Content & Light

Recent Photos in Southern Utah

2011-08-16T00:51:00.001-06:00

Just thought I would share some photos from a recent photo shoot in the red rock desert near the town of St. George, Utah. I just love photographing in the red rock country of Utah, with it's spectacular scenery and otherworldly rock formations. For the gear heads. Canon 5D Mark II, 24-105 f4 lens. Alien Bee Einstein 640 lights, light modifiers, 32 x 40 softboxes with 40ºgrids, all powered by Vagabond Mini Lithiums....

more to come.....

Kassie Merrill Senior Portraits

2011-05-10T01:38:00.000-06:00

Just wanted to post some photos from a recent senior high school portrait session with Kassie Merrill who is a cheerleader and a senior at Logan High School in Logan, Utah. She was a blast to work with and a lot of fun. She also just made the cheerleading squad at Snow College and will be continuing her cheerleading as she goes off to college this fall. Congrats and best of luck Kassie!

more later……

Jessica Hirst Engagement Session

2011-04-24T13:13:00.001-06:00

Here are a few images from yesterday's engagement photo session for Jessica Hirst and Jeremy Von Der Lieth. She is a kindergarten teacher and he is a mechanic. They were a great couple and a lot of fun to work with.

more later.....

Denise Nordgren-Penny Bridal Photo Session

2011-04-18T01:06:00.000-06:00

Just wanted to post a few photos from yesterday's bridal photo shoot in Salt Lake City. Beautiful day, Beautiful Bride. You rocked it Denise. Here's the proof.

more later.......

Recent Portraits

2011-04-10T23:33:00.000-06:00

Just a quick blog post to put up some recent portraits I have been working on for a project. I will blog about the lighting and how I shot these in an upcoming post and put up a few more photos...so until then enjoy the photos.

more to come...

Utah Jazz Charity Leapn' Leaners

2011-04-01T21:35:00.000-06:00

Just had a chance to take photos at the annual Utah Jazz Leapn' Leaners and Low Tops fundraiser for Larry H. Miller Charities. Part of the fundraiser gives fans the chance to get an individual photo taken with their favorite Jazz player and Coach Corbin. It's a fun event and a way for the Utah Jazz and the community to help raise money to help those in need.

It's also a chance for fans to mingle with the players when they aren't "working on the court" and get to see them in a different light as they often attend the event with their families.

My favorite photo of the night was when one family brought their newborn baby and had a photo taken with their favorite Jazz player C.J. Miles who actually held the baby for the photo. When the kid grows up his parents can show him the photo. I'll post that photo along with a few others from the event.....so enjoy.

Paul Milsap and fans.

Andrei Kirilenko and fans.

C.J. Miles and fans, including one very young fan.

Mehmet Okur his wife Yeliz and their daughter.

more to come........

David Hobby and Joe McNally Flashbus 2011 Tour Salt Lake City Review

2011-03-21T15:45:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I got a chance to travel down to attend the Flashbus 2011 Tour stop in Salt Lake City. For those not familiar with the Flashbus Tour, it's the photographic equivalent of Lady Gaga and Madonna going on tour together, but replaced by two middle aged men and a room full of photographer geeks instead of screaming fans.

And no, David Hobby of Strobist fame, didn't arrive inside an DIY egg carried on the shoulders of four photo assistants, and Joe McNally the last full time staff photographer for Life Magazine and National Geographic, Sports Illustrated contract photographer etc. didn't ride in on a white horse in commander mode surrounded by ten assistants holding 40 Nikon SB900 speedlights.

They just walked in the room, with a refreshingly lack of ego, climbed up on the stage and taught with humor, patience, fun and a sense of giving back to the photographic community that has given them so much. And their "show" lasted much longer than a Gaga Madonna concert----all day if fact.

David and Joe, both of whom are "The" two biggest names in photography education working today, decided last summer with an idea that came from Joe McNally's Studio Assistant, to take on the rock n' roll lifestyle and get on a bus and tour around to 29 cities in 6 weeks and teach as many photographers as they could, how to remove the flash that most stick on top of their cameras and put it on something else and make beautiful photographs.

