Happy_Holidays!

Wishing everyone a very happy Holiday and wonderful New Year!!

Sierra_Magazine

On news stands now the Jan/Feb 2010 issue of Sierra Magazine with an environmental portrait that we were commissioned to shoot of the City of Portland Sustainability Manager Michael Armstrong riding in the recently established Cycle Track - a bike lane on SW Broadway adjacent to Portland State University in the downtown area where cyclists ride between the curb and a row of parallel parked cars to provide more protection from vehicle traffic. Hopefully in time this pilot project will extend to other major bikeways throughout the city. Get more info here.

Carve_Designs_Autumn_Catalog

Just got in some tears hot off the press from the autumn catalog we shot for Carve Designs down in Santa Cruz, California. Super fun shoot with lots of captured moments, a great group of people and one of the best surf towns/breaks on the West Coast. Thanks Katie, Jen and Thayer for the opportunity and for Kiley at Nine-Eighty for bringing the work together into this gorgeous finished product.

One_Day

ParkBOX Time Lapse from Ty Milford on Vimeo.

Playing with a stop motion time lapse sequence in my living room the other day from sunrise to sunset. Guess how many times I got caught walking through the set during the making of this?



Only twice . . . crazy, I know, but both times I had coffee in my hand!

Moving_Comfort_Fall09_Catalog

A few pages from the Fall catalog from Moving Comfort that we shot up in Seattle in October and which I already posted on here. This was a super fun project to work on due to the 'day in the life' style creative direction coming from the client and it demonstrates a truly ideal fit for the type of 'real moments' work that I love and feel that I excel at. On this we did the lifestyle, product on talent and 'ghosted' product on mannequin shots (essentially all of the photography) and Liz at Moving Comfort had the vision to pull it all together. Thanks Liz, Sara and Jessica for the great opportunity!

Congratulations

A bit belated, but a big congratulations to PATH Architecture for bringing home two 2009 American Institute of Architects Design Awards for the Park BOX for Built Merit and Craftsmanship. They received a third award, the Mayor's Award for Design Excellence, for Willams Five. You guys are rockin' it!

Tahoe

I was down in Lake Tahoe this week shooting the fall catalog for an outdoor apparel company. Some early selects from the adventures we had along the way. The day after these shots were taken up at Donner Pass all of this granite was under about 4 inches of snow. Go Yamaha Man!!

Stumptown_Has_It_Goin'_On

Stumptown, Slabtown, RIP City, PDX . . . . whatever you want to call it, Portland has so much to offer and is a great place to call home. I was out location scouting recently for a client who needed an urban setting for an athletic shoot and snapped these on my iPhone. So much potential here locally - whether downtown, out at the coast, in the Columbia River Gorge, up on Mt. Hood, or across the range in Bend. Shoot in Oregon!!

CCXSSWC

The Cyclocross Single Speed World Championships (CCXSSWC) were in town this weekend. I recall when I moved to Portland a few years back and started riding cross that on the Cross Crusade schedule there was a notation of the championships for that season being held in Portland and I thought, "Wow, that's got to be like hosting the Super Bowl in your home city." Well, in reality, it's more like combining the Super Bowl (yes, there are super fit riders who take part) with Mardi Gras, a roller derby tournament, Octoberfest, a tatoo convention and a bout of mud wrestling. Actually, that description is pretty right on. The theme of this year's event was "Beyond Thunderdome" and although I haven't seen the movie myself, I am pretty sure that whatever it entails it would be a let down compared to what I witnessed this weekend. The course included the usual display off camber hills, muddy run-ups, barriers to leap, and fast 'all-out' straight away, but also showcased a 40 foot tall geodesic dome with a handful of charachters clad in post-apocolyptic attire hanging from ropes and launching marshmallows at riders coming through. If you don't believe me that any of this really exists - well, there are photos above to prove it or you can check for yourself here. Raleigh has produced a pretty sweet limited edition frameset to commorate the event.

Malia's_Sweet_16_(Months)

Some fun snaps from around the breakfast table on Saturday morning. She loves her O's!!

I_LOVE_My_Job

I do feel exceptionally fortunate that I get to do what I do for a living while spending time with good peeps. These are behind the scenes from another day at the 'office' on the Deschutes River in Central Oregon.

Bend

Some of my quick selects from a shoot out in Central Oregon two weeks ago with the SmartWool brand. Garett, thanks as always for the opportunity and for coming out to enjoy some of the autumn in Oregon. Bo and Lindsay - thanks for keepin' it real and for the good times. Andrea, Sam and Dave - it was a pleasure to work with you all and thanks for your assistance along the way.

