A couple of months ago Gina & I got to take a trip to NYC for work & play. Who am I kidding—most of my work is play. One of my favorite photographers & online friends, Ryan Brenizer was hosting a workshop at his Manhattan home. Since I appreciate his creativity, the way he pushes himself I figured this would be a workshop that’s right up my alley. Plus, who could turn down a trip to one of the most exciting cities in the world. It was amazing. I can’t wait to get back there. Here are some pictures from the trip.

These first photos were taken during the workshop. There were many others but it’s really important that I only show photos that are my vision & not Ryan’s or anyone else’s.  So these photos are all set up by me & not technically ‘workshop’ photos. I have plenty of those, but you’ll never see them because I don’t think it’s fair to try to pass off photos that were set up by someone else as my own. I think it’s a little silly when photographers post photos from a workshop where every photographer has the exact same photos that they all took in the same place, during the same time, of the same models.

I also have to add that the workshop was immensely valuable to me. In addition to the techniques that I’ve already implemented to great success, it was a great time to recharge my photographic batteries. Ryan answered every question & was an outstanding host. I can’t imagine a workshop that holds a better value. If the workshop mirrors the value he gives his clients, those are some very lucky people.

The view from Ryan’s roof.

Valerie (an incredible photographer herself) was a wonderful model & completely up for adventure. So when I wandered from the group while in Central Park & found this stream, waterfall, & sun combo, I ran back to the group & asked Valerie & a couple of other photographers to come check out what I found, she was completely up for it. This is the result. Magic.

I felt like that shot needed a full crop to see it’s full beauty.

After that shot, I ran around the big rock & saw the light hitting her. Again, magic.

Not a bad location for a workshop.

Valerie again. While waiting for the subway to take us to Harlem I figured it was a good time to take some photos.

Getting our learning on.

In Central Park. I’m convinced it wasn’t an accident that Ryan stopped to teach by this tree. See Ryan’s book, “Subliminal teaching techniques.”

Some NYC wildlife was on display.

An amazing place. Inspiring on so many levels. All photos in MOMA were taken with the Fuji x100.

Jackson Pollock. I spent a solid 15 minutes staring at this piece, section by section, & as a whole. Seeing it in person was definitely a highlight of the trip. The textures are shocking. Half of the beauty is lost by viewing it on a paper page. I tried to capture it in my close up (my current desktop photo). The textures of all the pieces were wonderful to see. I’d seen so many of the works on display in 2D. They beg to be seen in 3D.

ICP, AKA the International Center of Photography. No photos allowed inside for obvious reasons. 9/11 memorial was on display. I’ll never forget some of the photos on display. The power of photography was on full display.

Got to meet up with some friends & walk around. Brittany (during her USA walkabout), Heidi, Dennis (the only local among us), & Luis.

Some attempts at street photography.

I love contrasts. Especially the contrasts of buildings & trees. Normally in NYC you’re surrounded by buildings & can see some trees. Central park makes the opposite true.

Central Park. One of my favorite places in the world. Even while suffering with massively bruised ribs I had to go for a run in Central Park. Every step hurt, but it was fun crossing the New York City Marathon finish line which was set up for the race.

On the streets of NYC.

What can I say, I love taking picture of couples. It’s what I do.

So many landmarks that, to me, had before only existed in movies, music, & on TV.

The only place in the world where you hear the word ‘subway’ & sandwiches are the second thing you think of.

The amazing food was one of the things I miss most about NYC. Our hotel was on the edge of Hell’s Kitchen. Since we walked most places, there was great food everywhere. These photos were taken at eatery nyc. Yumm.

We stayed at the Hudson New York Hotel. This is the lobby. Definitely a cool place. I could have spent hours photographing the different places just in the hotel. Our room was TINY. I’d have taken a photograph of it, but my macro lens wouldn’t fit inside. But that’s what you get when you want to stay a block away from Central Park. Hey, it’s Gina (talking to our girls)!

The end.

