I have been a bad blogger this month. This has been primarily due to two reasons. First, my computer room is freezing. The room is nice and cool in the summer, but in the winter the walls offer little help from the cold temperatures. I’m not joking. I just realized that I left an empty Coors can in here yesterday and the mountains are still “cold activated”. Second, I had a really busy October and November in the photography biz. It’s been nice to take a little break. Speaking of which, I was looking for something on television this afternoon and came across one of my favorite movies, “Memphis Belle”. It’s based on a true story of the first B-17 crew that finished their tour of duty in Europe during WWII. It made me think about this particular photograph of my grandfather. He passed away this summer and I was given some of his war keepsakes;  including a photo album that he put together while in the service. This photo stood out to me. I love it because my Grandfather was very gentle by nature; he was clearly hamming it up and looking tough in this photo.  Also, if you look at the bunk beds, they are clearly just regular beds with the top one turned upside down and strapped to the bottom. I hope those on the top bunk weren’t squirrely sleepers, because that’s a long fall!

I predict that you will be seeing these two on the blog again in a short 10 months from now. I’m sure due to wedding checklists and planning that statement probably freaked Lindsay out a bit (maybe Ben too )  It’s tough to shoot outdoors during the Fall and Winter in Oregon. I found myself on weather websites trying to determine when a break in the rain will occur. I must hand it to them though, you really can’t tell how cold it was in these photos. I had my jacket and stocking hat on and still felt the chill! These were all taken in a little park in the Pearl District. It’s kind of fun to shoot there. With the condo market in the toilet there are tons of empty condo buildings and you have the area to yourself on the east side of the neighborhood.  They’re a fun couple and I look forward to shooting the wedding next Summer. Should be a blast!

Here are a few more from the wedding last weekend in Kansas City. The weather turned out to be quite nice, but it was not looking so good the day before the wedding. I barely got into Kansas City  due to over a foot of snow being on the ground in Denver, where where I was scheduled to catch my connecting flight. It took us three attempts to land. I’m not a nervous flier by any means, but by the time we were on our third approach;  I could have told you where every exit was and how many people I was going to need to climb over to reach it first… My connecting flight ended up getting canceled into Kansas City, as did the evening fight. As soon as I exited the plane I rushed to the gate for the earlier flight in hopes that it was delayed. Sure enough, it was still at the gate and they got me into Kansas City almost on time. My lighting stands didn’t make it, but they got delivered the next day. The weather in KC wasn’t much better, hard rain and wind. It continued to do this up until the night before Jason and Denise’s wedding day, and then Saturday turned out with no clouds and 60 degrees.  They are a fun couple and it was nice to see some of my brother’s friends at the wedding. Jason and my brother roomed together at the University of Kansas. It was nice to see everyone back together.

“Have you ever danced with the devil by the pale moonlight? I always ask that of all my prey. I just like the sound of it”

Batman, 1989, The Joker – Played by Jack Nicholson

I’m still processing photos from the wedding I shot in Kansas City last weekend.  I wanted to post this particular shot first though. It was taken of the bride and groom dancing during the reception. Since the wedding was on the 31st of October they turned the reception into a costume party. You really couldn’t of asked for a better setting. It was located at the Bingham-Waggoner estate in Independance, MO. The house was built in the mid 1800’s and really looked like it had a few unexplained stories behind its doors. The area where the reception/dance was held was VERY dark. Its tough to shoot in this type of setting because  your constantly trying to find an appropriate balance of off camera flash and available light. To make things more difficult, you have to maintain a decent shutter speed if you want any chance of your flash being able to freeze the action on the dance floor. Not to mention the camera’s auto focus is pretty much useless because its so dark, so the only option is to manually focus.  I think the lighting balance in this shot turned out perfect and I squeaked by with a just enough shutter speed to freeze the action with a few light trails in the background. I guess it just goes to show how much goes into a shot like this to get it to turn out the way you want.

Technical details.

24mm @ f3.2 1/4 sec shutter ISO 1000

HDR stands for High Dramatic Range. Basically its the process of taking several photos of the same object at different exposures. You then combine, or layer all of the images into one photo. It can be done at several levels. I have seen some images that were made from 10-15 different exposures. At this point the images beginto look less like photos and more like paintings. I took these at my dad’s hanger on my recent trip back to Kansas to shoot a wedding (coming soon to the blog) All three of these were made from 5 different exposures. I then combined them in photomatix and tone mapped at different levels. If your a purest I guess this may be considered pushing the limits of true photography. I was just having a little fun.

I had the joy of  being able to photograph this little cutie this weekend. Her name is Lauren, and she will be turning one year old this week. Her mother and I got onto the discussion of kids photography a couple of weeks ago while I was visiting her office for a work function. Anyway, this naturally allowed me to shamelessly plug my website.  The weather cooperated on Saturday and allowed us to go outside for a few shots too. I must say, one of the things I love the most about children photography is capturing moments of kids being kids. Clearly it wast too tough with Lauren!

Well this is a first, back-to-back niece photos on the blog. I just got back from a weekend trip to Colorado. This first one was taken at the KU vs CU football game. I wish we would have ended up winning; never-the-less it was a GREAT game to watch. Our defense gave up some yards in the first half, but shut down the Buffaloes in the second half. We allowed nearly 200 less yards as compared to last week against Iowa St. Not bad considering this was done with several first time starters. We have the Sooners coming into town this weekend, so I hopefully the bugs will get worked out. All of the other shots are from our Sunday trip to Estes Park, Co. I’ll post a few more later. Too tired right now from the early flight!

Oh man I have been a bad blogger lately. October has, and will continue to be very busy.  Ashley and I were in Bend last week to see our new niece, Emalyn. Such a cutie! She’s already proving to be just as photogenic as her older brother. I didn’t think he had a chance vs. the Costco hot dog, but he proved me wrong.

I rarely post videos on my blog, but this one almost make me spit out my cereal this morning. Seriously, don’t have anything in your mouth around the 2:17 mark.

80\’s Video Dating

I forgot to post this one last photo from the juggling shoot a couple weeks ago. Remember I said the key to juggling is selecting three objects that are roughly the same weight.  Well, it doesn’t help when one of them is wiggling and licking. I know this looks like a Boston Terrier, but it’s actually a pint-sized Bull Terrier that accidentally got dropped on its face a couple of times. I think the key to juggling animals is not necessarily the size, rather the age. I should have found a lethargic poodle that didn’t move a lot. Oh well, maybe next time….