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.