I was so excited when she asked me to do a shoot with her for her next album. Nicki lives in San Fransisco now but was coming down for a few days and so we scheduled the shoot. She also happens to be married to one of the most talented guys in the business, Tim Bluhm of  The Mother Hips. Incidentally she was a huge Mother Hips fan and had a crush on Tim for years before she even met him! Those two lovebirds make giant epic beautiful sounds together.

All these photos were taken at our mutual friends Mark & Kristen Murino’s gorgeous home in San Diego.

Below, medium format film (Holga)

Another Holga shot below.









My absolute favorites!

(these are straight out of the camera- no processing)

Be still me heart! Stuart when he was 24 years old… & he just keeps getting hotter…

Below is my fave for sure.

Feather Love Photography: Artist Workshop (1 day intensive)

There are many incredible technical photography workshops out there (in fact I can recommend some!) but THIS one will be focused more on inspiration, finding your own style & voice in the wedding industry, and being fulfilled as an artist. It’s going to be different and unique to any other photography workshop out there. I have compiled many questions I have been receiving from photographers and put together a talk to cover all those questions. This will NOT be some class on how to make your work look like Feather Love; Instead, it WILL be an inspiring talk and shoot that will help give direction on how to find your OWN unique style and voice, and also on how to do so unapologetically! : ) I strongly believe that each artist has their own path and that sometimes they need to be introduced to their own potential. If you lose your entire grip on reality when you see an incredible f’ing photo, and you want your OWN work to give you that same feeling- this workshop is for you! I went to an excellent workshop in the past and it fully propelled me into my art & my business, and I would love to pay that forward…

When: Saturday, September 4^th 2010
Time: 12 noon- 8pm
Where: My place, Spring Valley, California. San Diego County. (Address & directions available after registration)
Cost: $800 per person
When to book: This is going to be an intimate, laid-back workshop. Space is very limited so that I can pay attention to each guest and have enough time to answer all your questions. We are going to fill up quick!
Food: We’ll be providing lunch & dinner. (Please specify if there are any dietary restrictions so that we can try to accommodate everyone. Send me an email after registration with your dietary specifications at: info@featherlove.com)
Wear: Comfortable clothes and shoes, we will be indoors & outdoors
Bring: Something to take notes on: notepad, ipad, whatevs.. . and IF you feel like it, a camera to shoot the workshop, but that’s not a necessity

Details, address, directions, accommodation suggestions and info will be emailed to you after registration. Payment must be made in full before August 10th- cancellation & refund available before August 10^th only. The only way to reserve your spot is full payment.

RESERVE YOUR SEAT AND PAY HERE:

The day will look like this:

Noon

A talk for about 3 hours which will cover

• How I started in the wedding industry
• What changes I made that brought my business success & made my job & my art personally fulfilling
• Using the blog world to get “free” advertising
• Getting the clients YOU want
• Finding your own influence & artistic style
• Artistic integrity
• Getting & keeping inspired
• Being true to yourself as an artist
• Shooting from “the hip”
• Breaking rules to get the results you want
• Finding & creating processing that you like
• Becoming & staying the Art Director of your shoots
• Intuitive shooting
…and lots more!

3pm-4pm lunch break

4pm- 7pm shoot

I will have a crazy cool ‘surprise’ shoot with a couple to show you how I work, how I engage my clients, & how I come up with ideas etc.

7pm-8pm dinner & more questions

FAQ’s:

Can we bring cameras? Yes you can bring whatever camera you like, and take photos during the workshop. But I will be the only one shooting the couple session, if we try to shoot the session as a group we’ll be stepping on each others toes & compromising our shots ; ) After the workshop, I will post one photo on my blog from each guest with a link to your site if you choose to take any pictures during the workshop. (YOU pick the photo you want to submit).

Do you have a cat? I’m allergic. Yes I do have a cat.

Do I need to be a pro photographer? Or what if I’m just starting out? You can be a beginner or a pro. Again this is not so much a technical workshop as it is an artist’s workshop. That means, if you feel the BURN to create beautiful photos from your heart, you belong here.

RESERVE YOUR SEAT AND PAY HERE:

Part 1: LONDON.

