We started at the Berkeley Marina and captured some great shots on the pier and along the shore there.

We then headed to campus, where there is virtually an unlimited number of places to shoot. The light is so soft as it bounces off all of the beautiful buildings here and makes for great portraits. Here’s Rama in front of campus. Looks like a MBA grad, doesn’t he!

Nicole’s eyes are just striking in this portrait. This first one of the left is my personal favorite from the entire shoot.

A great shot with Sather Tower in the background.

At the end of the shoot, we headed back down to the coast to catch the twilight and get the portrait on the bottom right.

Sana is a thrill seeker, and in addition to the beautiful photos that we shot at Lake Hubbard and Las Colinas, we took a helicopter tour over Fort Worth to get the blood pumping. Wow! It was awesome!

Make sure to check out the video after the photos. I can’t wait until the wedding!

Venue / Food / Decor: Chandni Restaurant

Live Music: Riffat Sultana

DJ & Lighting: Desi Jams Entertainment

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Bay Area Entertainment - http://bayareaentertainment.com

Creative Designs By Mimi – http://www.creativemimi.com

The Lux Productions – http://www.thelux.com

A Loves In Bloom – http://www.alovesinbloom.com

Chisel-It Ice – http://www.chisel-it.com

Englund’s Cafe & Catering Service – http://www.englundscatering.com

Nombe Restaurant & Catering – http://www.nombesf.com

Le Gâteau Élégant - http://www.legateauelegant.com

Caliente Sisters Catering – http://www.calientesisterscatering.com

Cynthia Schultz – Harpist – http://www.beautifulharp.com

Elaine Bell Catering – http://www.elainebellcatering.com

Travelin Joe Espresso – http://www.lattesandwaffles.com

Bartenders Unlimited – http://www.bartendersunltd.com

Well, technically this is two photos, but I wanted to show how much fun both Eddie & Claudia had at their reception. The band was amazing and everyone danced until the party ended!

The Satada, the final ceremony for an Ismaili wedding is when the bride says her goodbyes to her family. It’s a very emotional day and it’s not uncommon for me to get caught up in the emotion and hide a tear or two behind the lens. Usually by this point, I’m already into day 4 photographing the wedding and now really getting to know the family. So when it’s time for the Satada, I too feel a rush of emotions from the whirlwind of a fantastic wedding celebration!

Being new to the city, it was a only a matter of time before I made it to the Marin Headlands to photograph the Golden Gate Bridge. I walked down the 0.9 mile trail from Battery Spencer to Kirby Cove and captured this great shot of the bridge  behind this huge rock.

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WeddingWire, the nation’s leading wedding technology company, is thrilled to announce Josh Rodriguez Weddings has been selected to receive the prestigious annual WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2011 for Wedding Photography!

Recognition for the Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2011 is determined by recent reviews and extensive surveys from over 750,000 WeddingWire newlyweds. Our past clients are among those that shared their experiences on WeddingWire, the largest wedding review site in the nation.

Josh Rodriguez Weddings stands among the top five percent of wedding professionals in the WeddingWire community, representing quality and service excellence within the wedding industry. Awards were given to the top wedding professionals across 20 service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers, and were based on the overall professional achievements throughout the past year.

“WeddingWire is honored to celebrate the success of the top-rated wedding professionals within the WeddingWire community,” said Timothy Chi, WeddingWire’s Chief Executive Officer. “With the annual Bride’s Choice Awards™ program, WeddingWire has the unique opportunity to recognize the best wedding professionals across the US and Canada. We applaud Josh Rodriguez Weddings for their professionalism and dedication to enhancing the wedding planning experience last year.”

We are happy to announce that Josh Rodriguez Weddings is among the very best wedding photographers within the WeddingWire Network, which includes leading wedding planning sites WeddingWire, Martha Stewart Weddings, Project Wedding and Weddingbee. We would like to thank our past clients for nominating us to receive the Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2011.

You can purchase this photo as a fine art watercolor print. Purchase Print

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Online Resources For Remote Backups:

1. SmugMug – www.smugmug.com
   SmugMug has been around for many years now I’ve had an account with them since 2005. This is where I proof most of my weddings and also store backups of select shoots. With a SmugMug Pro account, you have unlimited storage to upload your files for safe keeping.
2. SmugVault -http://www.smugmug.com/photos/photo-video-backup/
   SmugVault is an even better solution for storing files since you are not limited by file types. You can upload RAW, Video, and other formats.
3. Pictage – www.pictage.com
   Pictage is a proofing website and I also have an account with them. This is another solution for backing up, but is best used for proofing the final edits with your clients.
4. DropBox – www.DropBox.com
   DropBox is an online storage cloud site that provides you with 2, 50, or 100GB of space depending on which plan you choose. This is a great resource for backing up files while your on the move. They also have apps for your mobile devices so you can access your images anywhere.

