It’s that time of the year when seniors are going to the local photographers and capturing how nerdy they don’t know they are yet. I look back at my senior pics and think “wow, really josh?”  Nice hair…dork! ahhh ANYWAY.

In that mode of thinking is how I approached shooting my nephew, Alec, for his senior pictures. He plays several sports, but soccer seems to stand out more than the others. I thought instantly about some of those Nike ad’s. You know, with the strong back lighting and hard HDR-like effect? We went with that look.

The setup was two strobe lights, the sun, and a meter in-hand. Here is a behind-the-scenes shot of what you would have seen if standing there with us. (click to enlarge)

I was impressed by his ease in-front of the camera and his willingness to work with me on getting shots that showed attitude and were edgy.  Some ideas were planned, like the first shot above. Others was Alec just being totally freaking AWESOME! Like, this 2nd image below:

Thank you Alec for being an awesome subject to shoot! You rock!!!

I really feel that photography is the talent I want to focus more on and keep pushing forward with. More to look forward to in the future.

I appreciate all of you still coming to my blog, I see the numbers, thank you!

Had the opportunity to shoot Tiffany on a very short schedule. We had a dress, location and time to meet up. Unfortunately the location took some time to find. I mean, enough time that the sun was juuuust starting to crouch behind the tree line next to the lake we were at.

It was evident this shoot would be about 15 minutes and that’s about it.

After arriving I was just about to jump out of the car when Tiffany held up the dress and realized that the string to tie up the back  didn’t make it on the ride over. Well, crap. We thought clamps might work, but the dress is designed to not touch on the back, so clamps didn’t even cut it close. We tried to make that work, no luck at all.

The next idea was to use shoe laces, but at the same time I noticed a sync cord that I never use. YES! I got the ends of the cable and realized that it didn’t fit into the dress loops!!! Noooooo! Tiffany said “just cut them off?” Durrr, Perfect! A couple of snips and we have ourselves a plastic coated tie wire that worked good enough for the shoot.

Here is another from the shoot. Variation was tough to do in 15 minutes, so we did some in the water and some on the boat and that’s about all the time we had.

I hope everyone is still shooting the things they love to shoot and are doing it because they love shooting!

Why did I go to Colorado? Because it’s where my lovely girl is from of course! She took as many pictures as I did and always had a nice angle of things that I miss too often. Here is a neato shot she snuck in while shooting the above image.

Did I mention that I got about 15 foot from a wild moose?! That thing was crazy huge!!!

This other moose hopped in front of my camera while I was shooting the above moose. That’s one sneaky moose! ;D

I captured many pano images while there. This was one of my favorites. I stood in awe of how beautiful this scene was!

I’m going to start with a recent find of custom lighting with a very cool idea and a great result. This post is about photographer Benjamin Von Wong. I was sifting through hundreds of blogs and links and came across his superhero work.

You can check that work out here plus a cool video of how the images were made.

Benjamin Von Wong
website – www.vonwong.com/
blog – www.vonwong.com/blog/

Those images were done very well, I was excited to view them! Check out his other work too, there are gems throughout!

While I was in Northern Illinois I had the opportunity to visit my good friend, Brian, whom volunteers as a tour guide at the Anderson Japanese Garden during the Summer. Upon arriving there I grabbed my camera and mono/tripod, but Brian said “they tend to not like pod’s here…it’s too professional”. Or, something to that effect. Brian probably didn’t care, but I’m sure someone inside would have. Either way, I walked in with only the camera. Doesn’t matter right?

“A photographer that sets out to create a good image, will.”

The top-most image is a tea house. It’s such a beautiful structure. Simple, uncluttered, clean. It’s used to have tea gatherings which are much different from what we might think a tea party would be like. It’s quite, focused, and centers around the idea to live in that moment while you are inside. Also, I found it impressive that it’s built without nails.

