THIS BLOG HAS MOVED!

Hey guys. If you weren't already aware (maybe you stumbled across this blog through Google image search and clicking on photos or something) the blog for Lancaster Photography has moved our own server. You can find it now at www.lancasterphoto.net, or by this direct link:

http://www.lancasterphoto.net/blog/

Thanks for looking at our stuff!


If you want to find my stuff on instagram:

Wedding Work (LancasterPhotography): https://www.instagram.com/lancasterphotography/

Non-Wedding Work (ClayLancasterPhoto): https://www.instagram.com/claylancasterphoto/

-Clay

Ok! I'll bring the blog back!

Howdy all!

I stepped away from updating the blog this past year because I figured potential (and current) clients could see what we've been up to by browsing the Facebook feed, which we keep up to date. I guess people liked the blog as well, so here I am! It's easy to forget that being a wedding and event photographer doesn't just mean snapping photos. It's important that you guys get a chance to know me and my work on a more personal level.

So, if you're even entertaining the idea of booking a session (whether it be an engagement shoot, wedding, family, promotional, event, whatever) then please get a hold of me! Let's chat, have a drink, have some coffee, go bowling, etc.

2015 was a super fun year for us. I was able to work with some incredible couples at some really fun events, got to take photos of some legendary musicians, and had the pleasure of working with some new second shooters.

We hope you all had a blast this year as well, and we're excited to see everyone in the coming year! In the meantime, have a very happy holiday season and browse through some of my favorite moments of 2015 below.

Geyserville Inn Wedding

Engagement shoot in Aptos, CA

Van Halen in Concord, CA

Some of the best bridal procession reactions ever. Diablo Ranch. Walnut Creek, CA

First Look in Geyserville, CA. Anthony swears he wasn't crying...

Billy Idol in Reno, NV. The Grand Sierra.

First dance at the Purple Orchid in Livermore, CA

Pre-ceremony meeting between bride and flower girl. Cupertino, CA.

Evening bride and groom at the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens

Paul Meany of Mutemath risking bodily injury for our entertainment. Brick & Mortar, San Francisco.

Even a photo of me! Photographer photographing a photographer. Photo: Galen Ducey

Friends celebrating at The Ridge in Lake Tahoe, CA.

Stephen Tyler with Aerosmith ay Harvey's, Lake Tahoe.

How do people sleep at night, knowing that they cut into such a pristine wedding cake?

Slash. A personal guitar hero of mine. The Fillmore, San Francisco.

Sunset wedding stroll. Palmdale Estates in Fremont, CA.

Noel Gallagher of Oasis, serenading us at The Warfield in San Francisco.

Wedding Season 2014 Has Begun! Well, a while ago. But still.

Wow, I neglected this blog for a bit! Have you been waiting here long?

How is everyone's 2014 so far?

This year has been a funky one as far as schedules. I'm more booked than I ever have been, but all my bookings are crammed into a 6-month period this time. Usually it's bit more evenly distributed throughout the year.

So for me, wedding season is about 3 weeks into full swing... and it's gonna be a fun one. George is with me once again this year, and if you see these two photographer clowns at your event, you made a smart hiring decision:

George Woods and Clay Lancaster. Photo courtesy of the groom.

Obviously I do things other than weddings as well. Earlier this year I did some photos for my friends in a band called Black Map (made up of members of Dredg, The Trophy Fire, Far, and Crosses †††). Here's one from Bottom of the Hill:

Black Map (dredg, The Trophy Fire, Far)

Next up was Crosses at the Independent. The Deftones' Chino Moreno fronts this "new" group with members of dredg and Far, and they put on such a fun show. No photo pit at this venue, so I got knocked around quite a bit by the sold out crowd:

Chino Moreno of Crosses (and Deftones). Photo by Clay Lancaster. 

Crosses at the Independent in San Francisco. Photo by Clay Lancaster.

Much of early spring was spent on personal projects, taxes, and a trip to Las Vegas before all the weddings were scheduled to kick in. Now it's all started, and George and I are super excited to see all the wonderful faces that have us scheduled for 2014!

