Autumn. Wow.

The past week or two has been a much needed break from the commercial routine of emails, location scouting, art direction, and deadlines! Instead, i've been spending time in the magnificently beautiful and peaceful outdoors. One of these days I should actually leave the camera behind and really take a break, but the Fall season is not the time for that. Yes, as I'm sure you're well aware, the change of seasons is in full swing, the colors are gorgeous and it's the time of year I always hope will last much longer than it does. The Wasatch mountains stand as a back-drop to some of the most beautiful landscape photography anywhere. Before the Autumn rests for a season, you should definitely take a day off and enjoy!

Interbike, Las Vegas!

I'm fairly confident that at birth, instead of rolling down the hospital hallways in one of those scary plastic cribs, I was instead, quite happily cruising around on a bike. Basically, I've been pretty addicted to bikes since a young age; big bikes, little bikes, single speed bikes, multi speed bikes, dirt bikes, mountain bikes, road bikes, trials bikes, bikes with shocks and bikes without...you get the point. As long as it had two wheels (never really got into the unicycle thing), I was good to go. In fact, I raced a bit of downhill, cross-country and trials riding back in the day. The technical aspects of observed trials riding became the real passion and so of course I have to throw in a trials shot from a Lake Tahoe trip a few years back (Photo: Stephanie Winzeler):


(Photo story: I came up six inches short on the landing and shuttlecocked my way off both rocks and into a shallow pool of water (rider left)-- if you want the whole sequence, 6 shots total, drop me an email -- A broken left wrist brought a quick end to the trip)

So not only am I stoked to be headed down to the worlds largest bicycle trade show (Interbike in Vegas), but equally excited to meet several of the large companies and bring a little sizzle into their marketing and advertising line-up for next year. Stay tuned for a few on-location shoots with behind the scenes footage and in the meantime, get out and RIDE!

Water Ski and Light-ning

Plan A - head out to the local lake to shoot some water skiing (with photog in water).
Plan B - hope the lightning doesn't hit us!

Just a few hundred meters out of the bay and realized Plan B was much more likely to happen than plan A. However, despite ominous weather, we headed out through the white caps to an area that is usually quite calm even amidst surrounding storms. No luck at all and it was an easy decision for the group to head back to the dock and come back another day. Hold it right there! As the photographer, I'm always looking for a shot even when the plan seems to be a failure. We were stoked to get out and shoot some unique ski shots and I was determined to make that happen even if no one would be talked into jumping in. The background had drama written all over it and images kept popping off in my head. Brandon (skier and aspiring model) accommodated my request to make something out of nothing, so I through on a life jacket, my waterproof housing and before arriving back at the dock jumped in the water for some pre-ski type shots. Insert [minor photog stupidity] and [my brain works on really cool photos long before situational risk enters my thoughts]. The combination of lightning, water, and 13' light stands would seem like a pretty obvious recipe for disaster to most folks. Never pass up a cool shot! hmmm...what to do??

Shoot!




Test shot

Olympic photos

Athletes or Photographers...which do you see more of at the Olympic games?
I have to admit that as badly as I would love to be in Beijing with a camera, the appeal of standing amidst half the worlds photography population makes the desire fade pretty quickly. BUT, if you have an extra ticket to the land of China along with some credentials, give me a ring! I won't turn it down.

Check out the most amazing pics you'll see from a variety of photogs HERE

Get back on your Horse

Next time you visit your local rodeo, make sure you take the camera! So many possibilities for photo exploration it's insane. Simply strap on a tight pair of wranglers with a nice belt buckle and head on out to see what you can find.

For this weeks personal shoot, I headed out with one camera body and a couple of lenses (fyi - don't leave your long glass at home). I ended up shooting most of the action with a 70-200mm and 1.4 TC. which gave me a fair amount of flexibility from where we were sitting. The rodeo started rather late (8pm), so I had to plan for high ISO if I wanted to stop the action at all. At least that's how my thought pattern started out...but it's usually at this point that I have a small epiphany and think to myself, "I wonder how it really feels to be a cowboy...man vs. beast...jumping on a bull ready to buck you off with the risk of all 2,000 pounds of weight landing on you. Or how about roping a cattle or wrestling a running steer to the ground as you abandon a perfectly good horse at about 30 mph?" That's what happened as it does often when shooting and I decided to leave the ISO around 200 or so and work on creating movement and emotion in the shots through a series of panning techniques and low shutter speeds.

Slow shutter starts now...




I would usually trash this shot due to lots of out of focus areas, but I love the story it tells with the white sock.

Backyard Jam Session.

Bands do it all the time. You know, call up the buddies for a little jam session in the garage. So tonight after getting the little munchkin into bed, it was out to the backyard to catch the the fading sunset and spend a few minutes behind the camera with a tilt/shift. The jam session consists of looking for something you've never seen before in a location you know really well, the backyard in this case. If the photo mice are resting on the job as of late, this will get them back on track in a hurry...

...looking for lines and lots room for ad space :-)

Seriously, who needs an exotic trip to the Swiss Alps for new subject matter?? - (okay, just kidding, let's go!) - Well at least until gasoline drops back to the price of a King Size Snickers just step to the backyard and look around.

Projects. Projects. Projects

Always have a project in the works... (sounds simple, right?)

For me, personal projects are like the roots of a tree. Visit them often enough with a little water and they'll keep the rest of the tree alive and happy. Here is a sneak peek at what's in the personal pipeline...

• "Fire" - exploring the warm light (see pic below)
  
• "Vision of Earth" - New website and gallery launching soon!
  
• "In our backyard" - Exploration of local humanitarian efforts
  
• "Size me up" - Where will the little guy sit next?
  

Start your personal project today. C'mon, it will only take a minute! What would you work on right now if money, time and all other restraint were completely gone? (dream for a minute)

Make a list. Pick one. Set a date. Behold the birth of creativity.

blogging official

Blogging at 3:30 a.m. ::: not usually recommended
(However, the blog must officially launch by the 4th of July, so no time for sleep!)

After I recover, this will be an open forum for free thinking and artistic communication!

I expect some serious participation from ya'll including lot's of questions and discussion! I'll be posting some recent work here for your critique or simply to spark a conversation.

Hawaii by the numbers

• 2 islands
• 17 days
• 12,000 photographs (60 GB -- geek talk)
• 15 foot swell