More Photos Please

I absolutely love this photo (above)... thanks to Jenna Strubhar for capturing this shot of our little family. Love it, Love it, Love it.

Okay, here's some MORE random photos for ya. It's been a little windy and cloudy, but still pleasantly warm. We've been catching up with old friends, playing in the Ocean, eating amazing food and seriously Straight Kickin' - It like it's no bodies business. It's good to be here.


Some random Joelle face

Joey hanging out while daddy catches some waves at Honolua Bay... Joelle's mommy didn't get any shots of daddy "Shredding The Gnar" b/c her mom loves taking pictures of Joey more :)

Gary "Shredding the Gna... I mean, the Surf Lineup"... still a cool shot though. Nice work Court!

Mike skimboarding at Makena

Love the tongue... too cute.

The Woodard & Strubanhogen Show

Matt, Gary and Nate having a little surf comp: "Paia Bay... 3 burrly men from Oregon, 2 fishes and a longboard... one champion... which was Nate - he KILLED it!"

"Strubhar & Strubhar Painting and Associates" board meeting... "uh, maybe we should have been painting that house instead of surfing"

Joelle made friends with Mikaela (Mike & Ciara's little girl)... but then got sad for some random reason once we started taking pictures of them interacting.

Makena (Big Beach)

We spent the afternoon at Makena Beach... our favorite beach on Maui, which has some of the best beach break on planet earth. We tested out our new underwater housing for the camera (which worked awesome - I was seriously like a kid in a candy shop... just stoked on life) and we also introduced Joelle to the WARM beach (as apposed to the COLD California beach) and she LOVED it. She was completely confused by the sand, but genuinely stoked the whole time we were there. We've been seriously RELAXING so far, and Joelle has been a SLEEPING CHAMP since we arrived (Praise the good Lord in heaven). Life is good my friends.


Joelle + Makena from Gary Christenson on Vimeo.
(Click on the PLAY button to play the above video)

Trying to figure out the sand

My beautiful, relaxed and happy ladies.

The Stru-brothers & Gary - 15 feet deep in the Pac Ocean... I love this time of year b/c any time you go under water you can hear the humpback whales singing to you.

Matt jumping off the sand bank (which you can't see from this angle, but it was "somewhere between mid to large in height" - as quoted by Matt Strubhar)

I am completely at home in and under the water... it just makes me so happy to be in the water every day playing, exercising and exploring... makes me wonder why we live in Central Oregon :)

Hello Maui... meet Joelle

It is time for our annual pilgrimage back to the islands... except this time, we have a crazy baby with us!!! It's pretty mind blowing to think that at this time last year, while sitting in front of a north shore surf break, Courtney and I found out (to our surprise) that we were becoming parents... what a tremendous gift that we didn't realize we had at the time. I wonder what surprise awaits us on our trip this year? It's always SOMETHING :) Well, were ganna terrorize the Island and all of our friends with Joelle... so watch out Maui... here we come.

We have a lot planned for the next 2+ weeks: Scuba diving, surfing, eating THE BEST sushi ever, hiking, photoging some portraits and engagement sessions, more surfing, hanging with the Woodards (our gracious hosts), seeing our "Uncles & Aunties" that we love so much, kickin' it on the beach and just relaxing, whale watching, boating, body surfing at Makena... oh man, the list is endless!!! Alo - Friggin - Ha!

VIEW THE VIDEO BELOW: Just press the PLAY button (or click here to view in a different window). It's just a bunch of random old pictures from when Courtney and I used to live there. We met, became friends, dated and got engaged all while living on Maui... a dream come true. Here's a little taste of what it was like.

Kate + Andy: E-Photos

Meet Kate & Andy (yup, so far we have three Kate's that we're shooting wedding photos for this season... popular name... but it's a good name)... anyways, THESE TWO were unbelievably fun and just plain sexy. They flew up from San Fransisco for the weekend to finish up some wedding details, so we snagged 'em for an hour, and they pretty much made our day. View Slideshow.

Kate + Chad: E-Photos

Meet Kate & Chad from Denver, Colorado. They flew over for the weekend to wrap of some wedding biz-nass and get a few mugshots taken by the Gary & Courtney Show... they basically rocked our faces CLEAN OFF... true story. View Slideshow.

Birds Need Bird Houses

One of our overly artistic friends Lori LaBissoniere painted this for our daughter. Lori's work is beautiful, we love her style and use of color. We feel very honored that she gifted us this piece in celebration of Joelle's birth. Joelle has a bird theme going on in her room and this piece is the finishing touch to the decor. We love it! And we love our friends that make up the artistic community here in Central Oregon. It's inspiring being around such "creatives" all the time.

Also, here's a recent pic of Joelle in her teething phase. Mmm, she loves chewing on fingers. As you will notice, she's lost most of her deep dark hair. However, she's rockin' the BEST mullet / grandpa hair style ever right now, but she's still getting cuter and cuter each day. Other than her having a hard time sleeping (which is normal), she's doing great. It's been a huge blessing having Courts mom here helping out and giving Courtney some much needed time off from the daily grind of motherhood. THANKS MARSHA!!! We love you!

emote360 projects

16 pg Booklet for World Relief NEXT
Shown below are a few spreads in the booklet.

