Lorian and Chris - Denver Engagement Photos

Lorian and Chris are getting married! We met up for their engagement session at Eldorado Canyon on a chilly winter morning and had a great time. Enjoy the photos!

Laurie and Jonathan - Boulder Engagement Photos

Jonathan was the cute guy who lived across the street from Laurie. Laurie was the jogger who timed her runs just right to catch Jonathan when he was outside.  It wasn't long before he was building Sooners snowmen in her driveway and she was painting big red "N"s in his.

Fast forward to this year when Jonathan told Laurie that he was going to take her skiing for her birthday, so she needed to get some time off of work.  On her birthday, instead of heading to the slopes Jonathan surprised Laurie with a vacation to Mexico!  It was there that he proposed and she said yes.

The first time we tried to meet for their engagement session was a gloomy, rainy day. We rescheduled for a week later and I am so glad it worked out. The weather was absolutely perfect and the light was amazing! Laurie and Jonathan wanted to meet up at the Homestead trail near Boulder for their photos. I hadn't ever been there before (although I had hiked a trail that connects to it), but I will definitely be going back. What a beautiful location!

Laurie and Jonathan, I can't wait to photograph your wedding in September. You are both such real, genuine people I think that your wedding is going to be something truly special. Thank you for the great photos!

Lisa – Denver Family Photography

This photo session had been a long time coming.  Lisa won a portrait package that I had donated to a silent auction last year, but due to conflicting schedules, vacations and even a move, we weren’t able to get our schedules to work out until last week.  Fortunately, it was worth the wait!

Lisa decided to schedule her portrait session around the time her daughter, Maia, was graduating from CU-Boulder.  As an added bonus, her mother, Natalie was in town for the graduation, so we were able to capture 3 generations of women in these photos. 

Because of Maia’s graduation from CU, we decided to roam around CU's campus while capturing photos.  I've shot photos at CU before and think it's a wonderful location for some photos in Boulder.  We had great weather with light cloud cover and just a bit of wind.  With all of the buildings, when the sun came out or the wind blew a little too hard we were able to find refuge and keep taking photos.

After spending the afternoon with Lisa, Maia, Natalie and Jameson (Maia's dog) I couldn't wait to get home and take a look at the photos.  I wasn't disappointed with the results.  Here are some of my favorites from the day.

Rebecca - Boulder Children's Photos

Good things come to those who wait, right? If that's the case, then the photos of Rebecca's daughters should be amazing! Rebecca let me know way back in April that she wanted some fall photos. At that time, her youngest daughter, Samira, was almost 1 year old and hadn't had a formal photo shoot yet. By the time we shot with the fall colors in October, she was almost 1.5 years old.

The original plan was to shoot up in a canyon outside of Boulder. The original plan was also to shoot a few weeks earlier than we ended up shooting to catch the colors when they were at their peak. When I went up into the canyon on the day of the shoot, the colors were pretty much gone, so, with an improvisational Hail Mary, we decided to shoot on the University of Colorado campus and hope for some color. Fortunately, there was lots of color and many more locations for photos than we would have had in the canyon.

Samira took a bit of time warming up to the camera. Her older sister, Stella, took advantage of the opportunity to get some extra photos while her sister was being shy. Pretty soon, though, they were both goofing around and hardly noticed I was there. This is one of my favorite times to photograph children. When they forget you're there and just act like kids, it's possible to capture some truly authentic images. Posed, smiling photos of children are always nice, but I love a good photo of a kid being a kid.

As is always the case, once the kids decide they're done with photos, the shoot is over. Samira lasted over an hour, which is excellent for a kid her age. We sat down, had a snack, then headed back to the car. Fortunately, she got a second-wind before we got to the car and I was able to take photos for a bit longer before we parted ways.

So, do good things come to those who wait? Let's see... The weather was gorgeous. The location was beautiful. The light was perfect. The girls were wonderful. And the photos? According to Rebecca, they're "amazing". Just what I was hoping for.

You can see more photos from the afternoon here.

Tech Tuesdays - Renting Equipment

In the world of cameras, there are many items that are either too expensive or too specialized to own. A tilt-shift lens comes to mind as a great example. There are also items that, for someone who's just getting started, would be great to test first without plunking down thousands of dollars. Fortunately, there are companies who rent camera equipment! Most, if not all, rent lenses and bodies, but it might be good to see what else some of these places rent.

I had a big photo shoot a few weeks ago and I was shooting with another photographer. In order for both of us to shoot in the studio, we both needed Pocket Wizards. If we wanted to have different setups that we could move between, we needed even more Pocket Wizards. We had a few options: We could borrow some Pocket Wizards from other photographers; We could buy a few more Pocket Wizards; or we could rent them. It quickly became clear that borrowing them was out of the question. Buying them would have been great, but neither of us had $500 lying around that we could spend on more camera gear. That left the rental option.

I remembered a friend of mine telling me about a local company (in Boulder, CO) that rented equipment. I figured I'd look them up and see what they had to offer. What do you know? They had a set of 3 Pocket Wizards for rent! That would be perfect for 2 lighting setups. I sent an email off to Jared, the owner of the company, and quickly heard back from him that I could come pick them up the next day!

The company I rented from is called Pro Photo Rental. They're not the biggest rental company around, but they've got just about everything I could want and they're local. I can just imagine a scenario where having a local source to rent equipment could mean the difference between landing a job or loosing a job. You can believe me that after my wonderful experience with Jared and Pro Photo Rental, they'll be the only place I use from now on.

