In June of 2013 a wildfire broke out in Southern California called "the Powerhouse Fire" burning miles upon miles of forest in the Angeles Mountains.  During a recent business trip I had time to run out into some of the wilderness, which, if there were no fire, would have been much more difficult to navigate through.  What an amazing experience!

My friend Roice ran up the mountain side... spot him above and below!

The crazy part about it all was that I only found out about the fire after visiting a retreat site that should have burned down along with this fire.  For some reason, the fire burned wildly around the retreat and it was spared.  Take a second to look up "Powerhouse Fire" from June 2013, and if you get a chance, visit the Oaks Camp & Conference center sometime and they'll show you an amazing map of the land that was spared out of the tens of thousands of acres that were burned up.  Simply stunning views.  Cheers!

Apologies for going MIA on the blog friends!  2013 has been a wild year for us!   As our year began to close I realized how much I had to catch up on... weddings, family portraits, and even personal family moments.  Well, we hope you've had a wonderful holiday season with Christmas and New Years and "cheers" to good fortune and health for the upcoming year of 2014!  One of the first things our family did in 2014 was retreat away to the beach (our home away from home) and being a father and photographer, I brought my camera along with me.  

As a rule of thumb, I try to be very picky with where I bring my camera gear when it comes to family gatherings because I've learned over the past year that "he who holds the camera exists outside the moment"... we are physically present in tons of moments, capturing wonderful emotions. So usually I tend to leave the camera gear at home to play with the family... however, this time around I couldn't help but notice how BIG my kids were getting!  This past December my son turned 2 and my daughter turned 3.  We took a ride down to Huntington Beach and I got to capture these heart-melting moments that I will cherish forever! 

Cheers to new adventures, loves, journeys, victories, & challenges in 2014!
_ jasonric