I love photography! Pretty cliché I know. There is just so much to learn and explore. So many things to try. But the main reason I love photography is this "Photography is about savoring life at 1/100th of a second." - Marc Riboud
I am a portrait and wedding photographer based in Cedar City Utah. I also love landscape photography, but every great landscape I encounter, I can't help but think how much better the shot would be if I stuck a person in it.
This little gal had the coolest hair ever. Fourteen days old this one. Newborns are fun, yet challenging to photograph. The first two weeks of life goes by so fast and they change so much by the time they are 2 weeks old. You can’t get those fleeting precious weeks back. Good thing we have cameras.
I went out there again on the actual summer solstice and did another time lapse. It was fun to meet other people that were there to watch. I met some locals, people from California, Washington, and who knows where else they came from. One couple drove down from Washington just for this event.
Okay, I promise not to post any more Parowan Gap stuff for a while. Although just remember that it is an ongoing project of mine, so I will eventually post more:)
So, technically, summer solstice is tomorrow, June 21 at around 7am. Tomorrow’s sunset is really recognized as the main event at Parowan Gap. I went out there tonight, June 20th to scope things out. Crowds have already gathered. Here is a quick shot I got standing near the summer solstice cairn at Parowan Gap.
I will be out there again tomorrow. I did a time lapse series tonight, but I realized I needed to be in a different spot to get the right angle.
Parowan Gap Summer Solstice
Update: I added a short time lapse of the sun setting through the gap. This time lapse was taken on June 20, 2010. I didn’t make this one HD, so it doesn’t look real great. I plan on posting another one from tonight that is going to be in full HD.
That was awesome! Way to catch the Parowan Gap at its best. The cars coming and going with the jets flying over was fun to watch.
Wow! That is so neat! Post this on facebook so I can copy it to my page. I want the still shot too. That needs a frame! Soooo cool.
Little League baseball portraits in the middle of a bright, cloudless, summer day. Just about the worst lighting conditions out there. Add baseball caps to that and you have a pretty crappy lighting situation on your hands. So what can you do? Well, you can expose for the face and blow the background and just about everything else to solid white. You could find some shade, if you’re lucky. You could use some serious studio lights (400+ WS) and shoot at f/16 or more to stay within sync speed. You could use a reflector. Not a bad option, but a different look to be sure. Or you could use high speed sync on your flash. I chose the latter.
I wanted to maintain a very shallow depth of field, like f/2.5. That meant the shutter speed was 1/3200 sec, WAY over the 1/250 sec sync speed on my Nikon. So the solution was to pull out my SB-900 flash and shoot in high speed sync. I positioned the subjects with their back to the sun. Dialed in my exposure for the ambient light (bright sun – f/2.5 at 1/3200 sec). Dialed in +1.3 compensation on the SB-900. Stuck the flash on a stand with a shoot-through umbrella. Triggered TTL with built in pop-up flash on my camera (set to commander mode only). The result is so much nicer than just shooting “available light.” I love having options. High speed sync is a nice option to have when you need it.
Just some of the highlights from Alysen and Jonny’s wedding. It was originally scheduled to be up Cedar Canyon, but due to the massive snowfall we got this winter, it had to be moved to a lower elevation. A place where the snow was melted. So, the wedding was in Jonny’s aunt’s back yard. Turned out to be a fantastic location, old barn and everything.
The wedding was great, the BBQ was amazing, the people were awesome. Alysen and Jonny both looked amazing.
I could tell from their photo shoot that Isaac and Marissa are perfect for each other. They will have a wonderful life together, I’m quite certain of it.
This was the first photo shoot that I had an assistant/second shooter with me. I was accompanied by Mandi. To be honest I worked Mandi pretty hard with lighting gear and she didn’t get much of a chance to shoot, but she said she had fun anyway. She managed to get a few behind the scenes shots that are up on her blog. The 12th image in this post is the exact moment that she took of me as I was standing on a garbage can to get the shot. Hey, you gotta use what’s available sometimes.
It is sad to realize that there aren’t very many WWII veterans around any more. I think there are only three left in this group of American Legion members. My grandfather served in WWII and he passed away more than a decade ago. It is inspiring to see these men still honoring their country. These were taken at a Memorial Day celebration in Huntington Utah on May 31, 2010.
The Canyon View High School spring 2010 dance concert photos are posted. View the whole event and order digital downloads and prints.
This weekend we celebrated my grandmother’s 94th birthday. We made an up-and-back same day trip to Spanish Fork on Saturday.
My grandma moved to Utah from Georgia when my dad was 11 years old. She still has her southern accent. She still has two boys that live in Georgia. The second shot is one of them, my uncle Doug, hence the Georgia jacket:)
Here are the highlights from our little poster shoot.
I forgot to mention, my wife made the costume that Heather is wearing. The costume was for a dance called “Boing,” choreographed by my wife as well. The costumes, well, they were designed to “boing.” That hoop in the dress totally bounces around and looks really stinkin’ cool.
Another note, be prepared for a barrage of blog posts related to this concert. There will likely be a few more:)
thanks for the blog comment. the reflection picture is my mom’s favorite too.
baliHauh - July 11, 2010 - 6:10 am
Bravo, is simply magnificent idea
jhgHj.