-Clay

I'll leave you with some of my favorite shots so far:

San Francisco Zoo Wedding

Indoor ceremony at Murietta's Well. Livermore, CA.

Happy New Year! A Great 2013.

Very thankful for the year we've had here at Lancaster Photography. We met a lot of fantastic people, were welcomed into a lot of family circles, spent time in many photo pits, and traveled around the US and the world... all because of the lens and being decent at using it.

Personal thanks to all my clients from this year for choosing my work (which even included Sony Music Entertainment and Ben Folds), huge thanks to my 2nd shooters and assistants, and to the staff at theFIVE10 Radio. 

A very Happy New Year to all of you!

-Clay

www.claylancaster.com

www.lancasterphoto.net

Megadeth - The Warfield, San Francisco. December 18th, 2013.

Dave Mustaine performs with Megadeth at the Warfield in San Francisco. Photo by Clay Lancaster.

Last night was my 3rd time shooting Megadeth for theFIVE10.com. I learned to play guitar by strumming & picking along with their 1992 record Countdown to Extinction, so it's always a big deal for me to bring my camera to these shows.

Enjoy! All photos by Clay Lancaster (Lancaster Photography). Click an image to enlarge.

www.claylancaster.com

Megadeth set list for the Warfield in San Francisco

Dave Ellefson performs with Megadeth at the Warfield in San Francisco. Photo by Clay Lancaster.

Chris Broderick performs with Megadeth at the Warfield in San Francisco. Photo by Clay Lancaster.

Chris Broderick performs with Megadeth at the Warfield in San Francisco. Photo by Clay Lancaster.

Chris Broderick performs with Megadeth at the Warfield in San Francisco. Photo by Clay Lancaster.

Dave Ellefson performs with Megadeth at the Warfield in San Francisco. Photo by Clay Lancaster.

Dave Ellefson and Dave Mustaine perform with Megadeth at the Warfield in San Francisco. Photo by Clay Lancaster.

Dave Mustaine performs with Megadeth at the Warfield in San Francisco. Photo by Clay Lancaster.

Dave Ellefson performs with Megadeth at the Warfield in San Francisco. Photo by Clay Lancaster.

Dave Mustaine performs with Megadeth at the Warfield in San Francisco. Photo by Clay Lancaster.

Dave Ellefson performs with Megadeth at the Warfield in San Francisco. Photo by Clay Lancaster.

Dave Ellefson performs with Megadeth at the Warfield in San Francisco. Photo by Clay Lancaster.

Dave Mustaine performs with Megadeth at the Warfield in San Francisco. Photo by Clay Lancaster.

2013 Recap: Weddings, Concerts, Album Covers, Travel and Films

I was organizing and preparing for the end of the year, when I realized how awesome 2013 was for my photographic adventures. I make my living as a wedding photographer here in the San Francisco Bay Area, but there's a lot more that I've done (and will continue to do) besides weddings.

Don't get me wrong... I love my couples, and I love my job. But if you're a chef and your job is to make pizzas at a restaurant, you don't just stick to making pizzas at home!

To start, this year has been very travel-heavy. Normally I do a bunch of concerts throughout the year, but this time I swapped much of the concert shooting for traveling (and the projects that come with that). Tallying up, my journeys took me to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe (twice), Colorado, Florida, Istanbul, and Paris (twice)... plus all the local outings to wedding venues here in Northern California.

Some of the main highlights:

Paris, France: Worked on an independent film with my brother and a wonderful cast & crew. Crazy experience, and required two trips out there to get it filmed (once in April and once in October). See all my previous posts documenting the trip, if you want more details.

Me (looking thrilled), Barbara Probst, and Kevin Clark as seen through my brother's RED camera

Istanbul, Turkey: After our first round of filming in Paris, I headed to Istanbul by myself. I had never been to that part of the world before, and it was my first trip to another country alone... where I ended up shooting a hip-hop video for a Tunisian rapper/DJ in a dingy basement, with real blood donated by our video's "director" (we couldn't find fake blood)...

