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Tim Wheaton Photography |  Southern California Natural Light Photographer bio picture

they call me... tim

i know i should use capital letters, but i am not a fan of what it does to the letter
"I", in most cases. if i had to decide between a tree that grew time
and a tree that grew money, i would honestly have to sit and think about which
to pick the fruit from. i do not eat fruit. nope. ask me again and i'll tell
you the same. i don't eat fruit and i don't eat seafood. i like to think i am
not "picky" because i knock out whole food groups at a time. i've
been told i have a dry sense of humor. i've also been told i look like howie
mandel. i'm not sure if that is a compliment. i am uber-blessed to have a wife
who "deals with me"... though she may run into eye trouble one day
for how much she rolls her eyes at my antics.

i love to take photos. i love what they capture of my life and your lives. and then i
love to take those moments and "paint" on them... to reflect some of
the emotion that is already there in a unique way.

add this page to your bookmarks. i will continue to show sneak previews of what i am working
on as well as session summaries. you will also find random promotions and
discounts, as well as sporadic views into my and my family's life.


Missy and Daniel | Engaged | San Diego

yes, i have a “normal” job. and apparently i am going to photograph all of my co-workers’ weddings. i have always said what a compliment it is when my friends and people i know hire me to shoot their weddings. it really means a lot to me for them to put their faith in me to document the possible biggest day of their lives. so when daniel first contacted me regarding his wedding i was, again, humbled to be the one getting the call. i hadn’t met her at the time, but missy works in the same office as he does (that was how they met). so just keeping it all in the family here.

for their engagement photos, we headed down to san diego, shooting in places they stayed and visited when daniel proposed. we started at the Horton Grand in the gaslamp district of san diego. the bar area was deserted and the lone bottle of beer on the counter gave me a silly idea which they said worked pretty well, since they like the XX  :)

then it was off to a local shopping plaza.

this big chessboard made for some fun…

as we were walking to our next location, we ran into this little spot. missy loves to randomly antagonize daniel apparently… and he is no stranger to the wet willy. perfect.

onto something much nicer for daniel… cupcakes. yum.

a perfect time to rehearse the cake sharing for the wedding reception, right?

 

so we then headed to take our end of day photos at the actual spot daniel had proposed to missy. however… it was closed (!!!). so we drove up the coast just a titch and added more of the san diego coast to their memorable places list (see how i did that? silver lining achieved!).

if you follow my work you know how i feel about silhouettes…

i always have a great time with daniel (he was actually there for my first ever trip to india some years back) and missy is the perfect compliment to him. some people just match perfectly and these are two of those people. sounds cheesy, but i mean it. can’t wait for the wedding later this year, you two!

oh, this last photo is a little out of chronological order (which completely throws up the red flag on my OCD)… but i love this shot. plus, missy is as much of a movie fanatic as i am… so i figure she will enjoy this little homage to how some movies throw that tiny little bit at the end of the credits and you have to wait for it (ahem…avengers…ahem). hopefully y’all stuck around like the good viewers do. it also deserves to be the grand finale for how long they stood there waiting for a wave to splash properly   :)

 

matthew’s betabrand discolab skimboarding birthday shoot | sports photography | fashion photography

a bit of backstory to this one. and this is going to really try my cohesive ability here. so you likely/probably/possibly/maybe (how’s that for a good start with cohesion??) have seen some of my photos i have done in the past for betabrand. i’ve been doing photos off and on for them well over 5 years now. my brother, matthew (yes. this is my brother. and he may very well be your veterinarian too!) was the one who discovered the company way back when they had only a couple of different pairs of pants to their brand and they were still called ‘cordarounds’. he bought us both some pants. one of those pairs was their original run at discorounds. they had gotten a very limited amount of fabric and made less than 10 pairs of these disco pants.

long story short(er): we love betabrand. they are a great company founded and owned by the greatest guys you can meet. so when my brother’s birthday came around this year, he decided to go skimboarding at his local beach, fully decked out in betabrand’s disco clothing… when he had his hood on, it was pretty much head to toe disco! when we got to the sand i actually complained that there weren’t enough people there to see this event. so, here i am… making sure this is seen by more of you. make sure you leave even a little comment at the end to let him know you came, you saw, you guffawed at his own version of a big boy’s birthday wish coming true.   :)

changing under your towel: the coastal man’s version of women who take off or put on their bras under their shirts. a true craft.

bending it like beckham… or something…

i seem to want to give these a try almost every shoot nowadays. i kinda like this one:

“you’re getting all my crazy faces…” he said. then this happened:

go big, then go home…” i told him.

and the day ended… well that portion of it. another birthday dinner was had before he was able to collapse (most likely) in bed from the day.

hope y’all enjoyed this little bit of levity and fun. not too late to wish him a happy birthday in the comments here… and remember, diso is not all betabrand does. so check them out too :)