The Right Stuff.

London Underground.

We stayed in Belsize Park- beautiful neighborhood. The following pics were taken on my daily walks around the area. Every morning for breakfast I had a chocolate croissant from a local bakery- simply the best I have ever had!

Right outside our door.

This church, Saint Peter’s, was right around the corner from where we were staying. I shot Emma & Pete’s (Emma Case Photography) engagement session here, click here to see those photos and tons more of the gorgeous church inside.

Meredith (Brian Ellis’ girlfriend) and I went to a little french cafe for lunch while the guys were getting their sound check. Then we spent the remainder of the day in Camden.

One of my favorite series of shots from the entire trip, below.

Riding in English taxis, vintage shopping, and the wildly-entertaining STABLES market in Camden…

Then later at Scala, ASTRA played with Diagonal & Litmus.

ASTRA live @ Scala April 14th 2010.

There are a few videos from this show on youtube.

Backstage after…

Then Lee Dorrian (Cathedral / Rise Above Records, ASTRA’s label) went out for a drink with us after the show.

Then he convinced us to go to the Crobar in Soho- he said it was great, everyone else said “that place is shit!” and warned us that we would have a terrible time, so of course we got in a van with Lee and went over to the Crobar. ..

On the way, Lee told us some of the most amazing stories about himself and his past and how much of it was spent getting totally trashed and waking up in strange places and wild fun stuff like that. Now I have a great story that I can tell one day about how I sat with Mr. Lee Dorrian in a van on the way to the Crow Bar and listened to these crazy stories. By the way, Lee is one of my favorite people, I always look forward to seeing him when we go to Europe.

The Crobar is officially the tiniest yet most intense/ heavy-metal / scumbag/ epically rad bar of all time!! We had a BLAST!

This great description on the Crobar website should give you a pretty good idea of what this place was like: “The Crobar is London’s (and probably the UK’s) only bar dedicated to bourbon, beer, Rock music and the principal that it’s ok to have fun without some idiot bar tender, doorman or arsehole giving you shit for it. Obviously, there are limits. The moment you become the arsehole punter,we show you the door but we like to give you lots of rope before you hang yourself. We don’t have a dress code, just an attitude code. All we ask is that you are dressed. We like cool people, and contrary to what you may be lead to believe, as you battle the angry, bitter and psychotic crowds on London’s streets, there are cool people in London. We know because we’re glad to say, all those cool people drink at The Crobar.”

The bartenders do shots and give kisses.

Another one of my faves from this trip, below.

I f’ing LOVE this one below of Lee’s coat….!

What a night!

So while we were out in Europe is right when the whole Volcanic Ash incident happened. We were supposed to catch a flight from London to Amsterdam but of course that got canceled, so the label organized a last minute ride for us instead (driven by Steve, the most awesomest dude ever).

This was a strange roadtrip- I think it took about 7 or 8 hours or so? But we were in a van and then we had to drive the van onto some sort of train that went into an UNDERWATER tunnel across the English Channel and into France… I still don’t exactly know how the whole thing works but it was weird. And I certainly cannot complain about driving through FRANCE & BELGIUM- the countryside was gorgeous! And everything smelled like manure, which was fine with me because we were just drinking Vodka shots in the back and listening to Stuart’s ipod mix and enjoying the ride…

Brian reading the ASTRA interview in the Classic Prog issue, and that’s a photo I took of the band! Nice!

Vodka in paper coffee cups whilst driving through Belgium/France = Quickly followed by nap time.

Riding in vans with dudes.

Part 2: HOLLAND

We arrived in Tilburg after that looong day of traveling and went right to the Roadburn Festival to see if we could catch COMUS play. We just missed them right when we got there. And we missed our friends EARTHLESS too- which we always run into in Europe (because they’re pretty much always touring out there).  But running into COMUS was wild, they were really sweet and turns out they stayed at the same hotel as us (we had breakfast together & debated over the volcano!), and, well pretty much every band that played at Roadburn stayed at the same hotel. Speaking of other Roadburn bands, you absolutely MUST see Jex Thoth live sometime– they were totally incredible! (Here’s a youtube clip of Jex Thoth at Roadburn)

So the next day was when ASTRA played at Roadburn. Here we are backstage acting stupid before the show.

