t think they’re for everyone. Roux’s owner told me back in the day they were originally made from kitchen scraps and thrown to the dogs to keep them quiet, hence the apropos name!
These look like crab cakes, but are in fact fried green tomatoes. I don’t like tomatoes, but these don’t taste anything like tomatoes, which made them edible to me. The fruit itself really didn’t have any flavor at all, come to think of it.
The classic Po’ Boy, but with pulled pork that went into the oven the night before at a paltry 200-degrees. Thassa some goooood pork!
Big hunks of seared ahi tuna. Quite tasty.
I think this is Bananas Foster. I wasn’t going to try it because I don’t care for bread pudding, which is what this looks like. But finally I took up a fork an wouldn’t ya know it, it’s damn tasty!
Irit & her husband, the owners of Sugar Butter Flour (originally in Sunnyvale and now also at the Pruneyard in Campbell), hired me to shoot their entire line of baked goods, candies, etc. for their website. Having tasted the goods I can highly recommend them to anyone. They even have fancy cakes!
Yup, that’s a cake!
I recently had the pleasure of taking a bunch of new publicity photos for the fine folks over at Cetrella. It is under new management, and after making over the restaurant, they needed new photos – interiors, headshots, food, cocktails – the whole works. Here’s a sampling:
I had the pleasure of shooting the new promotional photos for Five Branches University. We spent all day in Santa Cruz going through our extensive shot list for the day’s worth of work. All the students and staff were very amiable and open to being in the photos, which says a lot for the Santa Cruz culture in general. The campus is literally two blocks from the beach. I had a lot of fun shooting the student-models and getting to know them and their passion for holistic medicine.
Students checking out the flower vendor’s goods at the farmers market.
Wednesday night sailboat races viewed from the Crow’s Nest.
Chattin’ it up around the Chinese chairs
Student portrait
Student portrait
Student hanging at the lounge.
Student intern applying acupuncture
Doctors and interns meeting
Student taking notes during herbology class.
Herbs in the Herbal room.
Student lounge
Traditional scale for measuring out the herbs
Doctor interviewing patient before procedure.
Library
Acupuncture treatment
Tuina massage teacher instructing student
Tai Ji instructor teaching class
Gynecology teacher
More lounge pics
This is one of those hidden gems…a place stuck in a strip mall environment with rules that prevent outside upgrading…but once you go inside it’s simply stunning! I haven’t tried the food yet, but if they put half the effort into the cuisine as they did into the interior design, well…
Outside, nothing special.
Inside, definitely special.
by Chris Schmauch
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