Derek Lapsley Photographer

Neon lights are the bees knees 🐝

Eric & Amity from back when things were still green 'round these parts. Ahhh, I miss spring...⁠
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Late night foggy walkabout.

It's always a treat to see photos that you create in a print format of any sort but it's the icing on the cake when you can collaborate with an excellent team of people to provide a great client experience. This particularly applies to commercial and wedding work where multiple disciplines are involved. Cheers to you team!⁠
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A few words from the client Alvaro:⁠
"OMG!!!!! I have no words to describe in reading my story and seeing myself of the cover of the ASRT. One of my Co-workers said America’s Next Top Model. 😊 I wanted to express my sincere graditude, for all your hard work. Its been a pleasure working with all of you. I have had lots of compliments from family and friends and all my co-workers. I look forward to attending future conferences and always advocating for great patient care."⁠
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So I got this thing called a 35mm film camera (huh?) almost a year ago, sat on it for awhile because it wasn't functioning properly then finally shipped it to for a complete overhaul to bring it back to life and they delivered on that promise! All my other functioning film cameras are 120 film medium format giant clunky things that don't get much use these days so I've been having fun with this one. I'm contemplating only photographing my personal life in film this year... whatcha think?

Also, thank you to for the processing on these. You'll be seeing a lot more coming your way!

A series of my favorite images for 's recent “Confidence Breeds Beauty” campaign featuring some of their mother/daughter clients.

Sometimes when you're in a dark place you think you've been buried, but you've actually been planted.

When photographing I tend to navigate to the darkest of places when possible. Much like a seed I find the dark enables creativity through your ability to see in a new way, if you allow it.

Party mode: Activate!

It's the most wonderful time of the year.... Happy Halloween 🖤

In keeping with the holiday spirit, Nina & Axel got married in the funeral home she used to work at as a Mortician, had a hearse on standby, floating candles, a guest pumpkin carving contest, and a freakin' taco truck. Yesssssss please!!

This one probably deserve's a full blog post. It even got featured in the UK 😎

R Weddings and Events

We pretty much photographed an for and . These two are 🔥!

Makin' pictures is easy as....

1) Find a freakin' cool spot
2) Find some freakin' cool light
3) Kick some freakin' dust up

It ain't that freakin' hard people 😎

Ellie officially started her Kindergarten “Big Girl School” today! She held and my hand as we walked her to her class with a nervous excitement about her. It was a bit more emotional for myself than I anticipated having to let go and knowing that one day it’ll be the last day she holds my hand on the way to school… but today is not that day and for that I am grateful.

As much as I love and need the mountains for my sanity, there is a surreal quality about the rugged Pacific coastline against the vast nothingness when overlooking the ocean. I've come across people that live in the Central Valley that have never been to either the mountains or the ocean! Whaaaaat!? If this is you, let's chat. I'll send you a to-do list.

This photo was captured shooting a timelapse near Shaver where I witnessed one of the brightest meteors I've seen come in right over Fresno AND I was lucky enough to capture it in camera 🙌⁠
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The Delta Aquariids meteor shower is merging with 2 other smaller showers and is supposed to peak tomorrow morning at 3am (20ish meteors/hr). I'm really hoping the smokey haze from the Oak Fire doesn't drown it out from the 7500' elevation I'll be shooting from above Huntington Lake but I'll find out soon enough. Wish me luck on my first attempt to "intentionally" photograph a meteor (shower)!

When we dream is it not real until we wake up? We often dismiss the realness dreams because they end when we wake, however, the duration of the experience should not diminish it. We don’t think our experience of everyday life as less real because it ends when we die. Maybe this is all a simulation anyways. I don't know.

This is the kind of s**t that goes through my head when my daughter asks me the innocuous question if dreams are real. I might be overthinking this...

killin' it and headed to Grad school! Ehh... what's another couple of years, right?⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
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A thunderstorm rolled over Madera last night which was visible from my house about 40 miles away so I grabbed the camera real quick and set it up in the front yard to see if I could capture anything. It was my first time ever trying to photograph lightning before and there's a lot to learn still but dang it was fun! I'm totally ready to go do some storm chasing now... too bad it only rains like 5 days a year in California, haha.⁠
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Fun fact: The Guinness World Record holder for being struck by lightning the most times (and surviving) is 7 times!!!!!!! ⁠
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Doing Jeep things. I mean… a landscape with the Milky Way Galaxy is pretty cool but it would be cooler if I drove my Jeep on this rock 👌🏻😎