B&W Tuesday

Las Vegas Nevada 2012

B&W Tuesday

Miami Florida 2012

Black and White Tuesday

Neon Boneyard - Las Vegas Nevada

Vegas at Dusk

There was a time on this blog where I would tag all images with the gear I used to capture my images. I did it for a few reasons but the biggest reason was because I would get quite a few inquiries as to what gear I used. So the lazy side of me decided that it wold be easier to include information on each photo instead of responding to the emails. I soon realized that the gear used isn't important. You don't ask the chef at your favorite restaurant what brand of grill he used to cook your steak. My blog is a place for me to share my images and thoughts, I want the images to speak for themselves.

With that said I'm making an exception today to point out that I really enjoy the images that my FujiFilm X100 produces. I take it with me at all times and love the quality of the images this little camera takes. It's quickly becoming my favorite camera ever. I leave my big Canon camera at home now and only use it occasionally.

These two images are straight out of the camera and shot in JPG mode. The image above was taken from the viewing deck of the Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas Nevada. The image below is a panorama taken with the built in panoramic mode of the X100 taken at the top of the Stratosphere Casino in Las Vegas Nevada.



View the large pano here

Black and White Tuesday

I'm a big advocate of personal photography projects. They force you to engage, create and improve as a photographer. I have a few small projects that are on-going but wanted to try something that I could share on my blog on a weekly basis. I've noticed that my friend Ann Torrence is doing Black and White Tuesday on her blog. I've been getting into shooting more and more personal work in Black and White and thought this would be a good project for me to start as well. Be sure to check back on Tuesday's for fresh Black and White photo.

Crazy Summer and Film Shooter

This has been one of the craziest summers for me in a long time. With a family vacation, family reunion, church activity and a few other events my June and July have been pretty busy.

In this time however I've acquired a film camera. I have several oldies but I wanted one that I could use with my current Canon lenses. After doing a little research I settled with a Canon Elan 7N. I've shot one roll of Fuji film from the clearance aisle at Walmart and I have to say I'm pretty impressed with the results.

The biggest reason for this purchase was to spend less time in front of the computer and more time shooting. I work on a computer all day for my day job, the last thing I want to do is to spend my evenings on it doing post processing work on my images shot with my digital cameras. I've even resorted to taking JPG's only with my Fuji X100. It does such a great job with jpg's that I don't have a need to do any post processing. The second reason for the change is to force me to slow down. Digital seems to be getting easier and frankly boring sometimes. I love how shooting film forces you to slow down and consider every shot before pressing the shutter button. Will I ever ditch digital? No, I love my Canon 5D MarkII and Fuji X100 and will probably upgrade to the Mark III soon. But I'm going to continue to shoot film more and more. I've heard a lot of good things about the Leica M cameras. I'd love to get my hands on a M6 or M7 to try out for a few days.

I've included few images taken at my dad's place in Rexburg Idaho. Shot in the harsh middle of the afternoon sun on the cheap fuji film.

I've got a small project that I will be starting next week. I have to give credit to a good friend for the idea that I will be talking more about next week.

Ballerina

I was asked to assist on a photo session with Nate Marx.  While he was photographing one girl I took the other aside and wanted to capture some images of her shoes.  I used the sun as a backlight and a reflector to add a little light to the shoes.  These were my favorite from the session.

Playtime

My daughter loves to use her imagination when playing with her toys.  Instead of wasting her time in front of the TV she loves to pull out her toys and assemble things  I remember doing the similar things only with lincoln logs when I was her age.

Leading Lines

Hands and Feet

 



Oh what I'd give to be ten again.  The only thing in your day that causes stress is deciding who to call to hang out with.  My daughter and her friend found some chalk and had fun creating art.

'51 Chevy

 

Self Portriat - Reflections

There is something about reflections that catch my eye.  I've included a few of my favorites that I've taken over the last month.







 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Logan - High School Senior

 


I've known Logan for a few years and was happy when he contacted me to take his high school senior pictures. In fact, I traveled with him and his family for two week in Europe last year and would have loved to taken some time for his senior photos there.  He had an idea of what he wanted and after talking about it for a few minutes we both agreed that the Union Station in Ogden Utah was a good fit. I had a few ideas floating in my head that I thought he'd like and turns out they were his favorite(mine too).  The first two images were taken under an overpass with off camera lighting to add a bit of punch.  Like what you see?  Contact me if your interested in a booking a session.









 



 



 

 

 

Courtney - Portraits

 



It was time to update my daughters photos from last year.  I wanted to do something different than what I've done in the past so I took the opportunity to make some time when we were visiting my parents in Idaho.  My father no longer farms but still has some land and equipment.  There is an old grain mill on some property of his that I thought would make for some great images.  The first image in this series is my favorite from the building.  It took the longest to setup but is what I had pre-visualized when I picked this place.  I'm using a mix of natural light and light from a speedlight.  I gelled a speedlight (cto) and hid it in the lamp next to the chair and triggered it wirelessly.  The room was pretty dark so I had to bump my ISO quite high to let in the ambient that I wanted and to also allow for an acceptable shutter speed.

The last two images were taken at some nearby sand dunes.  I used a 22' beauty dish with an AlienBee 1600 and a vagabond mini battery pack.  The battery pack has turned out to be a great investment, especially when paired with the beauty dish.  The battery lasted about 45 minutes and ran out of power just as I had finished with my last image for the night.  I really enjoy off camera flash especially at sunset.  - enjoy

 

A View From Hoover Dam

Street Photography

Something I always come across when reading photography books is a discussion about ways to grow as a photographer. A common theme I run into if you want to grow and become a better photographer is to get out of your comfort zone .  I've experienced this a few times lately and thought I'd share my most recent experience.

Shaun Nelson and I did a little street photography in downtown Salt Lake City one afternoon.  I have to say that this definitely took me out of my comfort zone.  I've seen quite a few street photographer who can get some amazing photographs but I felt like I wasn't able to get anything good.  After about an hour I packed up and headed home not feeling comfortable with what I had and quite frankly didn't care to do any more street photography again.  Shaun mentioned that the first time is a little uncomfortable and to try it again.  I took his advise and hit the streets again.  I have to say I didn't feel as uncomfortable but still a little awkward.  I included a few of my favorite shots.  I don't anticipate me becoming a street photographer anytime soon but when the occasion arises I will be able to apply the things I learned from this adventure to the next one.

Jefferson Memorial in Black and White

Taken on a recent trip to Washington DC.

Image in Use - Reedsburg Utility Commission

It's fun to see how people are using my images that they buy from my iStockphoto portfolio. I like what they've done to this image by adding the blue sky, the original here.

Friends

 

A few months ago Nate Marx and I got together to do a autumn style photo shoot around a school theme. The image above was one of my favorites from the day. It turns out it was the one that required the most photoshop work in order to get accepted into my iStockphoto portfolio. With a full time day job, family and other responsibilities my time is limited so when I have an image like this one that requires more than average time spent in photoshop it usually gets put on the back burner. I enjoy doing location photo shoots and have quite a backlog of themes that I'm planning on doing this year.

I'm hopeful that it will be a good seller, I've had several others from the day that are doing quite well.