Because I had the chance to do lots of photographing with real cameras during March and April, I kind of forgot about the camera on my phone. But when I Bluetoothed photos from my phone to my computer today, I realized there were enough for a post. Heck yeah!

For those of you who are new to our blog: I post pictures taken with my cellphone every month (or two), and every now and then Patrick posts a few of his own cellphone pics (taken with a much fancier cellphone). Click here to see previous cellphone pic posts (opens in a new window). No claim is being made here that these cellphone pics are of high quality, nor is any attempt made to tone down their junky weirdness. Nor are we implying, as Patrick mentioned in a previous post, that we would ever take your wedding pictures with our cellphone cameras. Unless you wanted us to, of course.

So, back to March and April: I can hardly wait to show you more photos taken with real cameras, but what with one thing and another it’s taking a long time to get those done. The cellphone pics, on the other hand, take almost no time at all to import and process. I pick random presets from my Develop Presets folder in Lightroom and just slap ‘em on and that’s all there is to it. Makes me feel like being a photographer is easy, for a few minutes anyway.

TO SEE THIS MONTH’S EXCITING SELECTIONS PLEASE CLICK THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE PHOTO BELOW.

I was in South Carolina for two weeks in March, visiting my family in North Charleston. One day I persuaded my dad (Hi, Dad! More photos from my trip soon, I promise!) to take me to the Francis Beidler National Forest. It’s an old-growth swamp forest in the South Carolina low-country with thousand-year-old cypress trees, and it’s quiet. Very quiet. It’s also beautiful. Check out the photos from that walk below.

My dad told me a story of coming to the Beidler Forest after jury duty in a nearby town. A rainstorm caught him as he was out on the boardwalk, and he took shelter on a bench under the lookout deck. Pretty soon he fell asleep, soothed by the sound of the rain on the water and the peace and emptiness. He said that he woke up quite refreshed from this unexpected nap. His story reminded me of all the rainy afternoons this winter when I hung out at Neary Lagoon in Santa Cruz, happy to have the place to myself. There’s something so calming about swamps and lagoons, especially when the rain drives everyone else away.

You can click here to learn more about the Beidler forest (opens in a new window).

We drove to Stanford recently to take pictures of Alicia and Lawrence, who are getting married in July. These two are almost impossibly sweet together, as the photos below will show. Lawrence plays basketball at Stanford, thus the shots in the gym. It’s a beautiful campus and we had fun walking around looking for interesting spots to shoot, especially because Alicia and Lawrence brought along their beloved pet, a lucky little dog named Petey who was rescued from a shelter to be lavished with kisses. (As if these two weren’t cute enough by themselves!)

There are a dozen photos here, which is kind of a lot for a blog post but it seemed the best way to convey the youthful, affectionate energy of this couple. Alicia and Lawrence, we look forward to taking many photos of you on your wedding day. Give our regards to Petey!

The first set of photos were taken at the same beach as Rebecca’s previous post. The second set was shot at Sam McDonald County Park up past Pescadero on Highway 1.

For the perfect day trip, I recommend stopping at Arcangeli’s Grocery in Pescadero, where one can pick up a nice wine (or some cold beer) and some tasty bread (they make it themselves!) and cheese. From Pescadero, it’s a few short miles to the park.

It’s a gorgeous drive and a beautiful hike, it’s practically deserted, and not particularly strenuous. Plus, there’s a really nice horse camp with a bunch of picnic tables a mile or so into the hike, and there’s even a little shack with a fridge, a toaster and a microwave, in case you want to stay a bit longer, or make something slightly more complicated than sandwiches. Highly recommended!