She asked me if I would photograph her with her mother and sister in their favorite style.

I first saw her at a wedding I was photographing. I caught her eyes sparkling with my camera while she was looking at him. I thought, I have to shoot this wedding when it happens there was such great chemistry between the two of them and she’s stunning.

I photographed them in Chico’s Bidwell Park with all the props from her mother’s shop The Plant Barn. I had so much fun!

Vintage grunge with a little country added…..

I have  been with my husband for 23 years. I have been married a long time. I  love my husband, I like my husband and I am in love with my husband. The three being quit different things.  There is no other person on the planet that can send me through  a  gambit of emotion. To say we have a passionate marriage is an understatement. I have a very rich marriage. At times it rings me out and every once in while I fantasize about moving into a little place all my own and being alone on the coast. Taking a rest from the work of my marriage.

What I have learned about marriage is getting married isn’t a marriage, it’s a party. Just like being in love with an infant, so that when they are unruly teenagers we won’t kill them, the beginning of a relationship serves the same purpose. Remembering the beginning ; long term marriages seem to have a way of tainting one’s today’s with yesterday’s injuries. Hearing marriage vows keeps it fresh, new and real for me. It also causes me to reflect.

I photograph weddings and the odd thing about being behind my camera is my ears hear everything. I hear every word of their vows. Every word hits me in my gut. Whether the couple being married is taking the the vows that I am hearing seriously,  matters not,  I am taking them very seriously. My marriage is serious business to me, a whole life,  family, trajectory of many lives hang in the balance. Marriage is not for the weak or faint of heart.  The longer I am married I come to understand for me marriage is a sacred covenant not a contract. That was the message I took away from this wedding. Even though I already know it on some level, sometimes I forget it. Sometimes I feel like it’s a contract that can be renegotiated or adjusted or absolved.

Shirley, who was there in my early married life and Yoda to me, said “Marriage is made everyday Kim. One day at a time.” I know a little today what that means.  I speak for me only, because I am by nature stubborn and a flawed human being, I look at my marriage as my sacred spiritual work.  One day at a time, it  demands  I grow up just a little more that I love a little  more, that I change a little more. Thank God I know Love to be a verb, just like faith without works is dead, so is love without right action, because when I want to move to my quiet little cottage on the coast I am shown one more time there is something I must work on and change in myself. At the end of the day I find, it begins and ends with me and it is a lesson I have to keep learning.

Once when I was having a moment where I thought my husband wasn’t taking this marriage work as seriously  as I was, I asked him. ” Honey is this a  marriage of convenience for  you?” He laughed hard and loud, and said with a big smile “There isn’t anything convenient about it.”  Now that may sound bad, but I took it as a  great sign. He’s working too and he wouldn’t if it didn’t matter to him. We both are in it one day at a time.

Photographing Weddings is good for me and my  marriage.

I have been in love with the Mendocino Coast since I was 20 going up to through Booneville to Greenwood Ridge and on down to Elk. We have great friends there. We would escape the San Francisco work week for a backwoods weekend often. When we took the job at the Bidwell House Bed and Breakfast we first thought it was in Mendocino. We wished. We are were we are supposed to be, but visiting there is always a slice of heaven. The enchantment of the Redwood forest, ferns, blooming Azaleas and Rhododendrons, with the coasts bounty of lush colorful foliage, there is no other place more vibrant to photograph. I don’t think I have ever seen it more beautiful.

I am a Mendocino Wedding photographer because I want to be there as much as possible. My friend Khamoore  has Mendocino Floral Design there. Their work is progressive, stylish, timeless, stunning. I can’t wait to shoot one of her weddings.

The wedding we just photographed was just outside of Albion in the Redwoods. We photographed Alli Marion and her Beau Cory Fagerskog. I have known Alli since she was 13. Her mother and I worked together for years making weddings at the Inn. Making one more wedding, this wedding was truly special.

I was born at Kaiser Hospital on Geary street in San Francisco. Ironically my husband was also born there  2 and 3/4 months later. My grandmother, who raised me until I was 8, died there at 50 from complications of a gunshot wound. I lived on 46th and Taravel where the trolley car would rumble by every couple of hours a night. It was hard to distinguish a small earthquake from the electric street car. I was lulled to sleep by the fog horn and I was cradled by the fog. I was born in the early 60s and It was 1966 ish when I came to consciousness and the city was my blanket in which I was comforted by. The street was full a big families mostly Irish and Catholic. I was free. I ran up an down the streets with my friends all day. When it was time to go to school we walked the 8 blocks. I was safe. I remember one day specifically hearing  music coming from the only apartment on our street. The band was on the top floor practicing with the window open I could see them. The melody was magnetic. I ran toward the music as close as I could get and soon I was surrounded by a massive crowd of dancing people. It was load and clear and I realized there was music just like on the radio being played. It was Santana, it was 1971 and they were playing “No one to depend on.”