Bryan and Jamie | Engaged | Los Angeles

i thought the day for this shoot would never come. jamie and i have been working out the details for their wedding week for a while now, so the anticipation to finally meet this hilarious and fantastic couple was high for me. some of our emails would have some time lapse between the responses. i thought to myself “wow, and i used to think i traveled a lot” after getting another apology from jamie as she was just getting back home from a trip. it clicked one day when my wife said, “did you know that jamie is on ‘the amazing race’?” what? no i had not known and there she was, sure enough, one of the contestants on the tv show this season. i guess that’s one way to see a little of a client before you work with them  :)

bryan is a firefighter (i have a number of firefighter friends. that’s kind of funny. i wouldn’t mind having some fire-swallowing friends too. gotta get on that.) and was cracking me up while we were shooting the whole day. we started at a very different location for me, their local farmer’s market.

since they are getting married at the strawberry farms… we… well…

bucket list item… something i always wanted to do: learn to juggle.

these moments, and the one below, are what keep me interested in and loving this side of photography. people genuinely in love with one another. it really is a blessing that a lot of us wedding photographers may take for granted. especially if you just have weddings out your ears to shoot all year round. you may lose a little of just holding on to the fact that these are two people in love, allowing you into their innermost circle for one of the biggest events of their lives. i love that.

bryan & jamie: i had a great time finally meeting you and it was a blast spending the day with you both in LA. i’m thrilled for this summer and cannot wait to continue to document this most important time in your lives. thanks again for choosing me to be the one to do that!   :)

mishel | family & maternity photography

when i heard mishel (a bridesmaid in two of the weddings i shot last year) was pregnant i was hopeful for contact to be made for a shoot. you’ll see why in a moment… her husband and her are pretty much model-ready and they have the most adorable little boy. we talked about this shoot since last winter and the time finally arrived since she is due next month (!!!!). so we all ventured out into the woods for an outdoorsy day. aside from ant-covered trees that we couldn’t lean mishel on, areas of leaves just crawling with spiders (think raiders of the lost ark but with spiders instead of snakes) and crazy people telling the park ranger that we were shooting nude photos out there, all three of them were total troopers and were just awesome!

this is why i still keep at the ready and make those dumb little jokes here and there… i love this completely natural moment:

another fave:

 

models, i said!!!!!!

a lovely afternoon spent with such a loving and tenderhearted family. thank you all again for trooping through the day with me and making it fun! i wish you all the best with the birth of your newest family member and continued blessings to you all down life’s road!

zac brown band | verizon wireless amphitheater, irvine, ca | concert photography

** you do not have to like or even listen to country music to enjoy this blog post. i promise. if there were money involved in this, i would offer a money back guarantee. but there isn’t. so…. **

another shoot i picked up (happily) on behalf of honest tune magazine. i’d never seen zac brown band before, and honestly, had not even heard much of their music. i’d heard great things about them from people i’ve recently met and a couple of friends of mine actually work with the band… so i wanted to go, regardless, to be able to spend some time with them. plus, i really do love shooting at this venue.

no thanks to the irvine police acting as if this was their first time to the rodeo (ain’t nobody got the country music puns workin’ like me!) and shutting down the normal exit off the 405 freeway to the venue… it transformed a would-be 20 minute drive into over an hour. this led to me running through the entire venue parking lot, getting my pass and running from the gates to the ticket-takers. i got into the photo pit minutes before the first notes started. and so we begin…

amanda | salton sea | model photography

so if you pay attention to my work at all, you’re no stranger to any of this. i love shooting at the salton sea, and i love shooting with amanda. right here is our previous shoot together at the salton sea. yes. we went back again for more. why would we do that? how dumb and boring? nope. i had (and still have) plenty of other spots at the sea that i want to shoot. so, we just did places we hadn’t been previously, and made it completely new.

usually i work with my client/subject to style the shoot (as far as hair, makeup and wardrobe go)… but this one was all on amanda. and, as you are about to see, she rocked it. let’s start…

some of these may as well be photos someone finds from when the salton sea was in its heyday way back when…

i hate/love how much things constantly change out there. some of my favorite things are just completely gone now, as the renovation of the area is underway. but, then there are places like this abandoned house that have collected some new art on the walls:

ok… i admit… you have seen this warehouse before with jessica & mike and even here with brenna, when she added some art of her own. that didn’t bug me because i knew amanda’s visit there would be different and original. so we did our best.

this one on the left is a rarity (which is not to say she doesn’t smile a lot…). it makes me smile… so i had to include it.

a completely different take for me on this little bit of tomtrickery i like to do with photos here and there:

after losing maybe 30 minutes of dwindling sunlight, all thanks to an overzealous policeman visit at the warehouse, we headed to our final location, salvation mountain.

