Archive for August, 2008

My new toy…uh, tool

August 31, 2008

Canon EF 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye Lens

This lens is cool! I’ve been wanting it for a long time and finally just went for it. It distorts and rounds photos with a convex effect. It’s great for putting a person near a tall building and distorting/curving the buildings (but not the person or people if you keep them in/near the middle of the shot). It creates drama and can draw attention to the subject of the photograph. I can’t wait to play with it.

One of my brides, Camie, was hoping to get some fisheye shots at the Salt Lake Temple for her December 12th wedding, and now she will get them! Merry Christmas, Camie!

American Boy

August 29, 2008

Love this song and video. Check it!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDJwVHB-bEw&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1]

Sassy Senior

August 13, 2008

Alissa is a super-smart, beautiful young woman who moved to Utah to attend BYU. She’s getting an early start on her academic career by attending her first semester this summer while all of the other freshman to be are sitting around at home on MySpace and Facebook, watching TV and texting their friends. Her mom, Karen, called me from Texas, saying that she needed me to re-shoot Alissa’s senior portraits because the photos from the guy who took them in Texas looked like a Sears photographer went out on his own. Ugh! This wasn’t the first time I’ve re-shot photos for someone who didn’t like what their photographer (or friend with digital camera) had done. People! Just choose a great photographer (like me) in the first place.

Alissa, Karen, and I had such a great time with this session. Karen and Alissa are a blast and Karen, Alissa’s mom is hilarious!

Click on the thumbnails to see an enlarged view of each photo.

Maverik-Adventure’s First Stop!

August 10, 2008

Here’s another non-wedding related shoot I did for Maverik Country Stores way back in February. What a blast this was! I photographed Maverik’s marketing team for the cover of Convenience Store News Magazine.

I photographed one of their newer stores on Redwood Road as well as the marketing team in the store. They were so fun to work with, hamming it up for the camera.

Then, they flew me to one of their Arizona stores to shoot it, too. I got to ride in the Maverik plane where we did zero gravity for fun. On the way back from Arizona, Lynda and I were sitting in the back of the plane and the pilot did zero G’s. When you do this, things will float in the air for a moment. Lynda threw up her keys and they floated! Even better, all of our stuff-water bottles, bags, and my heavy camera equipment, all went floating in the air. When it was over and we went back to regular gravity (whatever that’s called), all the stuff went flying toward Lynda, landing on and around her! Luckily, I captured all of this with my camera. It’s hilarious! At Maverik, they really live their slogan, “Adventure’s First Stop!” www.maverik.com

: Lynda, minding her own business

My stuff beginnig to fly toward Lynda

uh oh!

All my stuff flying toward Lynda! (Those are my feet floating in the air.)

The aftermath

The Grand Canyon from the plane

Arizona Maverik

Redwood Road Maverik, Salt Lake City

Maverik Marketing Team

Candy aisle!

Steffon and His Blue Light Orchestra

August 10, 2008

I did a great studio and location shoot a little while back and have been excited to post it.

Steffon and His Blue Light Orchestra are an awesome group. Steffon is the main man of the outfit and sings and writes crooner style jazz songs as well as modern rock/pop tunes. Think Michael Buble, Frank Sinatra, and Harry Connick, Jr. with a Maroon Five twist. The Blue Light Orchestra consists of Jeremy Brown on drums/percussion, Ben Johnson on bass, and the lovely Kelsie Call on piano and vocals. They are an amazingly talented group of people. They’re on the label, Crooner Records, and were just finishing up the Limited Edition Pre-Release album at the time of our photo shoot. The album is great and I think you’ll be hearing more about Steffon and His Blue Light Orchestra in the near future.

Be sure to check out Steffon at www.myspace.com/steffon2. You can hear and buy his music there. One of my favorites is “Voices in My Head”. There’s even a jazz cover of “Dancing Days” by Led Zeppelin!

Here are photos from our session shot at Spirit West Studios www.spiritweststudios.com. A special thanks to them for allowing us to use their studio for the shoot. Thanks to Linda Shober assiting me!

Steffon and His Blue Light Orchestra-Album Cover

Steffon

Jeremy Brown-Drums/Percussion

Ben Johnson-Bass

Kelsie Call-Piano/Vocals CD Photo