Oh and I ate one of the best fallafel sandwhiches ever that night! They had an entire food section at Roadburn that was all vegan/ vegetarian. Kinda weird walking around that place filled with heshers and doomsters looking all tough and rad, but acting all peaceful eating their vegan felafels and getting trashed.
ASTRA live at Roadburn Festival April 16th 2010.

Here’s one of the youtube clips of the show…
They KILLED it– such a great show. Afterward we decided to walk around and see which bands we could catch. We ran into our friends the EARTHLESS dudes again. And there was a constant stream of ASTRA fans wearing their shirts and coming up to talk to the band… apparently the show was sold out and there were several hundred people waiting to get in outside that missed it… it’s a good thing the band’s going back in July!

When in Holland…

Above, the menu at a ‘cafe’ in Tilburg.

part 3. AMSTERDAM

We headed over to Amsterdam after Roadburn. We planned it so that we would have a couple days off there just to enjoy and travel etc. But we ended up getting stuck out there for another like 5 days or so because of the Icelandic Volcano situation,  so after eating out and going out every night, the last few days were all about buying bread and cheese and wine from the market and eating in our hotel rooms…. oh and the CHEESE in Holland is INSANE!  I still can’t get over it- I brought a bunch back too.

We spent all our time walking, catching buses, trolleys & cabs all around Amsterdam. We visited the Van Gogh Museum (amazing!), the Sex Museum & The Vodka Museum, and generally explored the city which is absolutely gorgeous: the buildings, canals, parks, restaurants, as well as the dry, smart-ass wit of the dutch folk… ; ) I love them.

The city is so well organized. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was on a bicycle: children, business people, students, grandparents. The whole city is set up around transportation. So all the streets have bike lanes as well as car & trolley lanes & pedestrian, bus & bicycle stoplights etc, all worked into the system.

Amsterdam. Is. Beautiful.

Below: the Red Light District. (Oh and for some reason I threw a photo in below of how messy our hotel room was, this has nothing to do with the red light district so I have no idea why I did that… maybe subconsciously I was thinking what a “dirty” “filthy” room and for some reason my brain grouped that in with the Red Light District collage…)

An authentic and incredible little Nepalese/Tibetan restaurant in the Red Light District…. to die for!

And below is another one of my favorites from this trip of Meredith, shot with my point-and-shoot.

Our room when it was “neat” which lasted for about 5 minutes. This is was the beautiful view we had! We stayed at the Hotel Alexander. Highly recommend for those on a budget. Clean, central, in a beautiful area, excellent customer service/concierge etc.

I met up with an old friend of mine, Riley Salyards. She is one third of the Jackston Johnston & Roe team (my bff Teo’s gorgeous clothing line) as well as an amazing artist, designer, photographer… everything! Riley’s blog is where you go to see beauty of all kinds. You must must must go here. She is so ridiculously talented.

Meredith took this photo below of Stuart and I, and this lady in the pink jacket was totally zoned out and kept stepping into our kodak moment. Oblivious.

This is what the old lady was staring at. So I guess I don’t blame her.

I love this shot of Riley outside Cafe Vertigo. This place showed old black and white films but was also a bar, restaurant, cafe…

Stuart took these next few below— I LOVE them!!

On my walk home from the Cafe that night…

Our hotel: Hotel Alexander.

One of the things I was looking forward to the most in this trip was the fact that we were going to be in Holland during tulip season. A few of us took the bus to Keukenhof to see the gardens & fields…

I’m in love with these colors below! Can someone please use this as a color palette for their wedding & have me shoot it !? Please ???

Words cannot describe how beautiful that place was, but suffice to say, those tulip gardens were like a dreamy fairytale land where magical unicorns ride liquid rainbows into soft green meadows and albino peacocks rule as philosopher-kings and stuff like that.

After all that AND some, we finally found some flights back home. That was such a fun trip….Here’s my dude, styled out on our way back… Love you baby.

To see more of my travel photography, go to categories and click “travel”.