Santa_Cruz_Surfer_Girls

I love short bursts of being crazy busy and experiencing the euphoric sensation in my work life similar to a 'runner's high.' The past two weeks have teetered precariously close to the pinnacle of this with three national editorial assignments and two active lifestyle catalog shoots. These are some early selects from one that was down in Santa Cruz, California for Carve Designs' autumn line. Thanks Jen and Katie for putting it all together and to Claire for her great styling. Bo, as always, thanks for keeping things . . . uneventful while juggling pixels. You guys rock!

Deschutes_River_Aspens

Out in Central Oregon this week for an outdoor lifestyle catalog shoot. We do everything that we can to prepare - sourcing great talent, location, crew, creative direction, etc. One thing that I can't do very much about is what nature offers up us at the time of the shoot. In this instance we had sunshine, blue sky and perfect golden aspens. I love it when a plan comes together. Should have some images up soon.

Resolution_of_Icing

Can't say that I've ever had an image printed on a cake before - but this was a recent use by the University of Puget Sound on some work that we did for them last spring. I hope that it tasted good! What's the ideal resolution and color space for printing on cake icing you ask? Good question - I'll have to find out . . .

Moving_Comfort_Fall09

I posted earlier this week about being on a shoot up in Seattle all last week and after finally making it through the edit I have some of my favorites to share today (BTW - if you are wishing that you had a magnifying glass to see these images, just click on the collage and it will open to full size for you). I have worked with the Moving Comfort brand for a number of years (I think that this was our 10th shoot together??) and always have a good time working on their projects. This season was perhaps the best yet as I was asked to shoot what I love more than anything - 'slice of life' or sometimes called 'day in the life' work. Kind of a mix of the normal staged commercial style with a solid blend of get in there and 'break your nose' documentary angles. Love it. It is the perfect match for my interest in capturing moments more than overly staged and contrived scenarios. We were on location for two days pretty much 'dark to dark' and there were over 5000 images created that got culled down (read . . . coffee) to around 700 final selects. The images are different, but I think that we pretty much nailed the exact look of the 'mood board' put together by their Creative Director Liz.

After delivering the edit yesterday this was the very sweet note that I found in my inbox this morning.

Normal_Day

A friend here in Portland recently accused me of only posting on the 'fun parts of my job,' saying that I was always in amazing places with beautiful people. It got me thinking that perhaps yes, I did post too frequently on the fun and interesting things that I was doing, but that more often my time is spent in front of a monitor editing all of that work. Truth be told, there are 3-4 days in the office for every day of shooting. If I am not editing, processing, or retouching work, I am working to get new work, thanking clients for giving me work, or contemplating what type of new work I want to be working on for myself and then producing that work. It's definitely a lot of work. I'm thankful for good coffee.

Pumpkin_Patch

My favorite season is autumn without doubt. I love the shorter days, the leaf rustling wind, the changing colors in the trees, the time to reflect on an active summer, cooler mornings, richer foods and darker beers. I love everything about the fall and even more so now getting to share it with my daughter. Today we took Malia out to a local farm to pick out her first real (ie - cognizant) set of pumpkins. She's still not too sure about the goats and cows, but she loved the wheelbarrow ride.

Can_Lady

We were on a super fun shoot up in Seattle this past week and after a morning session out at Discovery Park in Magnolia we came across this sweet old woman in a huge-boat-of-a-barely-still-running 1970's era Plymouth crushing aluminum cans in an empty parking lot. One of those times that you are happy to have the camera in the car with you. She said that the cans paid for the gas, but by the looks of the car I'd say that after forward and reversing over the cans a couple dozen times to flatten them it was probably a wash. Will post some images from the shoot sometime this next week.

Kumara

For lifestyle photography, talent who have personality and are able to let it shine in front of the camera are worth their weight in gold. This is probably a no-brainer, but you'd be surprised at how often I am trying to pull personality out of my subjects. This past week I shot some new personal work with Kumara Kelley, a Burton sponsored snowboarder and all around vivacious woman. In the course of a few hours we created a huge variety of images ranging studio to location - primarily because she was just comfortable being herself. Thanks Anna as always for great styling and to the team at Sports Unlimited for making the connection with Kumara.

Bend

I was out in Central Oregon this past week doing some location scouting for a project coming up later this month. Any excuse to get over the hills to the Bend area is good in my book. Perfect late summer weather with just a hint of color in the aspens.

Suvie_Island_Summer

It may sound like someplace exotic and far away, but we didn't go to the South Pacific for this one. Out on a super cool old houseboat with tons of character on the Willamette River last week to catch a few more of the sun's rays before the fall weather pattern takes over here in Oregon. Props to Chloe for 'bringing it' and to Sarah for a great job with all of the styling.

Skater_Girls

Some images from a skater girl shoot here in Portland last week. Thanks Anna for doing a great job on the styling!