we had some hilarious conversations with people there and a few people even snapped photos of amanda. y’all best recognize the power of this supermodel. shazaam! (or something)

as the sun was just starting to set, with an enormous moon overhead, one last wardrobe change was in order as we closed out the day:

i cannot wait for my next opportunity to work with this not only amazingly talented model, but overall extremely lovely person. stay tuned… we are already brainstorming   :)

umphrey’s mcgee | hollywood house of blues | concert photography

i love this band. i have loved them since… well… 2003? it may have been that long. maybe longer. if you don’t know this band, don’t worry… i can help you. some people keep them in the ‘jamband’ category. others just refer to them as ‘progrock’ (progressive rock). i will tell you one thing… even my wife who is not at all into the jambands that i love and listen to absolutely loves umphrey’s mcgee. a few more of my friends have embraced the umphlove now as well, which always makes going to a show that much more enjoyable… sharing it with those you love. and this band will hold a little something extra in my heart now, being the first live music my future son heard (he’s due this summer, so he had the built-in earplugs of being inside my wife’s belly during the show).

we got to the house of blues in hollywood late (i’ll save you from that story), so i was barging my way through the crowd to get into the photographer’s pit as the first notes were already being played. a quick hug for my friend abby matthews of abby fox photography. she is a photographer out of michigan whose work i not only love, but she is one of the very good eggs in the industry… it was a pleasure getting to finally roam the pit with her.

you gotta love catching random and quick moments like this:

another unique moment. ryan held his bass right at my camera for a little while actually… but the entire time he did it, the lights were basically off. so embrace the unavoidable grain as it was necessary to catch this at all:

it seemed like jefferson waful (the lighting genius) seemed to be using a lot more all green than usual, in honor of st. patty’s day:

the view from the board where all the important stuff happens:

closing it out with a couple of my favorites from the show that i think will make it on my own concert photography wall:

always a joy to shoot a band you love. and always a treat to shoot a band that is well lit. i can always count on certain bands to yield some great shots… and this is one of them. can’t wait for the next time!

edward sharpe & the magnetic zeros | the observatory, santa ana, ca | concert photography

“so this is where the winds come from…” when opening artist nicole simone uttered those words between songs, she got some cheers and some giggles. how appropriate it was for the storm that was coming soon to orange county… and the storm that would rage inside the observatory (formerly known as ‘the galaxy theater’) that night. nicole was up first, with her swanky and soulful vocals backed by an almost haunting, yet gorgeous music that i would best describe as something you would expect to hear in the tv show Twin Peaks. a couple members of the magnetic zeros band were onstage with her as well.

after a few numbers by nicole, very few people left their spots on the floor as we awaited the headliners. with no photopit for us photographers, i also held my ground, dead center just up from the floor area. i don’t love staying in one place for a show because i think photos can start to get boring that way. however, i knew how much this band would fill the stage… so i stayed put, hoping for the best and planning to move later on during the night.

for the first song played that night from their forthcoming album (coming may 29), the band gathered on one side of the stage to play it “like we recorded it for the album, all together in one room”.

not too long into their set, and alexander came off the stage, meandered through the crowd, and settled on a perch pretty much directly in front of me.

even jade sat down on the stage, shaking people’s hands and sharing some words with their adoring fans:

during a track from his solo album entitled ‘truth’, alexander turned to jade for some memory-jogging of the lyrics:

oddly… i do not love bluegrass music. though a lot of the bands i love seem to play some here and there. but i do love me some banjo. when i see a band with a banjo, i light up a little inside. news at 11.

during the final two (and, arguably, most popular) songs of their set, people from the crowd just started jumping onto the stage to join the band. basically until even the band could barely be seen at all.

and alexander came off the stage and back to the perch he had been to before, to close the show out. it ended up, i inadvertently picked a pretty good place to stay for photos.

i was honored to be able to shoot this show for honest tune, the online magazine i sometimes shoot for. this all came together very quickly, for the band’s first show of their tour. trust me, if you can catch edward sharpe & the magnetic zeros in your area: do so. i’ve had the extreme pleasure of seeing them twice now and it really sounds cheesy, but it’s not just a concert… it’s an experience… one very much shared between band and audience.

lani woods | painter, artiste | portraits

lani (and let me help you, off the bat… her name is pronounced LAH-nee. like lonnie. it’s hawaiian. mahalo.) and i met while i was shooting at my brother’s pet rescue center’s annual year-end event in 2011. she was doing a ‘live painting’ there during the course of the evening. some creatives like to use the term ‘creatives’ to describe themselves. i don’t do that a lot, but i will now. it can be good for creatives to be good and friendly with one another not only because it is the good human thing to do, and we need more humankindness in this world… but because you never know what might come out of it for either one of you. so here we are… with another one of those “this happened and then this happened and this other thing had to happen and i photographed this person and they knew that person and they said this to that person…” kind of stories. if i try to explain it, well… you may as well go watch the entire series of Lost or the movie Memento. because it will confuse you. just know that this is another one chocked up to “things happen for a reason”. i feel and believe that intensely.