Down below, I have put together a collage comprised of some found images I have collected to give you some ideas of the type of clothing/ outfits/ accessories I am looking for you to wear… but those are just ideas, feel free to send me pics of you in interesting outfits. I need both men and women, as well as one couple -doesn’t have to be a real couple. (Oops I just realized I didn’t put nearly as many photos of men as there are of women- sorry! Hope the dudes can still get an idea from this though). You will need to do your own makeup, hair & styling. I am looking for authenticity. Basically, just show up looking rad and pose for a couple hours.

If you would like to be a model for this shoot, please send in a pic or two of you wearing an outfit or two that you think is appropriate from your wardrobe, make it as interesting as you like! Email to me at: info@featherlove.com. Please put MODEL in the subject box. I will be choosing a small handful of people… spread the word yo… thanks!! xo

And double thanks to the extremely talented & super sweet Amy Seeley for conducting this rad interview!! xo

This is an old friend of mine, extremely talented musician Ryan Jencks in his warehouse/home in Oakland. He has a fantastic collection of weird oddities and has always had a fine eye for decor. His home is really beautiful & dark… I got a chance to go and visit him when we were in San Francisco a couple months ago and I was really stoked that he was willing to let me shoot. Formerly of Azog, Crash Worship, and Physics, he’s currently involved in several experimental/industrial/noise projects such as Sixes, Preyers, PHT, Carrion, Manslaughter, Deathroes, SR-71 and Summons. Just went to see him play as Sixes the other night here in San Diego at the beginning of his tour. Seriously amazing. He also enjoys fogging the room out so much that you can’t see anything or get any decent photos, but that’s neither here nor there. Here’s Mr. R. Jencks in his natural environment.

You can find out more about him on:  http://fierysummons.blogspot.com and then here on the Crash Worship site: http://www.crashworship.net/lextalion

Then of course, there is my little big love, Russia. The dark sweet creature who infiltrated these photos. He too enjoys being outside with his mama and following me all around the property. There is no word to describe how peaceful and happy I felt this morning…

To all my beautiful sweet clients and to all the readers and followers of this blog… HAPPY HOLIDAYS. xo Noa

And some ranunculus… just because they’re so pretty.

I have been photographing this ongoing project on & off for about a decade or so: shooting people in their homes…
This shoot was one of two I did in San Francisco as a submission for a magazine.

Here is my friend Ingrid in her home.

I have always been intrigued by taking a look at people that I find fascinating, how they fit in their homes, the things they choose to collect and surround themselves with, and what that says about them. I love this combination of objects, art, colors, architecture, clothing, curios etc., and the unique portrait it paints of the individual.

When given the theme “cabinet of curiosities” by the magazine I was submitting to, I decided to combine these two ideas into this project. For me, this meant looking at that conversation between the person & their space & their inanimate objects together as one subject- sort of a “posed /propped-up-on-a-shelf / behind-a-glass / in-their-natural-environments” view, so to speak.

Another underlying theme that comes to mind is “oddities”- which is generally the purpose of these cabinets filled with collected items. I choose people who interest me based on their character, their art, their strangeness, or anything else that strikes me about them. It’s odd to collect things, if you think about it. And I like people who are odd…

Check out this shoot I did with David Hurley of ASTRA at his home earlier this year, for the same project…
Also, I will be posting tons more SF pics in a few days, so check back!
The next Cabinet Of Curiosities shoot I will be posting is a much much darker one….. ; )

Then, this thing happened: Nerve.com, one of my favorite sites for intellectual, funny, sexy, pop culture content (not to mention incredible art by the best photographers) offered to do a special feature on my Boudoir session for Sonny. (NSFW). If you want to take a look, here’s a promotional sign-in user/pass combo (since it’s featured in the Premium Members section).
username: nervepress
password: 520nerve
I highly recommend you browse the rest of the Nerve.com site, if you aren’t already familiar with it, it’s super entertaining! Sign-up. Srsly they don’t get 1.5 million readers per month for no reason… Click on the pics below & sign in with the promo username/password above to go right to the (NSFW) feature….