Photography by the always amazing Ben Edwards of emote360.

Lately I've been busy designing some really sweet items for our emote360 clients. Hop on over to the emote blog to see what's been happening lately. We have four really great projects happening right now and we're anticipating a few more projects in the near future, as well as a couple emote360 trips to Africa in the next 6 to 9 months. I feel completely blessed to use my designing gifts in this way... doesn't get better than this.

Take Us With You

We HEART photography. We HEART weddings. We HEART travel. Put all three together and our hearts may just EXPLODE!!! Due to some recent conversations, we have deemed it necessary to offer a unique package to our clientele who wish to tie the knot abroad in 2009. We call it our "Take Us With You" Package. We will waive our photography service fees (US $3,000.00+) if you simply take us with you to your destination wedding (anything outside the continental U.S.A.). You take care of our travel expenses and we will document & deliver stunning photography every step of the way... and yes, you will be given every image that we capture and you will own all the rights to those images. Please contact us for more details via our Photography Website Contact Page. Danke, Grazie, Mahalo, Xie Xie, Merci, Grasias and Thank You.

The Bee-FF

Meet Joelles BFF. This little stuffed animal brings her an unmeasurable amount of joy on a daily basis. While driving in the car or sitting at home, it's nonstop smiles when she spots this bee. We don't really know what it is... maybe the white and black stripes, or the blue wings that have a crunchy texture to them, or maybe the bright yellow head and those big white eyes... who knows. All we know is that Joey hearts her bee... and she loves it even more when the bee's head is in her mouth getting gnawed on by her gums.

Client: Connexion

I wanted to share an interesting process I recently went through on a Branding project with a client. The company is a high end Print Consultant Firm called Connexion. Most people think that graphic designers come up with a logo in like 15 minutes and it's some mindless Typeface and Icon to quickly slap on a website or product. But in fact, an educated designer has a lengthy process that will ultimately flush out a unique branding solution that will give the client an edge in their market. My process always begins with me spending several hours trying to really get into the clients head... How does the founder feel about their company? What does it mean to the consumer? How should it speak to them? What sets this company and its product apart? If it was an animal, which would it be?... well, not that last question :) but I basically flush out any information that will help me come up with some creative concepts for my clients image.

So in the logo brainstorming session, the client wanted to incorporate a principle known as the Golden Ratio, that he felt helped describe his business. It's quite remarkable once you start looking into this principle. It's an equation that's been used by artists and engineers from as far back as the Egyptians, if not further back in time. It's believed to be the most aesthetically pleasing proportion. It's principles can be found in most anything in the physical universe... pretty crazy stuff.


So we explored the idea and incorporated this principle into the arms of the "X" in their company name (also making it their Icon or "Brand Mark"). The Golden Ratio will exist in the design of the website as well as other marketing materials. It was really interesting to me and fun to explore as a designer. Other words that I pulled from to create this brand: Intelligent, Diversified, Attentive, Nimble, Expertise, and Context. Overall the logo is modern & professional, and fits like a glove.

New "About Us" Photos

Here are a few self portraits (that we took for our Photography Website - which we've recently updated) ... we set up in the middle of some random field in Central Oregon and had some fun snapping photos of each other. A massive shout-out to the self timer on our cameras - couldn't have done it without you :)

Good to be Home

Wanted to post some recent images of our little girl. She's developing more and more each day. Right now she's really into eating her hands, giggling and playing with anything in sight. Her smile is beautiful, she's getting more and more curious about her surroundings (and our cameras), and is extremely vocal. She's also starting to get quite a little attitude :)

Asia = Conquered

Well, our travels through Asia are over and I couldn't be happier to be home and with my beautiful girls (man, I missed them). Over the last two weeks we pretty much traveled every way imaginable: 747, small crappy Indian planes, first class, coach, bus, motorcycle, train, subway, taxi, rickshaw (motorbike taxi), ox & trailer, and loads of walking. And surprisingly enough, there was only a FEW times during our trip that I thought I would die... Indian drivers are NUTS :) In all, India was an amazing experience and very eye opening. It'll take me quite some time to process everything that happened - but I'm looking forward to it. Thailand was a real breath of fresh air after our time in India. We stayed in Bangkok for several days and I appreciated every second of it.

Although Bangkok is basically like NYC (huge, tons to do, and massive buildings), my favorite part of it was when we explored the city via small wooden boats. We cruised through the canals and witnessed some very peaceful life on the river. Also, at 3am when we were heading to the airport, I saw a dude riding an elephant through the city streets... that was sweet. I would go back to Thailand at the drop of a hat and want to explore it more in the future. I just loved it.

We also flew into the small international business hub called Singapore (a tiny Island nation off the coast of Malaysia) and it was insanely beautiful, clean and modern. It's 200+ square miles with close to 5 million people living on it. We stayed there for two days to recoup at the beach and hotel before our long travels home. It reminded me a lot of Honolulu, Oahu minus the rugged terrain.

To learn more about the trip to India and why we went, please visit the emote360 blog. I'm thankful to be home. Thank you all for your prayers during this trip. God really protected us and watched over all our production gear. There were many situations that were on the verge of quickly "going south", but thankfully did not. I believe that was the power of all of our prayers - so thank you very much.