They enlisted the support of a bunch of amazing sponsors such as Manfrotto, LumiQuest, Rosco, Spyder, Tethertools, Peachpit Press, NIKsoftware, Lexar, PocketWizard, Thinkthank photo, Frio and Adorama and others who helped pull the tour together and headed out with the first stop on March 11th in Seattle. The sponsors put together a great swag bag of items that was an added bonus to the show. The tour ends on April 18th in St. Louis, Missouri.

We hear that most of the shows are sold out, but here's the link to the Flashbus 2011 Tour site if you want to find our for yourself.

The format for the one day seminar is a morning session with David Hobby followed by lunch, and afternoon session with Joe McNally and then a brief question and answer session with both of them on stage at the end of the show.

The morning session started off with David Hobby teaching in easily understood language, the basic building blocks of off camera flash photography. His approach is to use camera flash in primarily manual mode with the occasional need for TTL (through the lens). Manual mode is where the photographer takes control over the creative lighting process by using their flash in manual mode only. The photographer tells the flash exactly how much light to send out and for how long. TTL is where the photographer uses the flash in an automatic mode where the camera measures the light that comes in through the lens and relays information to the flash telling it how much light to send out to the subject and for how long.

(A bit of a caveat for TTL. It's not exactly 100% automatic....just point your camera and it will make your bed, do your dishes, take out the garbage and cook you dinner. No the photographer still needs to give the computer in the camera some basic information to get the TTL mode on the camera headed in the right direction, and that big ball of light in the sky called the sun is still tricky enough that it can fool even the best computer inside of the best cameras made today).

He taught those in attendance to start with the ambient light, add fill light, key light and as he says "season to taste". David is a wonderful teacher who boiled down some very complicated subject matter to the level that was easy to understand for just about anyone with a camera in their hands.

The most enjoyable part for me about David Hobby's part of the show was just how humble and down to earth he is. He seemed to easily make a connection with everyone in the audience. And you could see he was really passionate about helping others and showing them how to be better photographers. The three hours seemed to fly by as he interacted with those in the audience answering a multitude of questions in a humorous and informative fashion.

He has some great DVD's called "Lighting in Layers" that just came out in conjunction with the Flashbus 2011 Tour that I would highly recommend for anyone wanting to make that leap from taking boring snapshots and moving it onto the next level. You can order them from Adorama by clicking here.

The afternoon session with Joe McNally kinda of got off to a rocky start as computer gremlins messed up his tethering system he uses to throw the photos he takes during his live demonstration up onto the screen so he can teach how he solves problems as he lights a photographic situation.

While technicians and his staff worked feverishly to solve the problems. Joe who is also another great fountain of photographic knowledge and down right wonderful teacher, took the situation and made it into a teaching moment for those in attendance by not getting upset or flustered and explaining to all that many times taking photographs is simply about problem solving.

After a couple of false starts and switching out of cameras and computers the show was back in gear. Joe was a whirl wind of information and creative genius. His approach is mostly TTL with some manual flash thrown in to solve problems and situations where TTL just can't get the job done.

He taught the details of TTL to everyone by using live models from his crew and people pulled from the audience. He showed how he use strobes and reflectors to shape the light on his subjects to achieve the results he was trying to get. And as everything was being done live. He let us in on his thinking/problems solving process and everyone got to see how he fixed things when they didn't work and most importantly got to see that its OK to make mistakes as we work towards making a good photograph. In fact the big take away for me was exactly that. Making mistakes IS part of the creative process.

Joe is a legend in the photographic world with many books to his credit that should be on the shelves of every serious photographer working today. He also released a new set of DVD's in conjunction with the Flashbus 2011 Tour called "The Language of Light" that should be on the must buy list of every photographer out there of if you have an understanding spouse, a great birthday or Father's or Mother's day gift.