I had copious amounts of fun on this shoot, Sonny was incredible to work with.  She had already hired me to shoot her wedding, so I was EXTRA excited when she asked for a boudoir shoot.  She’s stunning, open to ideas, easy to work with, fun, and sexy as all hell! We had a blast.

This was shot entirely on my property and was fully influenced by the photographic art from the early 1970’s Playboy/Penthouse magazines… one of my favorite era/genre combos. I styled much of the shoot too, and loved the opportunity to put some of the many good vintage items & accessories I own to use.

To see the entire NSFW session, please click THIS LINK!!

click HERE to see the entire NSFW session!

It was early, really really early when we left.

; )

A very LONG and very HOT and very HUMID 7 hour drive from Madrid to Alicante after flying for about 24 hours.

At the hotel in Benidorm, Alicante. Hotel Rambla, where all the bands stayed = party central.

It was awesome when we got there that they had rooms for us but the rooms had no beds. So then we had to get them to get us rooms WITH beds. That took a little while with the language barrier ‘n all.

The wonderful people who drove us all the way from Madrid to Alicante where so incredibly awesome and cool. Here is one of them, Alicia.

The town of Benidorm.

Oh HELLS no, you di-in’t!

That’s our hotel on the left.

Holga

Drinks with some of the guys from Witchcraft…. AWESOME band. We love the Swedes!

So this is the little town of Guadalest (population 200). Before the festival, we decided to walk up to the top of the castle so I could take some pics, and also, because it was like, a freaking castle, in Spain. Gorgeous.

Of course, we walked the whole thing with drinks in hand because WE COULD.

The climb up to the top.

And then this thing snuck up on us out of nowhere and left us awe-struck. Sometimes it’s hard to believe things like this are real.

Here’s looking at you kid.

The castle.

Inside there were all these awesome little rooms with great acoustics… so the guys did some weird throat-singing/monk-chanting stuff which sounded really amazing and had a bunch of people walking in looking all terrified.

The “bag lady” photos.

I was seriously in stitches the WHOLE trip. They were being stupid and funny the whole time. i <3 them.

On the way up.

View from the top of the castle down, of the festival starting to gather.

Panoramic of the lake.

Old graveyard at the top of the castle.

Headless praying gravestone. Certainly one of my favorite pics from this entire trip. I srsly want to start a goth band just so this can be the album cover.

I still can’t believe I was here.

Another one of my faves from the trip…

Stuart took these of me…. Coppin’ majuh ‘tude outside a Spanish Castle.

This is Stuart’s too.

Separated at birth: my husband & Lee Dorrian. I was totally blown away watching these two talk! Twins!
Lee Dorrian came from England to see ASTRA play. They’re on his label: Rise Above Records. Also, Mr. Dorrian (Napalm Death, Cathedral) made me blush when we met and he kissed my hand like a true English Gentleman! We had the best conversation too…. it was awesome to meet you sir!

Back down from the castle, at the festival. It was so beautiful out there.

Our friend Mike Eginton of Earthless (he also owns the awesome San Diego record store Thirsty Moon) & Solana.

Isn’t she lovely?

Cheers baby.

Over on the left, some of our hotel-mates, the awesome crazy Swedes with Witchcraft!

Isaiah Mitchell. (Earthless).

Witchcraft, before their set.

I love these guys! <3

And the amazing, sweet, incredible & genius guy behind the ENTIRE festival: Alvaro. xoxo!

Mario Rubalcaba (Earthless)

Bubble boy!

Self-portrait.

Some more friends from San Diego!

This was one of the best locations I have ever seen live bands play at.

Stuart took these…

The beautiful Italian creature serving the booze… so many people had the drullet thing going on, I don’t get it. I guess it’s a euro-thing. But whatevs, check out that mug!

Withcraft! mind-blowing!

This poor dude was the life of the party…

Everyone had a go at him.




“Can we get a picture with Lee Dorrian?”

And then… ASTRA!  F’ing BEST SHOW EVER!!!!

I love this one.

Uhm, honey…. there’s, like, a CASTLE behind you!

Yes, yes, Exactly.

Some Holgas.

Dreamy bass player…

Primo!