Las Vegas, Nevada: Brodie (of the Brodie Stewart Band) few me out with him to meet up with Faith Hill's guitar player, who plays on Brodie's upcoming record. We shot some great interview footage, then had a couple of nights hangin' out with those guys (and some of the stage crew for the Tim McGraw/Faith Hill show at the Venetian). All of it topped off with free tickets to the Tim & Faith show, and my own entire row of seats on the plane coming home for me to stretch out on.

Getting ready to shoot Adam's interviews at the Venetian

Ben Folds Five: The most rewarding moment of 2013 for me was getting my photo on the front cover of Ben Folds Five: Live, which is the first-ever live album for the band. I've been a huge fan of Ben Folds Five since high school, and once I heard their 12-year hiatus was over I pushed to get photo access for their show at the Warfield in San Francisco on their reunion tour. I was just thrilled to even go to the show, let alone shoot photos. But a couple of months later, I get a call from their people and BOOM!... there's my photo on the record cover (released by Sony) and can be found in stores all over the world. Pretty cool to see "Clay Lancaster" on the CD insert, and on the back of the vinyls.

My photo on the cover of Ben Folds Five: Live

The rest of the year was filled with wonderful weddings, trips to visit family and friends, some great shoots and celebrity guests for theFIVE10.com, AND I bought a condo... so I am now a first-time homeowner.

On January 1st of this year I didn't see any of those previous events on the horizon, so I can't wait to see what 2014 will bring. It's gonna be pretty hard to top what happened this year... but, of course, I said the same thing last year.

Happy Holidays!

Paris: Finally Finished (fingers crossed)

Eiffel Tower from the Trocadéro. Photo by Clay Lancaster

Hello hello.

We've had a fairly busy last 10 days, and after this evening I should comfortably be able to say that the Paris portion of the film is in the can (which is like 90% of it).

The ending was re-written and a B-story was added. Our first few days were spent re-shooting the ending with our lead actress, as she had another project to get to. I flew from San Francisco to New Jersey, then New Jersey to Paris... hopped on the RER train into Gentilly, met up with everyone here at the studio, had about 30 minutes to get settled, then we started rolling.

The remainder of the week we worked with our lead actor/writer (as well as a new actress) on the new side story. It was challenging.

A big problem with not having much of a budget is that we have to shoot where we can shoot. That means spending hours on crowded riverbanks - take after take - trying to avoid loud boats, loud people, rain, onlookers, lighting issues, potential security issues, etc.

One of our scenes took about 8 hours to wrap. The scene is only about 5 minutes long.

This scene is about 4 seconds long. Yet we needed 5 takes. I labeled the slate accordingly.

The majority of our people are now gone, leaving Keith and me here in this art studio on our own. We spent the last day and a half doing some much-needed sleeping in, some pub-drinking, some bicycle riding through the city, some wine drinking, some photography, and some Formula 1 race-watching. After our mini pizzas come out of the oven, we're gonna jump on the Metro with the RED camera and go film some establishing b-roll. Then tonight we pack up, and jet back to San Francisco tomorrow morning.

Band photo.

It's been a blast. At the start of 2013, I surely didn't see myself going to Paris this year... and definitely didn't see myself going twice. Now it has become a running joke that we'll all just be right back here in a another few months to film something else.

To my clients who have been patiently waiting on their wedding photos, thank you! I'll have them to you soon.

Enjoy some of these photos, and I'll see you guys back in the States in a couple of days.

-Clay

Out and about during Nuit Blanche. Photo by Clay Lancaster

Night Filming.

Keith and Kevin discuss... something.

This time Kevin brought a remote-controlled quad-copter for arial shots. We crashed it a lot.

...like this:

Sunrise shot.

My roommate. He watched me while I sleep across the room. Good guy.

Awkward filming moment. Barbara, Kevin, and... me (technically) in the back.