karle fried photography KIDS

This was the first Ethiopian wedding I have photographed and I loved very minute of it! Set in the Oakland Hills in the back of two houses, the wedding was perfect. Orange was the theme, orange decorations, flowers and an orange wedding dress, which thought was lovey and great to see instead of the normal white for a change. Families, and friends were excited, warm, happy and so nice to be around and photograph. There were tons of little kids too. As you know I love photographing children. And lets not forget about the homemade Ethiopian food…. to die for. Everything was fabulous and I tried it all. Fozia’s sister made everything from scratch! Wow! Before the guests could eat, the bride and groom had to make there own plates and sit down to eat. Ofcourse I held everything up because I wanted to take photographs of the new couple as the sun was coming down. Finally I let them go and eat and the party started. Friends and family from all over the Ethiopian community came from all over the Bay, San Francisco, San Jose and Marin to celebrate in Oakland with the beautiful bride and groom and loved getting their photograps taken. I had the best time and felt so welcome and adored by everyone. There was dancing and cake eating until the late hours of the night.

Nice work. I found this on another photographer in San Francisco whose work I admire, Lisa Wiseman. Love the realness of this work and without any retouching.

I can’t believe Halloween 2009 is over, I didn’t have even one piece of candy…what was I thinking?! I love seeing all the great Halloween costumes and watching all the kids have so much fun! There sure were alot of adults dressed up this year for Halloween, I think adults dressing up for Halloween is the new norm. Although it is sure hard to tell in Berkeley CA where every day seems to be like Halloween. I never know if I’m looking at a costume or the persons everyday clothes!? When I was young Halloween was a children’s holiday and no I am not over the hill! I took a few photos of some kids I knew. Didn’t want to be the weird photographer taking photos of everyones kid and parents asking me why and wondering if I’m some child molester. Just caught a few photographs, mostly I was enjoying seeing so much laughter, happiness and enthusiam for dressing up and hangin out with family and friends! Later on after all the kiddes where off to bed adults everywhere were stealing their children’s candy. Where you gulity? And even later after that on BART, Halloween goers and the rest of the East Bay party goers trying to get into San Francisco beause the Bay Bridge was still closed had a costume sardine love feast on the train back and forth all night long. Good times!

I had the best time photographing Jacki and Jason in Half Moon Bay California. It actually took me about 2 hours to get to Half Moon Bay from Berkeley, but it was worth the long commute and traffic. Highway 1 is so pretty and when I reached their hut and grounds on the cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, I was relaxed and excited to photograph the happy couple and parents to be. Jacki was actually due that very day we had the photoshoot, but was in such great shape I would of never known her baby was on the way. Jacki is a Yoga Instructor so she is very fit and immediately wanted to show of her pregnant yoga postures for the camera. It was a really nice day and we started at about 5:45pm which was perfect to get the end of the day light. We started off the cliff and then to the garden and went down to the beach after. It was so beautiful, the air smelled so good and waves sounded so relaxing and peaceful. I almost forgot I was on a photo shoot.