Hauser Photography Blog » Hauser

Grandpa

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 02:01:39 +0000

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!

Jason and Denise

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:10:07 +0000

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.

Danced with the Devil by the pale moonlight

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:36:09 +0000

“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 Photography

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:17:29 +0000

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.

Portraits

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 21:35:56 +0000

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!

Emalyn

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:59:35 +0000

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.

New York (cont)

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 02:17:26 +0000

Here are a few more photos taken from my recent trip to New York. Basically, we ate and drank our way across the City. My kind of vacation! The beer was okay. Remember, I live in the beer capitol of the United States! Two of the better places that we grabbed a pint were at the Brooklyn Brewery and McSorley’s Old Ale House. McSorley’s was established in 1854 and is argued to be the oldest bar in NYC. Abe Lincoln has had a brew in this place! (first photo) The food in the city was awesome though. I think the best place we ate was at a BBQ restaurant called Brother Jimmy’s in the Upper East Side. It was decorated in license plates and Christmas lights, but stunk of ACC basketball. What didn’t stink was my pulled pork sandwich and side of homemade mac & cheese. My mouth is watering… We walked through Central Park on our way to Rockefeller Center. All three of these photos were taken over Jacqueline Onassis Reservoir. The park was beautiful. I’m sure offers vastly different scenes and feelings throughout the seasons. I would love to see it in winter. We saw our only famous person, or “FP” as my friends refers to them, just as we were exiting Central Park. Maria Carey was filming a video outside of the Fairmont Hotel. I wasn’t really stunned to see her, but I was bit bewildered in that she’s still making music. Didn’t I dance to her songs in 7^th grade? Are Boys to Men still filming videos in Philadelphia? Oops, I meant Boyz to Men. Clearly the “z” means your not messing around. The last shot is another view of the arch at Washington Square Park.

New York City

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:04:25 +0000

Ash and I just got back from our trip to New York last week. I have tons to write about, however its getting late and I just spent the past hour processing my photos of the city. Not to mention I’m still trying to get back on West Coast Time! However, I’m determined to post one photo tonight… This is the Washington Square Arch and Central Fountain which is located just North of NYU. More to come!

Kian's Photo Shoot

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 06:24:55 +0000

Here are a few images from a recent photo shoot with my nephew. Technically these were for his 2^nd birthday, but we were around 6 months late taking them. I bought a painters backdrop and washable finger paints for him to play with. My hope was that he would go wild; which would make for some really great shots of a kid being a kid. At first he was a little nervous about getting paint on himself right in front of his mother, but once she started to smear it on him he cut loose. I have one more posted in the “faces” portion of my website. www.hauserphotography.com.

Business Journal Photo

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 06:06:40 +0000

I’m trying to get back into the blog, so here is a photo from this past weekend. Ash is helping me shoot a wedding in Connecticut next weekend, so we went out in the park to practice a little on Sunday. This naturally turned into a “play” session for me with the intermediate sun breaks and the big puffy clouds. I’m certain she will someday be in a business journal due to her success in some off-the-wall business that she started. Here is the photo that can accompany the article. I call it her “Business Journal Photo”! I’m glad she’s helping me out with the wedding; with a minor in Art History she really has an eye for the creative shots.