Earthless!!! I’ve seen them play a hundred times, but this was the best show of theirs I had ever seen! They played until 5 am or something!

Festival doggie!

Back at the Hotel Rambla… we partied with the Swedes (Witchcraft) & Earthless by the astroturf-lined pool.

Alicante is a tourist town. The food was gross. I couldn’t find any authentic Spanish food for the life of me….

Stuart took this.

Beach Holgas. I tried to avoid taking any pictures of the topless tanning ladies, didn’t want them to think I was some sort of perv.

Exactly.

Nap time!

Then we went out dancing the next night at some super-touristy nightclub named “Richard New Look”… (I don’t get the name either). But we danced for 5 hours straight, non-stop, we got that club bumping! and somehow during the process, we also managed to turn Brian Ellis into the most famous person in Alicante that night. He didn’t even have to play any music, he just WAS. Dave unknowingly entered him into a “striptease” contest. which Brian TOTALLY won amongst a bunch of Calvin Klein-looking boys. He blew the roof off the place. Everyone screamed. Everyone took pictures with him, they even took pictures with us because we were his posse… it’s so hard to explain what actually happened that night but I will just say it was one of the best nights of our lives. so much fun. so random. and at the end of it all we walked right out of the club and skinny dipped right into the Mediterranean waters at 5am. I couldn’t think of anything better. You must must MUST check out some of what Brian Ellis does when he’s not playing with ASTRA. Firstly he recently released one of the best dance albums I have heard in a long time, Yellow Light District- under his project Brian E. Check out the official video for Sinistyle here. Plus he recently co-produced M.I.A and is working on some other VERY interesting (& big) stuff…

This was his break dancing routine to the song “pretty woman” during the strip contest. WINNER!

we had the BEST TIME EVER! Espana! Te Amo! Next time it’s Andalucia, where my grandmother’s family is from….

Here’s an excellent description by the insanely talented founder Kristy (wreckless girl) that explains it best (ps: it’s CRAZY that her an I have the same birthday!):

“we are a community of free-spirited, bohemian, wandering artists: photographers, musicians, and writers from all over the world. we’re inspired by nature, culture, architecture, motion, light, inner-workings, and outer-presence. we’re interested in telling stories through our respective mediums”.

I love this concept so much. Here it is: vagabondbond.com

I am honored, to say the least, to be sharing this awesome new space with some other truly incredible photographers & artists namely: Wreckless Girl, Warm Pears, Tiny Water, Sara Montour, Sarah Jurado, Bobby Earle, Amy Seeley,  Andrew Shepard & Alicia Price.

I went to shoot this wedding in Vancouver, Washington last weekend which was ABSOLUTELY STUNNING!… The lovely and EXTREMELY helpful Emilia Jane (Auburn & Ivory / Veilied Vows) came with me to assist. We stayed at the Ace Hotel. Went vintage shopping. Checked out Mississippi Records which is in my favorite part of Portland.  Visited with my sister and nephews, had drinks at Noble Rot (apparently they discovered their own water-source in the basement… best-tasting water ever!) & Clyde Common. Had coffee at Stumptown Coffeee Roasters, a tuna melt at Kenny & Zukes (Where Emilia bought her hombre the “body by pastrami” t-shirt), Visited the Cacao Drink Chocolate chocolatiere and stayed for probably way too long. The most divine hot cocoa! Had the best time… Will post the wedding pics as soon as I can but in the meantime, here is Portland.

The Ace Hotel…

Stumptown Coffee Roasters

Clyde Common

Record player in the room…

Bitchin’ Betty Davis vinyl!



blogging away…





ghost busters

donnie darko

The pied piper of portland proper



i <3 every inch of the city

She said: I love  your shoes!
I said: I love your boobs!
She replied: Thanks! My parents made them especially for me!




Cacao drinkchoclate… you must must MUST check this place out whilst visiting Portland!

our tasting…

One of my favorite parts of the city… Mississippi.

Emilia Jane took these 2 snaps of me!! I love them!!


Stay tuned for photos of the wedding….!

CLASSIC ROCK MAGAZINE July 2009 issue

CLASSIC ROCK PROG June issue

I call this one: unicorn war paint






And from the garden…