Sean and Cara – Tyee Winery – Corvallis, OR
Sean and Cara were married at the Tyee Winery in Corvallis. It was an absolutely gorgeous day and a beautiful, fun wedding, and I was delighted to get a chance to shoot it with Tahoe-based wedding photographer Nicole Miller. Here are a few of my best shots from their day.
Seattle Skate Park
Couple of shots from Saturday night at the skate park in Seattle Center. Lot of fun shooting these guys and they totally went for it to give us some great action. Took a shooting board to the ankle and can’t really walk right now but that’s another story…
Santa Monica Beach
A couple of shots from a recent weekend trip to Santa Monica – the two shots of the pier are high dynamic range (HDR) created using Nik Software’s HDR Efex Pro plugin for Photoshop.
Gabrielle
This month marked another big inflection point in life – after 2 years away from the corporate world, I decided to get back on the hamster wheel and resume the furious spin. I found a great job and I think it’s really going to be something I like, but it was a hard decision. Bottom line, being an artist is romantic and cool, but it doesn’t pay the bills…
The tradeoff to being a working photographer was doing a lot of photography that was, well, work. Shooting tons of events that all started to run together and all you shot was “grips and grins” without any creativity involved was turning my passion into a chore. I did get the opportunity to see and do some interesting things, as well as meet some great people, but I’m not going to miss parts of that particular job.
So now I get to choose what I shoot. I’m going to continue to shoot weddings and build my business there, because I really enjoy wedding photography. I’m going to keep shooting portraits of all kinds, because I love working with people and making them look their best. I’m going to continue to make beautiful images, because it gives me a profound joy that is different than any other passion I’ve ever had in my life.
In that vein, highlights from a recent shoot with Gabrielle. Enjoy.
Old Barn, Skagit Valley
Last week I went up to the Skagit Valley with a friend to shoot the beautiful fields of flowers at the annual tulip festival, but got sidetracked during our scouting drive when we passed by this incredible decaying barn set back a little from road. After a quick consultation (which mostly was “wow did you see that barn..we HAVE to go shoot that”) we decided to turn around and go back. We couldn’t find anyone who might not want us there or hopefully give us permission – despite the heavy farm equipment rumbling through the adjacent fields – so we decided to proceed and wait to see if anyone came by.
We shot the exterior and went in to the ground floor and shot the gloom and clutter of the ground floor interior. It was spooky to say the least – a tumble of weird artifacts and lost items, and it looked like maybe the barn had flooded at some point in the past, as everything was covered in a layer of dust or mud. A high afternoon haze made for incredible soft light that flowed into the barn through all the broken out windows and missing doors. A little quick work repairing an old ladder got us up to the 2nd floor and the chance to shoot rows of old dorm rooms for farmhands with broken bunks and decaying mattresses, and then up to the 3rd floor, where we startled an owl out from the rafters. It was like the inside of the barn was frozen in time – we found beer bottles dated 1962 and old Lucky Strikes cigarette packs. The light coming through the exposed ribs of the roof was glorious but also showed that the floor was rotting out from years of rain, so after some careful shooting in the intact sections of the room, we headed back down and out, half expecting a sheriff to be waiting for us (which there was not). Truly an amazing shoot.
Inga and Oly
Latest pet portrait session – Inga and Oly. These two dogs have totally different personalities – Inga has a big, bold, excited personality and races around the house in leaps and bounds while Oly is a shy, quiet, sweet old guy who just wants to snuggle. We had a great time shooting portraits of these two and for fun at the end got some shots of Inga leaping in the air for her ball. First time I’ve tried to catch a dog in midair and I want to do it again – it’s really hard to time it right but the expressions and the flying fur are totally worth it.
Side note: a selection of my pet portraits will go on display at All The Best Pet Care on Queen Anne in Seattle starting Monday, and there will be an artist’s reception Sunday the 24th. If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by and take a look.
Baby Lauren
Some images from a newborn shoot I did about 3 weeks ago – Lauren was two weeks old for this session. She behaved beautifully during the shoot – she slept most of the time and when she woke up gave up some beautiful shots with her eyes open. Proud parents Tony and Carrie were right at hand with bottles, blankets, and diapers as needed to keep everything calm and smooth. Technical notes – we shot this all with window light, mostly at f1.4 or f1.8, with a couple of white cards for fill as needed.
Rob Haggart looks at cloud storage costs for photographers
Interested in a cloud storage service as a bulletproof backup solution? Rob Haggart over at A Photo Editor takes a look at the pros and cons and also tallies up the costs…
http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2011/02/04/online-storage-for-photographers/
Angela
Last week I shot with Angela, an aspiring actress and martial artist. She was great to work with and a lot of fun to figure out how to light and pose for what we were trying to do – we wanted to create some shots that were both dramatic and sexy but also showed her athleticism. It took me a while to figure it out, but by the end of the shoot it clicked that she reminded me quite a bit of Linda Hamilton.
These were all shot in my studio (i.e., my living room with all the furniture moved out), with either two or three strobes and a couple of different sets of softboxes and reflectors. Results below.
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Pet portraits, how I’ve missed you…
I haven’t posted any pet portraits in a couple of months – I’ve been shooting other things – but I did a quick session this morning with my favorite pet model, Baron. I’ve got another session in the catalog from last fall that I need to write up a quick blog post about, but that’ll be for another another day. For now, I thought I’d share this one.
