"Loving father, Blazer believer, Tech junkie, Indie rock aficionado, Doting husband, Former Flux Capacitor lead singer, LDS church member, Apple fanatic, VT Hokie, Matrix owner, photographer, Wes Anderson admirer, BYU Cougar, ridiculously optimistic, marriage and family therapist. "
It's been officially launched! After building it over the past week I finally made launched my new photography web site with more spiffyness and special goodness. I couldnt be happier with it and am excited to not be ashamed to send people to my website. Speaking of which, I also made some extra spiffy business cards made which look like this: FRONT:
BACK:
The slogan "It's more than a photography studio; it's the truth" seemed to fit and be somewhat funny...at least to me. :) Here is the link to the site (same as before):www.youlooknicetodayphotography.com There is a link to my new almost daily photo blog on the front page as well so add me to your google reader. As I said before, this blog here will be more for my thoughts and randomness while the other one will only be my photography, both personal and professional. This is really exciting to have something nice up and I'm excited to see where this little side business of mine takes me.
In other news, I have been seriously loving a band called "Mates of State". Here is a video of a favorite song of mine:
I recently attended another pdx strobist meet up and had another opportunity to work on my off the camera flash photography. It was held at McMeniman's Roadhouse in Hillsboro Oregon. It was my first shoot in the dark and it was nice to be able to use a combination of ambient light while freezing the subject by controlling the light from the strobes. Even cooler was that my sister Olivia volunteered to be a model. Enjoy the pics:
This past weekend I had the opportunity to shoot more members of my family and thought that I would use this time to hone my skills shooting wide open (aperture at 1.8f). Some of my current favoritephotographers use this technique with close up portraits to achieve a dreamy look while using a very short depth of field. Of course I also used other portrait techniques as well.
In other news, my new revamped website should be launching with in the next couple weeks and I'm really excited about it. Going along with that I will be starting a "photography only" blog in which I'll post a new picture of my personal work almost daily. This will, of course, replace my posting pictures on this blog which will go back to my random meanderings. I'll make an announcement here as well as my other places (twitter, facebook, myspace, etc.) when that happens.
Recently I was going though my photos and picking out some of my favorites when I noticed how little "professional" looking photos I had of my own little family (notice the quotes around professional because I would never put that title on myself...at least not until 50% of my income comes from my current hobby:).
So I decided that we needed to have a little picnic last Saturday where I could get at least a couple shots in of my little boy and beautiful wife. It was such a wonderful couple hours that I wish it could have lasted all day. We started by going out to a country store by our house (in between Lake Oswego and Tualatin) to pick up our favorite sandwiches: turkey, cranberry and creme cheese. We then went to a park nearby and had fun just eating and playing.
I think one of my favorite parts about shooting this day was that I was not stressed at all and really tried to let the shots come to me rather than forcing it. As a result I feel like I was able to get more fun and natural shots that express more emotion and personality.
And of course Tiff wanted me to get in front of the camera for once. I adjusted the settings for her and let her go to work. Although I'm not a fan of being in photos I have to say I was very happy with the results.
I needed to get in at least one senior picture pose before the day was through.
At last I got the opportunity to shoot a rock band! A good buddy's band came through on a tour and I jumped at the chance to use some of the ideas that had been swimming in my head for creative shots. This pop-punk band's name is "What Remains" from Juneau, Alaska. Which should answer your question if they have punk rock up in the AK. This was a fun change in subjects because some of the edgy effects and more daring poses don't work so well with new born babies. :-) So I looked at this as an opportunity to come up with some more artistic and creative photos. Using more urban backdrops also was a blast and something that I had never had the chance to use. Working with the guys in the band was also fun which really contributed to giving personality to the various photos. Saints Sinners
Over all I'm happy with the results and would love the opportunity to do more band photo shoots. If you'd like to purchase any of the prints you can now do so on my website in the "order prints" section. I also highly recommend checking out their music on their myspace profile. Continue to check my flickr for more from the shoot as well as the two concerts that I attended. Rock n' Roll.
I did it! After a month of contemplating and thinking about it, I finally made my mind up and created a website last night for my photography business. It's not perfect by any means but it's a nice start and gets my name out there. Eventually I'll be hiring someone to build a nicer one and put a little more time into articulating my approach to my photography business. But until then, here it is:
I listen to a lot of podcasts. In fact, after not being able to update my iPhone after a week I had accumulated 50 that I hadn’t listened to. Some I like better than others but recently one of my favorite personalities on MacBreak Weekly has started a podcast called “You Look Nice Today. A journal of emotional hygiene”. It’s basically 3 guys that met on the micro-blogging website twitter, sitting around talking about random stuff. Like really random stuff. Like really really random stuff. They are amazing at feeding off each other’s weird and random ideas that it’s honestly one of the funniest podcasts/ shows I’ve ever heard.
As my wife will tell you, I sometimes like to make up things about which I have no clue. For instance, say we drive past a random town on the way some place remote. I’ll make up a long and drawn out story on the spot about the founders and how it got its name. This is a similar idea to what they do on this podcast which is why if I could ever create a podcast this would be it. Granted, I’m not as witty or funny as they are but the concept would still be the same.
I highly recommend giving it a listen and soon you’ll be as excited for the next one to come out as I am.
Post Script: As some of you know I am starting my own photography business and have decided to call it “You Look Nice Today Photography”. I didn’t want to use my name or something that sounds serious. I was looking for something whimsical and fun and felt it was a perfect match. And yes, I asked a member of the podcast for his blessing on the name, which he gave gladly.
Having lived here for 3 years when I came back for a friend's wedding I wanted to try to see it with different eyes. Rather than taking the obligatory: take a picture of the the national monument, turn 180 degrees, take a picture of the capitol building, repeat at other locations. I wanted to capture other parts of DC. The parts you don't see on post cards. It's only been a year since we moved from DC to Portland and in that time I feel like I've matured as a photographer. I have the exact same camera I did but my eye and understanding of photography has changed. I've read everything I could get my hands on, listened to countless photography podcasts, and (most importantly) I have taken thousands more images. I also wanted to have fun while on my walk around so any time I saw someone taking a picture of someone in their party I offered to take the picture for them with everyone in the shot. I talked to a lot of nice people including a couple from Russia, a family from North Carolina, and a family from Italy. In all I had a really fun day and was able to capture some unique perspectives of a city I used to live in. After walking around in the heat all day I ended it with my buddy at the driving range.