we had a good amount of time to get to know each other before our shoot, as we did what is now becoming my very customary back and forth for shoots like this of helping my ‘client’ style themselves for the shoot. we also had a decent-sized drive to LA for the actual shoot, so i got a good feel for the multiple purposes for this day. lani expressed an interest in what we undertook with tara’s photoshoot. lani has somewhat recently undergone a transitional period in her life. and how do you say ‘blossom’, ‘bloom’, ‘evolve’ without being too cliché? well, whatever word works for you, that’s what lani has done… breaking through from some dark places, breaking out of what seems to have been a fairly claustrophobic and paralyzing cocoon to become the woman she was always meant to be and take flight anew, in a colorful world not only void of the darkness that had surrounded her, but a world that she is now adding amazing colors of her own to with her artwork. ** by the way, dear readers… that …to the left of this sentence? the words “her artwork”… that is a link. a link to lani’s art website. go there. i’ll link it again at the end of this post for those of you who are so invested in this blog post now and don’t want to derail the train of your mindset… but look for it again and go there after this so you can see her work. ok? ok. it’s a deal. as the indians said to kevin costner — loo-tentant — in dances with wolves: “it’s a good trade”. **

i know… there are a lot of words here so far and not any photos. am i a photographer or a writer? have i pulled the old bait and switch on you? no no… they’re coming. i promise. just some of these need a little set-up and back story. so you feel more informed. when i popquiz you on this stuff, you don’t want to be caught unaware, do you???

hair:  val hulme who works at legends ladera salon 949.218.7600
mua:  chelle volta who can be reached at volta.chelle@gmail.com

so we started the day at the old la zoo. a little hidden gem of a place that was perfect for some of what we wanted to do.

when people want to step out of the box, try things, humor my “hmmmm… maybe this would work?” ideas… it bedazzles my brain a little. lani made this tree hers!

we shifted gears in a major way when we climbed some hills and made our way under and through some fences for the next part of the shoot. and these shots below are so lani, to me. a joyful spirit, to say the least.

lani is a huuuuuge star wars fan. huge. at some point during our many preparation conversations, lani asked me if she could bring a light saber to the shoot. if you know me, you know i am a huge nerd or geek for all things star wars. you also know that my start in photography was almost solely based on tongue-in-cheek and goofy photos of myself. so, that side of me lit up when she mentioned the light saber. then i settled myself down for a bit… paused… mulled it over… and said: “really?” haha. i was pretty skeptical. i didn’t want this to become a completely silly shoot that just anyone could have done for her on their little point-and-shoot camera. wanting to try the challenge, i agreed. and, thusly, i give you jedi lani:

in researching photos of this location, we both were in love with the thought of these big open spaces with graffiti all over the walls. perfect for her and what we were looking to do. so we kept walking around and looking for these big rooms that we had seen. and then it hit us. we never saw people in those areas. nothing ever to show the scale of the space. and we also realized all of those photos may have even been taken with fisheye lenses. well, we got lani in there anyway. so, here you go folks. now there is something on the internet to show the scale of that (tiny) space. you’re welcome.

we went to a different staircase to explore the ‘dark side’ of lani’s life force. without any necessary or unnecessary build-up, i now give you sith jedi lani:

i’m used to working organically… and though i like to plan out as much as possible before a shoot, i still take a lot of things as they come during the shoot. including unplanned location changes. we left the zoo and headed downtown basically as the sun set and as some rain started to fall. so, we found ourselves headed for the urban lights at lacma.

do you know me? another bit of insight: i love hair in motion. love it. i don’t make everyone do it. almost everyone. and i can see the skepticism in some people’s eyes before we try it. but i like to think most of my subjects become fans afterward as well. i love the extra kick her necklace gave to these.

to complete the day of shooting, lani changed into this amazing dress. it was the perfect dress for where we were and any frustration of not being able to shoot the entire time at the old zoo was completely removed.

i love that last photo above. that was the last frame of the day and i saw it on my camera and announced “oh yeah, we’re done” without hesitation.

lani… i have loved hearing your story. you are an inspiration with your art, as well as with how you live life. i hope you continue to inspire so many others as i see you doing pretty much daily. i cannot wait for us to shoot again (yes… y’all read that right… there are a few shoots being talked about already…).

make sure you all head off to her site and check out her work… www.laniwoods.com. go there.

in the meantime, you can cast a vote here… should lani remain a good jedi, using the force for the benefit of others and to fight against the ill-will of the empire? or should she turn to the dark side and use the force to crush the rebellion??

 

edward sharpe & the magnetic zeros | caravan festival | gorge