Ashley | Portraits

Oh where do I start with Ashley. We have worked together multiple times over the past year and a half. This summer we did an engagement session with her and her fiance Daniel and I am so excited to photograph their wedding next summer. Ashley is the kind of client that turns into more of a friend than a client. As cliche as that may sound it's true. And I think it is why we get such rocking photos. We are so comfortable with each other that the photos aren't awkward. They're completely natural and full of "Ashleyness".

This particular session was set up so that I could bring along a good friend of mine, Quentina. She is starting her own photography business and wants some more experience shooting so Ashley and I set this up for Quentina to second shoot.

Well here are the photos. Enjoy :D

Testing 1..2..3..

I have started using a program called ShowIt Web to make online slide shows. In order to test this I have created a show from the engagement shoot with Ashley and Daniel last month. I hope this works!!


Update.. After doing some testing looks like the best way for me to do this is to link it to another page online. Click HERE to view the slideshow.

New Lens

This year I have photographed 3 weddings so far and I have found that I am consistently limited with the lenses that I have. I don't have a quality lens that is wide enough to do group shots and a lot of other shots I want to capture.

This past wedding I had my sister's boyfriend Harrison second shoot with me and he mentioned that he had never been to Henry's. So since he is a soon to be photo student and photography is how he wants to make his living I thought it would be fun to bring him to Henry's to take a look around. Last night while we were at the one in Bayers Lake I was looking at the selection of used Canon gear they had. One of the items happened to be a Canon 20mm f2.8 USM lens. I fell in love. The person working there put it on the Canon 50D (I have the 40D so pretty much the same camera) and let me play around with it. Right there I fell in love. It is super wide and still has good aperture abilities. Not as good as my 50mm but waaaay better than any of my other lenses. I knew this is what I needed to get those photos I had been trying to capture but never quite getting. After talking it over with Matt we both decided it would be a really good investment and if not, they have a 14 day return policy ;)

Needless to say today I bought it and I feel inspired!!! I was kind of in a dull phase for a while where I wasn't that inspired by anything and now it has gone away. I can't wait to get together with some friends this weekend for a portrait session (if hurricane Danny stays away) and again next week for some more portrait sessions.

Lots of photos to come :D Here's my baby!!

MIA

So I will admit that I haven't been blogging at all and from my 101 in 1001 post I was supposed to be blogging 4 times a week. Lately it has been crazy doing last minute photo sessions, rehearsal dinner and getting everything ready and organized for tomorrow. Tomorrow I finally photograph Melissa and Justin getting married. They originally booked me Jan. 08 and now the day has finally come. I will be sure to post more on Sunday (hopefully some photos from the wedding) but until then this one teaser of Ashley will have to do.

Wish me luck for tomorrow!

Do As You Preach

As many of you readers may already know I tend to reference Jasmine Star a lot in my posts. The reason being is not only is she an amazing photographer and person, she is also one of the smartest business people I know. Well I don't personally know her but you catch my drift. One of the many things she has taught me is that you're clients will book you because they like who you are as a person and that is what will differentiate you from other photographers. If you have read her blog it is witty, funny, and very personal. Whenever I talk to other photographers I always try to emphasize this point. I always remind them that your biggest asset is you. I mean really, you are going to photograph a couple on one of the most important days of their lives (if you are a wedding photographer). This is a huge responsibility and clients will only give this to people they trust and people they connect with.

So here's my point, I need to do what I preach and blog about myself. Something really personal. Something that gives me butterflies knowing that when I push "Publish Post" it will be out in the world of the internet for potentially millions of people to read. Ok give me a break, I know my blog isn't THAT popular ;)

A week ago tomorrow I found out that my grandfather has been diagnosed with Alzheimers. The day started off as a normal start to our weekend. Matt and I had invited his mom, her boyfriend and my parents over to have beer can chicken. The best chicken I have EVER had. Definitely recommend it :) Well the first thing she did was come over and tell me that he has officially been diagnosed with dementia and most likely Alzheimers. At this point I was still cooking and getting everything ready and since we knew he was getting these tests done I didn't really think a lot about it.

The day continued as normal. We ate, chatted, cleaned the dishes, went downtown to meet up with Matt's dad, second cousin and sister, and then came home and went to bed. The following morning, I don't remember who called who but I was talking to my mom on the phone and I had asked about the test results. She said that there were 7 stages of Alzheimers and by going through the symptoms my mom thinks he is in stage 4 already. She continued to tell me the symptoms of each stage and that is when it hit me. This is real. This is actually happening. I asked her how long it would take for him to get to stage 7 and she said they have no way of knowing. It could be 1 year, it could be 5 years. At this point I am crying in bed and Matt is trying to comfort me. My mother is super upset on the other side of the phone too and she is trying to comfort me. How do you help someone feel good after finding this out? How do you look at the bright side?

After I had calmed down I realized there is so much that I don't know about this disease and if I'm going to be positive and help out as much as I can I need to learn what exactly I'm dealing with. So this week I went to Chatpers (yet again for the billionth time in the past few months) and found their section on Alzheimers. I proceeded to look through the books that they have available. Reading the back cover, the first couple of pages, the reviews online. I decided to buy "The Alzheimer's Project: Momentum in Science" by John Hoffman and Susan Froemke and "Still Alice" by Lisa Genova.

I am hoping that after reading these books I will be able to not only understand more about Alzheimers but to be helpful with taking care of my grandfather.

Zsolt Zsigmond | Feature

I have done one feature before on Jasmine Star, a wedding photographer in California. I have decided I want to do them more often on either photographers or just a topic of photography. So that brings me to todays feature.

Zsolt Zsigmond is a nature and landscape photographer in Hungary. I stumbled upon his photos through a website called DeviantArt. I was absolutely taken aback by how beautiful and breathtaking his photographs are. I have no other words for his work because it really is breathtaking.

Here are some examples.

Sam & Luke | Portraits

Hanging out with Sam and Luke for an afternoon of taking photos was so much fun. These two are so in love that it just radiates off of them. They like to make funny faces and be goof balls too so we got along great! Hahaha.

Here are the photos from our session.

Unique

Sometimes I find myself aimlessly surfing the internet. I don't do it often but when I do I always stumble upon something inspiring. Whether it is an artist's profile on DeviantArt.com or an amazing blog or photography website. Sometimes it even leads me to YouTube.com. A friend of mine told me to look up this video and I remembered to do so a couple of days ago. A lot of you may already have seen it but I was completely blown away. Check it out...



It really started me thinking about being unique. About making not only your wedding but your life different. Doing what you want with it and as one of my tattooes says "Be True" to yourself. Matt and I have started to change the way we live and I have never felt better. We have moved to eating foods that have gone through the least amount of processing as possible. I have started going to hot yoga and reading books I normally wouldn't. As corny as it sounds I feel like I have started to broaden my horizons and it is the best feeling in the world.

Just thought I would share that :)