There are many other online services you can use, but these are the ones that I personally have experience using.

Your Own Online Resources:
Instead of using a service like those above, you can also use your own hosted server or SOHO based server.

1. Hosted Server
   There are many companies out there that you can use for web server space.  I use GoDaddy for one of my sites and that includes 10 GB of space with unlimited bandwidth per month. There isn’t much space here for backups so it’s not my first choice for backing up files on the go.
2. SOHO Server
   You can also host your own server. I currently use the Mac Mini Server in my studio which has Web and FTP access. The server is also connected to a DROBO with 6TB of space so I don’t have to worry about maxing out on this drive. This allows me to FTP into my DROBO from anywhere and upload files. The benefit to doing this instead of using a 3rd party service, is having direct access to the files without having to download them. Also, if you have an editor in house, they can get started on the work right away. (because we’re all caught up on editing right!)

If you are setting up your own server, make sure you know how to secure it. OS X comes with a firewall but there are other measures you should take when connecting from outside such as using VPN, SSH, SFTP, etc. Hackers are probably not interested in your photos, but would love access to your server and we don’t need another spam bot.

I also don’t use my DROBO as a production drive. It’s there only as a backup. I wouldn’t suggest connecting a production drive to the internet unless you know it’s very secure.

FTP apps: I use Cyberduck (www.cyberduck.ch) which is a free app. There is also Transmit (www.panic.com/transmit) which is also a great app.

Physical Solutions:

Sometimes there isn’t enough time to upload an entire wedding before you have to leave. If I don’t have to stay in town after a wedding, I like to be on a early flight back home to San Francisco. I’ll still upload medium size JPG’s so I have a remote copy, but you can also create additional physical copies.

You should already have two copies of your photos after any shoot. I always bring my laptop with me to weddings and backup the photos during dinner and then again at the end of the night. I also download my second shooter’s images so I have those right away as well.

1. Portable HDD (Hard Drive Disk) or SSD (Solid State Drive)
   I am currently using the G-Drive mini 500GB  drive to backup my weddings on the shoot.
2. CF Cards
   Of course the images are on the cards. But I don’t reformat them until I make sure I have two other copies (one offsite).

If you are really paranoid, and I’ve been known to be this way sometimes, you can mail yourself a portable hard drive while your at your destination. It may not be that critical when you just away for a weekend, but I’ve been gone for weeks at a time and just knowing that there is an additional copy back home before I get there is a great feeling.

Remember, it’s not just being responsible for your clients images, it’s also a way to guarantee to your client that their wedding day photos are safe.

The current process I am now using requires three steps to implement. And then I’m ready to order CD’s for my clients and also allow them to order CD’s themselves, having them delivered without any additional work on my side.

Preparing The Files:

1. Prepare the files for burning to CD and create a .zip file.

• I burn high resolution files for my clients.

2. Prepare the DVD/CD artwork. This is artwork for the CD itself and also the case.

3. Upload these files to a server where you can access them via a direct link. I use my own server at www.joshrodriguez.com

Besides step 3, the first two steps are the same steps regardless of which process I am using. Step 3 is required for the fulfillment service.

Fulfilling the CD’s:

I use the website www.CD-Fulfillment.com to produce & fulfill my orders. They will burn, print, & mail your CD on a per-unit basis. So there are no minimum orders or high start up costs involved. They have many options for CD’s, DVD’s, packaging, and mailing options.

1. Create a new product with CD-Fulfillment.com

2. Input your CD options and paste the URL’s for the CD data & artwork into the project.

Once this is done, you’re all set to order CD’s from the site. At this point you can manually create orders and have the CD’s sent directly to your clients.

Automating the Orders

CD-Fulfillment has many integration options and will even work with you to fully integrate into your shopping cart of choice. However, I’ve decided to simply create a PayPal button to include on my Showit +Site where clients can order their own additional CD’s.

ting weddings, and big Indian weddings are crazy fun to be a part of. I even got in some dancing at the end of the reception since I didn’t have to be anywhere the next day.

There are a lot of photos in this post, but what else would you expect from a three day wedding and no less than five outfit changes… You can see more on my facebook page here: http://xpose.it/v

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A few pics from my iPhone…

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