That song became the anthem in which I lived the rest of my childhood by. She was gone by 1972, my grandmother, and still missed deeply to this day. Yesterday was her birthday. I never forget it and yesterday my nephew’s  daughter was born. I have never met him or spoken to him, he found me a few days ago, to my great joy and to tell me they were expecting. His daughter was born yesterday. The same day as her great great grandmother Lucille.

After Lucille died we moved ten or so blocks over to Irving and 44th with my mom. She had to work  all of the time to support the 3 of us and my level of  freedom expanded. I ran every block. I ran into trouble, granted, it’s a big rough city, but I took mass transit at 9 and beyond,  alone where ever I wanted. I learned to dodge trouble, perverts and to get around. It gave me enough confidence to live and travel around New York City and Paris when I was just 18. The Zoo, Sutro Heights, Ocean Beach, The Warf, Golden Gate Park, Lake Merced,  The Cliff House all were my backyard. The other day, while I was in the city shooting for the Knot’s party at the Academy of Sciences, I went back to my old neighborhood. Both of my old homes are still there. Only the color of the paint has changed.

A day later I shot an engagement session up on Sutro Heights,  where as a child, I had climbed the cliffs around it and the ruins of Sutro Baths. I took this photo for me and I set my aperture at 22 on purpose. I wanted to see all of it. Now it sits on my desk top and I know I have a very big story to tell. Someday.

A view of Ocean Beach, The Sunset District, Daly City and Beyond from Sutro Heights

I was asked to photograph the Knot’s Vendors Bash 2010 at the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate park in San Francisco last week. I  was very excited to do it. I love Jess Flood Events and very much wanted an opportunity to work with her. And I love aquariums, especially this one. This is the aquarium of my childhood in the neighborhood of my childhood. I spent endless days in the old Academy. I was grateful to over hear a private tour, to discover this building is completely green that the entire old building  materials were recycled. The living roof has 7 hills to depict San Francisco’s seven hills.

I was very grateful to have the opportunity to work with some of the Bay Area’s premier vendors.

Venue: California Academy of Sciences

Event Design: Jess Flood Event Design

Catering: Melons Catering and Events

Beverage: Best Beverage Catering

Rentals: Hartmann Studios

Lighting: Impact Lighting & Production

Floral: Dragonfly Healdsburg

Photography: Kim James

Staffing: The Party Staff

Photo Booth: Magbooth

Entertainment: Denon and Doyle Entertainment

Entertainment: Jazz Mirage

I am not supposed show the best photos as not to steel the thunder for The Knot. Here a few a the basic ones.

This week the theme was prom. Beautiful dresses, daughters and life. A time and a place for them to shine and feel beautiful. They are beautiful inside and out.

Her mother worked for me for years while I managed the Bidwell House B and B .  Alli began working summers for us and weddings. I moved on from there 5 years back and isn’t funny…we have one more wedding to do together and I couldn’t be happier about it.

I am so happy to be photographing Liz and Jimmy’s wedding in June in Chico. They are such a sweet couple. I think this may be one of my favorite images ever.

I met Kelley when she was in the 3rd grade and I helped plan her wedding and because I was planning it I brought my camera and I shot some of it. This is what she wrote on my facebook page:

” I have known Kim for many years now, as I went to school with her oldest son. When I got married in the summer of 2007 I asked Kim if she would help with the organizing part of my wedding since I already had chosen a photographer. Kim took some pictures anyway because she was just beginning to build her business. I wish now that I had chosen her to do all my wedding pictures as the ones she took were ten times better then the others. Since then, Kim has only continued to grow in her creativity. I have used her for family photos and pictures of my little girl. She is such a talented woman and I highly recommend her for any line of photography beause she has the capability to adapt to anything!”

I spent dusk at our local park with her and her children.

A much needed road trip. Scouting for anything that moves me and of course always things to paint and write about.

Ian and I have 5 children. Our oldest is almost 25 years old. I started young, 21 and at times I don’t look 46, but man this Spring, I was feeling it. We haven’t had a trip alone in a good while.  We decided on a road trip this spring to the Monterey Bay aquarium and to the Hearst Castle or the Ranch as Hearst himself called it.  Being lovers of art, beautiful imagery and all underwater scenery it was a good choice. I was raised in the sunset district of SF and I miss the ocean all the time. We have never been south of Carmel by car and I have always wanted to the see Big Sur. I carry a crappy camera with me in my purse, too affraid to ruin my good portrait cameras and I reach for my camera often. We decided on this area for our love of food sealife and seeking warmer weather. We didn’t get it, it was cold and it rained, but it was beautiful.  Ian is a builder and Hearst Castle was eye candy. We could have stayed there for days. What a very special place. They offer 6 tours, we took 2.