More wedding & engagement photos coming up soon, but first I have a more personal post. Over the past few weeks I’ve been playing around with some film cameras. It’s been fun seeing what they can (& can’t) do. It brings back a little of what I used to enjoy about shooting film before digital was even around—ok, it was around, but not very good. I still miss the darkroom, but I do have a great local lab so I can let that go—for now. Fortunately I have a few willing models at my disposal & enough of a back yard that I can change things up a bit.

The black & white photos were shot on a Hasselblad 501cm camera with C-41 b&w film (mmmmm square). Processing & scanning was done at R&R Custom Color. The color photos were shot with my Diana F+ toy camera with a Polaroid back on Fuji Instax film. Those were processed in camera & scanned by me. The only post processing on all of these photos were curves adjustments in LR & sizing for the web. There’s also a reason why you’re not seeing any regular 35mm film photos. It’s because they suck. Well, maybe not suck, but they don’t add anything different or better than my digital super-camera. My files from my Nikon D3 are far superior (& less expensive) to regular 35mm film.

I don’t know if I’m quite ready to introduce these in to my wedding workflow, but I definitely see myself shooting more of both cameras in the future.

I love to take pictures. It’s fun. I especially like it when the vision of the photograph that I have in my head becomes a reality. Those of you who have taken pictures with me or had your pictures taken by me can attest to my reaction when I see that the back of the camera is exactly what I’m looking for—I’ve been accused of squealing like a girl, but I deny those charges.

As much as I like taking pictures for myself, my greatest enjoyment comes when I get to work with someone & create something special with them  for them.

You might remember back when I posted some very special photos I took of Isaura for her husband’s birthday—special because he’s been overseas for nearly a year. I put together an album so she could send it to him. She loved the photos so I was happy with that & didn’t give it much thought afterward. The problem is that the photos weren’t really for her, they were for her man, who misses her dearly. I was reminded of that last week when I got this message via a blog comment from this lovely lady’s husband:

I was very surprised to find out the power of cameras. I have always captured my wife’s beauty without having anything fancy since I met her and this shoots just say what I see, she is really the most beautiful thing in my life and the gift was priceless and left me speechless when I received it in combat….. I am very pleased by the result of her and the photographer’s work and details; it is by far the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me and for this and everything else…. I love her…

Needless to say, I was touched and at the same time reminded the real reason why ‘I shoot people.’ That simple comment meant so much to me that I sent him an email asking to feature his comment on my website. Thankfully he was happy for me to share & I get to share with you something that meant so much to me.

Thank you Isaura for letting me be a part of this special gift.

p.s. I promise the next post will be more photo-centric.

There’s never really such thing as a private moment when you’re the wife/daughter of a photographer.

I’ve been trying to get used to my new Nikon D3/85mm combo (oh baby.) so I’ve been carrying it around with me. Yesterday was haircut day for mom & Kels (Reagan would have but she’s growing it to donate to Locks of Love again. Baby G & I are due for one soon). The outstanding new hairstyles, along with the beautiful afternoon light shining through our wall of windows compelled me to grab some shots that I love, so I figured I’d share.

Fortunately for me, these daughters & wife don’t seem to mind being in front of the lens.

Here are a few of the photos I took.

P.S. The B&W photos are natural light shots and the color shot was taken with my new Photek 60″ Softlighter & AlienBee.

Right after Christmas we packed up the family and headed over to Tacoma. One of the biggest reasons for this trip (besides the normal holiday festivities) was to say goodbye to my brother’s family as they were getting ready to relocate in South Carolina in a couple of weeks. One of the blessings of traveling back (besides always having someplace to stay) is getting all of the kid cousins together. Even though it may have been months since they last saw each other, they instantly go back to playing like they’ve never been apart.

We’ll miss seeing them next time we go back to visit.

So one of the important events this trip was getting a family photo of the four boys and our families. Of course it rained the entire week. After driving around looking for spots to get it done we ended up downtown in a parking garage where graffiti artists are welcome to show off their skills. As you can see, the kids had a blast (like always).

Since these are more of a personal project I felt I could take some liberties and edit these in a style that’s a little different than my own, but I felt the hyper-contrast look worked perfectly with the urban environment. I doubt I’ll be adopting this style for my other work.