I always wanted to have the available time, area, and tools to rake sand. I used to have a small sand ‘garden’ in my room. I’m not sure what happened to that. Anyhow, this one was very large and was raked with a bamboo rake in a circle pattern. It precedes itself with a sacred aura. I mean that when I walked up to it I quickly learned to respect its design and dare not move even a pebble. Actually, a few pebbles were on the walking path and I felt the need to push them back into the circle pattern. It feels amazing to have a place beckon me to hold such reverence for nature.

There were several bridges and pathways all leading in different directions, yet they come to the same place. A notable and essential philosophy for life, I’d say.

I shot this simply because of the textures I noticed all near each other. Wood grain, rough rock, smooth rock, trees, etc… I managed to capture a few all in one shot. In this place I had no desire to grab a stone and throw it into the lake off to the right. It felt like they were there for some purpose beyond me, so I didn’t bother them.

Remember to click on the above images to see them at their full size. Enjoy your week!

I spent the last few days in the Rockford, IL area to meet up with an old friend and attend/shoot a wedding. The wedding day was overcast day all day long, which for me shooting outside is perfectly fine by me! This helps with the squinting and blasts of light splotching up my camera scene! :D  I had the opportunity to meet the limo driver, Mike (you rock!), and setup lighting inside. How cool! It appears that from the front seat where I was that there is a huge open area, but that isn’t so. I handed my light stand and light through a small hole to the lady on the right and instructed her to build my light inside the cab as I got my camera ready. (Maybe she wants to be a photographers assistant?!) With a couple of test shots we had ourselves a fun image of the entire wedding party and cool reflective surfaces all over!

Here is another shot that the parents of the bride requested. They asked for “a shot in front of the limo.” Ok, I know you can’t see a whole lot of the limo, but it was my favorite of the bunch! Cute couple huh?! :D

On the border of Illinois/Iowa I saw this truck sitting off the side of the road and had to stop to capture some images! As I was shooting a lady stopped, got out, and asked me if I wanted to restore the truck. I replied “No. Not really. I’m taking pictures and like it the way it is really!” She said at one point a car ran off the road and hit the back of this truck. Hard to tell from this image, but you can see where the car broke the fence and smashed the back doors inward.

Here’s a couple of the inside…

“Rather than crisscrossing, the two skydivers slammed into each other at a combined speed of 300 miles per hour. Aguillon died instantly. (Dana) Bowman’s legs were severed from his body, one above the knee and one below the knee. Bowman’s parachute opened on impact. He was taken to a hospital in Phoenix where doctors closed his leg wounds and stopped his internal bleeding.”

The above incident happened in 1994. Since then Dana Bowman has been traveling as an inspirational speaker to thousands of people all over the world; giving a message of hope, strength and ability.

I have never heard of Dana until a few weeks ago when I was hired to shoot him jumping out of a plane. I shot two jumps in one day and got to spend half the day with Dana and Mike Elliott. (Also, check this out on Mike! What an honor!) What a couple of awesome guys doing some great things! You can learn more of what Dana does at his website here: http://www.danabowman.com/

Here Dana setup five high school students to fold the American flag he waved during his jump in. During the flag folding I heard one of the students saying “ok, one, two, three! *flips the flag one time, all five students in unison*” It was great to see them working together on such a huge task that many don’t get the opportunity to do!

This last shot is Dana and one of the volunteer students tying the bag that contains the American flag.

Thank you for stopping by! And, don’t forget to slow down on occasion and enjoy the simple things!

I’ve been busy enough that I”m finding it hard to even blog! Eeek!  Here is a couple of images from a wedding I shot last weekend. I wanted to start incorporating HDR into my weddings that serve the purpose of intensifying a bride and grooms portrait as naturally as possible, then work on color toning and effects from the HDR merge. I find the process enjoyable and very much worth it!

This second image is a single shot with a slight harder edge effect applied and a good dose of color toning for a good feel.

Thanks to Brad and Katy for being  totally AWESOME in front of my camera! You two ROCK!