She asked me if I would photograph her with her mother and sister in their favorite style.

I first saw her at a wedding I was photographing. I caught her eyes sparkling with my camera while she was looking at him. I thought, I have to shoot this wedding when it happens there was such great chemistry between the two of them and she’s stunning.

I photographed them in Chico’s Bidwell Park with all the props from her mother’s shop The Plant Barn. I had so much fun!

Vintage grunge with a little country added…..

I have  been with my husband for 23 years. I have been married a long time. I  love my husband, I like my husband and I am in love with my husband. The three being quit different things.  There is no other person on the planet that can send me through  a  gambit of emotion. To say we have a passionate marriage is an understatement. I have a very rich marriage. At times it rings me out and every once in while I fantasize about moving into a little place all my own and being alone on the coast. Taking a rest from the work of my marriage.

What I have learned about marriage is getting married isn’t a marriage, it’s a party. Just like being in love with an infant, so that when they are unruly teenagers we won’t kill them, the beginning of a relationship serves the same purpose. Remembering the beginning ; long term marriages seem to have a way of tainting one’s today’s with yesterday’s injuries. Hearing marriage vows keeps it fresh, new and real for me. It also causes me to reflect.

I photograph weddings and the odd thing about being behind my camera is my ears hear everything. I hear every word of their vows. Every word hits me in my gut. Whether the couple being married is taking the the vows that I am hearing seriously,  matters not,  I am taking them very seriously. My marriage is serious business to me, a whole life,  family, trajectory of many lives hang in the balance. Marriage is not for the weak or faint of heart.  The longer I am married I come to understand for me marriage is a sacred covenant not a contract. That was the message I took away from this wedding. Even though I already know it on some level, sometimes I forget it. Sometimes I feel like it’s a contract that can be renegotiated or adjusted or absolved.

Shirley, who was there in my early married life and Yoda to me, said “Marriage is made everyday Kim. One day at a time.” I know a little today what that means.  I speak for me only, because I am by nature stubborn and a flawed human being, I look at my marriage as my sacred spiritual work.  One day at a time, it  demands  I grow up just a little more that I love a little  more, that I change a little more. Thank God I know Love to be a verb, just like faith without works is dead, so is love without right action, because when I want to move to my quiet little cottage on the coast I am shown one more time there is something I must work on and change in myself. At the end of the day I find, it begins and ends with me and it is a lesson I have to keep learning.

Once when I was having a moment where I thought my husband wasn’t taking this marriage work as seriously  as I was, I asked him. ” Honey is this a  marriage of convenience for  you?” He laughed hard and loud, and said with a big smile “There isn’t anything convenient about it.”  Now that may sound bad, but I took it as a  great sign. He’s working too and he wouldn’t if it didn’t matter to him. We both are in it one day at a time.

Photographing Weddings is good for me and my  marriage.

I have been in love with the Mendocino Coast since I was 20 going up to through Booneville to Greenwood Ridge and on down to Elk. We have great friends there. We would escape the San Francisco work week for a backwoods weekend often. When we took the job at the Bidwell House Bed and Breakfast we first thought it was in Mendocino. We wished. We are were we are supposed to be, but visiting there is always a slice of heaven. The enchantment of the Redwood forest, ferns, blooming Azaleas and Rhododendrons, with the coasts bounty of lush colorful foliage, there is no other place more vibrant to photograph. I don’t think I have ever seen it more beautiful.

I am a Mendocino Wedding photographer because I want to be there as much as possible. My friend Khamoore  has Mendocino Floral Design there. Their work is progressive, stylish, timeless, stunning. I can’t wait to shoot one of her weddings.

The wedding we just photographed was just outside of Albion in the Redwoods. We photographed Alli Marion and her Beau Cory Fagerskog. I have known Alli since she was 13. Her mother and I worked together for years making weddings at the Inn. Making one more wedding, this wedding was truly special.

I was born at Kaiser Hospital on Geary street in San Francisco. Ironically my husband was also born there  2 and 3/4 months later. My grandmother, who raised me until I was 8, died there at 50 from complications of a gunshot wound. I lived on 46th and Taravel where the trolley car would rumble by every couple of hours a night. It was hard to distinguish a small earthquake from the electric street car. I was lulled to sleep by the fog horn and I was cradled by the fog. I was born in the early 60s and It was 1966 ish when I came to consciousness and the city was my blanket in which I was comforted by. The street was full a big families mostly Irish and Catholic. I was free. I ran up an down the streets with my friends all day. When it was time to go to school we walked the 8 blocks. I was safe. I remember one day specifically hearing  music coming from the only apartment on our street. The band was on the top floor practicing with the window open I could see them. The melody was magnetic. I ran toward the music as close as I could get and soon I was surrounded by a massive crowd of dancing people. It was load and clear and I realized there was music just like on the radio being played. It was Santana, it was 1971 and they were playing “No one to depend on.”