From the Shumate family.

I was over in Seattle to photograph a wedding a few weeks ago and the day after the wedding was the Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk. It’s an annual event wherein photographers the world over (900 locations) meetup and take pictures. I, along with my brother and sister in law, signed up for the walk that took place along the waterfront in Seattle.

Secondary to the sense of community that comes from such an event (as well as an excuse to get out and take pictures with the sole purpose of making art) is the fact that it’s also a contest. One winner s selected from each walk by its leader and that photo is submitted to the international contest. There are ten prizes awarded as well as one ridiculous grand prize.

I was lucky enough to have my photo chosen as the winner of our walk. It’s an unexpected honor because there were so many great photos submitted. I’m really not expecting anything beyond this (overall winners are announced Aug. 17th) because of the sheer number of entries—fingers crossed, though.

In case anyone’s curious, here’s how this photo came about.

We (my wife, my brother, and his wife) were wrapping up shooting and walking down to where the rest of the group was eating and I was straggling behind looking for things that looked interesting and I saw this wall and called to them to come back. My main idea was to try backlighting the wall and see what I could get. So I laid the flash behind the wall and pointed it up at the wall to give a nice gradient (there were a couple of times where people asked if I forgot about the flash because it was just laying there). I took some pics of my wife shaking her hair but they were blurry because I only had the one flash and had to rely on the ambient light/slow shutter to light her. There were a few interesting silhouettes but nothing outstanding.

Then my brother and his wife were done shooting and I gave their flash to my wife to hold up (high, camera left against the wall for dramatic lighting) and had the 2 of them stand up there and pose. To minimize the perspective problems caused by the wide angle lens I held the camera as high as I could and used the live view tilt screen to compose the shot. Click. By this time, with both of the flashes going off, a small crowd gathered and was watching and discussing the “professional photo shoot,” so (like I usually do when shooting in public) I grabbed a family that was watching and had them stand up there and took their picture. I then handed them a business card and they emailed me so I sent them a copy of their portrait.

My favorite part of the photo is the fact that it looks like it has a border that was added in Photoshop. But if you look where the subjects legs leave the photo, you can see that the “frame” is actually on the wall behind them. Also, the graphical nature of the photo is pleasing to the graphic designer side of my brain.

It was a lot of fun & I’m already looking forward to next year’s photowalk.

Click to see the winning photo as well as some of the other shots I took…

I have a ton of photos on my computer that most people haven’t seen simply because they weren’t part of a commissioned set. I’m currently in the middle of editing a set of wedding photos but I figured it would be good to upload some photos that I like but would otherwise languish in anonymity on my hard drive without a proper post. These shots also contain examples of different editing styles I’m trying out.

I hope to make this a regular part of my blog life. I’ll start with some family shots.

There are photographers who specialize and work only in macro photography (super close ups). I’m definitely not one of them as I much prefer shooting people. However I have a great macro lens and from time to time I catch some pretty cool macro shots. I figured I’d share some recent ones here.

Green Water Drop Macro:

We were watering the lawn and some of the water was hitting the apple tree leaves. The sun was shining through the trees on the other side of the yard and I thought there was potential for a few good macros. I’d say the potential was there.

I love this shot. Especially the little glint on the water drop. The drop is so clear in the full size photo you can see my reflection. This photo is now my computer’s desktop wallpaper.

I love my 50mm f/2.0 macro.

Wasps Macro:

I was outside playing with my girls and there were several wasps flying around. I did some investigating and found 2 new nests being built in the BBQ. They were so busy building they let me get pretty close with my macro lens. Thank goodness for live view because there was no way I was putting my face that close.

Sadly the wasps didn’t survive the poison sprayed in their direction. I hope nobody calls PETA.

Did I mention that I love my macro lens?

The other day Kelsey and her friend Hannah were outside blowing bubbles so I took a couple of minutes before her friend had to go home to take a few shots against the blue sky. I would probably change a few things next time, but not too bad for a quickie.

Set up info: flash on stand into reflective umbrella above the camera with a flash on a stand behind the girls as a separation light.