If there's a piece of gear you've been wanting to buy, you might try renting it first. I'd highly suggest searching for a local company as well. You never know when it might just come in handy!

DISCLAIMER: I am in no way affiliated with Pro Photo Rental. I did not receive any kind of discount on my rental for writing this. Jared doesn't even know I'm writing this. I'm just a happy photographer who had a good experience and will definitely be borrowing more of Jared's "toys"!

Photo Credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/zoso_tc/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

Charlie

When Rob and Kathryn asked me if I'd take some photos of their son, Charlie, I was super-excited. I had never taken photos of a child as young as Charlie, so I was ready for the experience. I might have been spoiled from my first experience, though, as Charlie is a very cute baby and was quite well-behaved!

I arrived at Rob and Kathryn's house in an older neighborhood of Boulder. The south side of their house had been remodeled by a previous owner, and part of that remodel included lots of windows. Because of the windows, there was plenty of natural light available to work with, so we just set up a little cozy area for Charlie out of the direct sun and I started taking photos.

I must admit, I was surprised at how well-behaved Charlie was. He was alert, wasn't fussy and was basically the perfect subject. I think he would have been fine to lay there for hours if we hadn't decided to change his outfit. Once the outfit was changed, our groove was gone and he got a little fussy. Fortunately, it wasn't a big deal and we still got some great photos of him in his next outfits.

The grand finale came when we let the dogs come in for a closer look at Charlie. Typically, they're always getting close to him, checking him out, and even sneaking in the occasional lick. For our photo shoot, they were on their best behavior and even when we invited them to come visit Charlie they were hesitant. We finally got a few photos of him and the dogs after much coaxing and patience.

This might have been my first photo shoot with an infant, but I know it won't be my last. Thank you, Charlie, for being such a good little guy. I hope to work with you again soon!

You can see more photos from the shoot here.

Tanya Part III

Seriously? Part III? Yes, I teamed up with Tanya once again for an eventful photo shoot (see my first and second shoots). On this shoot, no one tried to get in the shoot with us and the cops didn't show up. After we were done, I had to ask myself, "was this a normal shoot?". It was normal, except for the fact that Tanya was standing on top of a large hill in an evening dress holding a long piece of fabric and trying not to get blown away by gusts of wind!

Tanya approached me about this blowing fabric idea, but I originally had another shoot planned. I told her that if something happened with the other shoot, I'd be happy to do something if she didn't mind making last-minute plans. Well, something happened with the other shoot and Tanya was happy to work on a tight schedule. We met up, packed our stuff and headed west towards the wind.

If the wind is not blowing in Denver, you can usually bet it's blowing near Boulder. The wind was not blowing in Denver that day, so we drove out towards Highway 93, one of the windiest places on the Front Range. Thankfully, the wind was blowing and I didn't look like an idiot for having us drive so far. I pulled out my camera, Tanya pulled out the fabric and we let the wind do most of the work. I should mention that Tanya was getting quite a workout from holding on to the fabric and just standing upright. I guess I had it pretty easy that day!

After blowing around for a while, we decided to head back to the city and get some more calm shots. We found a nice grove of colorful cottonwoods, set up and spent the rest of our time enjoying the day and taking some great photos. Although they weren't part of the original plan, we are both happy with the photos from the second location, as they're different from any photos we've created so far. For a canceled photo shoot and last-minute planning, I'd say it was a productive afternoon!

You can see more photos here.

Zoya and Kai

It was a cold and snowy day... wait, didn't I already start a post like that? This time it's the truth! It was supposed to get up to the low-40s on Sunday, but I don't think it ever really made it much above 30 in Boulder. There was snow on the ground, in the trees, and eventually on all of us. Regardless, we took less than an hour on a cold Sunday and got some great photos.

The shoot went great, but it could have been a bad day. First, there was the weather. Then, our meeting place was closed for construction. Luckily, we were able to contact each other, meet at the location for our shoot and get out and start shooting. The kids were very well behaved with just the right combination of goofy and calm.

After posing for some "formal" family photos, we turned the kids loose and let them be themselves. What resulted were goofy poses for the camera, playing in the snow and knocking icicles off of the downspouts. This also gave Zoya and Kai a chance to get some photos alone.

It didn't take too long, though, before hands started to get cold and noses started to drip. We decided we'd rather stop early than try to push our luck. I think we'll have to meet up on a beautiful spring afternoon in Boulder for another, warmer photo shoot.

You can see more photos from the shoot here.

Rachel

When you meet someone for the first time and they ask you within the first five minutes of knowing you if you've ever watched a certain TV show because "you seem like the kind of person who'd enjoy it", and then it turns you decide to watch that show and it turns out to be pretty much your favorite show of all time, there's something special there. That's exactly what happened the first time I met Rachel.

Since then, we've been able to hang out a few times and we always have a great time, so I knew this photo shoot would be a lot of fun. We decided to head up into the foothills around Boulder and see what we could find. What we found was a great little spot that had big rock formations, some trees and overlooked the city.

After taking some photos there, we headed back down the mountain until we found a small building with a very Autumnal-looking tree next to it. Although we got some great photos at the first location, in my opinion the photos we got here were the best of the day. There was something about the light, color and texture that all combined to make some amazing photos.

At the end of the day, we headed back to Rachel's house in Boulder. We walked away with some great photos. More importantly, though, we walked away better friends than when we started. Thanks, Rachel!

You can see more photos from the shoot here.