That song became the anthem in which I lived the rest of my childhood by. She was gone by 1972, my grandmother, and still missed deeply to this day. Yesterday was her birthday. I never forget it and yesterday my nephew’s  daughter was born. I have never met him or spoken to him, he found me a few days ago, to my great joy and to tell me they were expecting. His daughter was born yesterday. The same day as her great great grandmother Lucille.

After Lucille died we moved ten or so blocks over to Irving and 44th with my mom. She had to work  all of the time to support the 3 of us and my level of  freedom expanded. I ran every block. I ran into trouble, granted, it’s a big rough city, but I took mass transit at 9 and beyond,  alone where ever I wanted. I learned to dodge trouble, perverts and to get around. It gave me enough confidence to live and travel around New York City and Paris when I was just 18. The Zoo, Sutro Heights, Ocean Beach, The Warf, Golden Gate Park, Lake Merced,  The Cliff House all were my backyard. The other day, while I was in the city shooting for the Knot’s party at the Academy of Sciences, I went back to my old neighborhood. Both of my old homes are still there. Only the color of the paint has changed.

A day later I shot an engagement session up on Sutro Heights,  where as a child, I had climbed the cliffs around it and the ruins of Sutro Baths. I took this photo for me and I set my aperture at 22 on purpose. I wanted to see all of it. Now it sits on my desk top and I know I have a very big story to tell. Someday.

A view of Ocean Beach, The Sunset District, Daly City and Beyond from Sutro Heights

I was asked to photograph the Knot’s Vendors Bash 2010 at the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate park in San Francisco last week. I  was very excited to do it. I love Jess Flood Events and very much wanted an opportunity to work with her. And I love aquariums, especially this one. This is the aquarium of my childhood in the neighborhood of my childhood. I spent endless days in the old Academy. I was grateful to over hear a private tour, to discover this building is completely green that the entire old building  materials were recycled. The living roof has 7 hills to depict San Francisco’s seven hills.

I was very grateful to have the opportunity to work with some of the Bay Area’s premier vendors.

Venue: California Academy of Sciences

Event Design: Jess Flood Event Design

Catering: Melons Catering and Events

Beverage: Best Beverage Catering

Rentals: Hartmann Studios

Lighting: Impact Lighting & Production

Floral: Dragonfly Healdsburg

Photography: Kim James

Staffing: The Party Staff

Photo Booth: Magbooth

Entertainment: Denon and Doyle Entertainment

Entertainment: Jazz Mirage

I am not supposed show the best photos as not to steel the thunder for The Knot. Here a few a the basic ones.

This week the theme was prom. Beautiful dresses, daughters and life. A time and a place for them to shine and feel beautiful. They are beautiful inside and out.

Her mother worked for me for years while I managed the Bidwell House B and B .  Alli began working summers for us and weddings. I moved on from there 5 years back and isn’t funny…we have one more wedding to do together and I couldn’t be happier about it.

I am so happy to be photographing Liz and Jimmy’s wedding in June in Chico. They are such a sweet couple. I think this may be one of my favorite images ever.

I met Kelley when she was in the 3rd grade and I helped plan her wedding and because I was planning it I brought my camera and I shot some of it. This is what she wrote on my facebook page:

” I have known Kim for many years now, as I went to school with her oldest son. When I got married in the summer of 2007 I asked Kim if she would help with the organizing part of my wedding since I already had chosen a photographer. Kim took some pictures anyway because she was just beginning to build her business. I wish now that I had chosen her to do all my wedding pictures as the ones she took were ten times better then the others. Since then, Kim has only continued to grow in her creativity. I have used her for family photos and pictures of my little girl. She is such a talented woman and I highly recommend her for any line of photography beause she has the capability to adapt to anything!”

I spent dusk at our local park with her and her children.

A much needed road trip. Scouting for anything that moves me and of course always things to paint and write about.

Ian and I have 5 children. Our oldest is almost 25 years old. I started young, 21 and at times I don’t look 46, but man this Spring, I was feeling it. We haven’t had a trip alone in a good while.  We decided on a road trip this spring to the Monterey Bay aquarium and to the Hearst Castle or the Ranch as Hearst himself called it.  Being lovers of art, beautiful imagery and all underwater scenery it was a good choice. I was raised in the sunset district of SF and I miss the ocean all the time. We have never been south of Carmel by car and I have always wanted to the see Big Sur. I carry a crappy camera with me in my purse, too affraid to ruin my good portrait cameras and I reach for my camera often. We decided on this area for our love of food sealife and seeking warmer weather. We didn’t get it, it was cold and it rained, but it was beautiful.  Ian is a builder and Hearst Castle was eye candy. We could have stayed there for days. What a very special place. They offer 6 tours, we took 2.