In the end I think we all wanted to hold up our lighters and try for an encore, but Joe and David needed to roll onto the next stop of the Flashbus 2011 Tour!

Nicki & David Get Married

2011-03-14T21:58:00.000-06:00

Just wanted to share this wonderful wedding. Nicki and David united their love in marriage at the Riter Mansion in Logan, Utah last week and I wanted to post some images from their wedding day. They shared that day with a ton of friends, family and loved ones along with a lot of laughter, tears of joy and smiles. What a wonderful couple, I was so lucky and honored to document this special day for them. Thanks Nicki and David!

As for the technical stuff, not much hear, just photojournalism style available light with some fill flash here and there, except on the formal posed shots. For them I brought out the big lights. So scroll down and enjoy the photos.

more to come....

Recent Editorial Work

2011-03-01T01:07:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to put up a quick post as I have been busy for the last few days with a couple of assignments for editorial clients. The first was to cover Utah Senator Orrin Hatch for a day as he met with constituents from his home state. The second was at the opposite end of the spectrum when I was asked by a client to take photographs of the classical music group the 5 Browns at their first Utah concert after their father had plead guilty to sexually molested the group's three adult sisters -- when they were children.

Both these assignment were challenging due to the fact that they would need to be shot almost exclusively with available light, which is not usually a problem, but in both these situation it was extremely low-light situations. The kind of light that is so dim that it makes you sweat just thinking about it.

It's hold the camera steady, and nail your exposure so that you don't have to lighten it up in photoshop as all this will do is make the digital noise in the files the size of boulders. And while your at it remember that you have almost no depth of field, so focus will have to be tack sharp.

This is where all that running on the treadmill comes in handy. Hold real still, exhale, and squeeze the shutter, just like a marksman shooting at a target. Being in shape, keeps the heart rate lower and when you are shooting in these types of situations you need every bit of help you can get.

Yes I know that today's digital slr cameras have great high ISO capabilities, but sometimes even high ISO doesn't reach quite high enough and the old school techniques can really help you out getting the final shots.

So here are a few images from these two assignments to let you see how they turned out.

more to come......

Utah Based Wedding Photojournalist - Nicki's Bridals

2011-02-15T21:24:00.001-07:00

Just wanted to post a few pictures from Nicki's recent Bridals. She wanted a sophisticated classic look to her images with more of a magazine feel, which I thought was great having worked for magazines as a photographer and a photo editor I love this type of shooting style and I was more than happy to help her out. So we spent the day in Salt Lake City at a couple of wonderful venues. We started off at the Salt Lake City Library which is a beautiful building with wonderful architecture and lots of natural light, stopped at the Joseph Smith Memorial building and finished off at a park in Salt Lake City.

The photos of Nicki turned out beautiful and how could they not, especially with her wearing an absolutely stunning dress from Gowns by Pamela . Do yourself a favor and go check them out.

And now for you photo geeks out there who want a little technical info on what I used to shoot and light these photos, here goes....we made use of the natural light (ambient) from the windows and mixed in a little big light-little light combination mojo using a beauty dish mounted on an Alien Bee Einstein E640 and a some on-axis fill from a Canon 580 EXII. Both were triggered by the PocketWizard Mini TT1 on my Canon 5D Mark II with PocketWizard TT5's firing the strobes.

I used the new Alien Bee Vagabond Mini Lithium battery to power the Einstein E640 and I can truly say the new Vagabond is a major milestone in powerful portable battery power. It fired all day long and never ran out of juice and it is so light weight with the Lithium pack. Can't say enough good things about this new marvel from Paul C. Buff. If you want one for yourself hit the link here. They are currently on back order but well worth the wait. And at only $239.95 plus shipping a real bargain.

Anyway hope you enjoy the photos and the technical info.

more to come....

Intrepid Christmas Card Photo Shoot

2011-01-14T19:21:00.000-07:00

I have been waiting for a while now to post this incredibly fun commercial photo shoot I did back in early December. I was asked by the award winning Utah based Intrepid Public Relations and Advertising agency to take photos for their yearly company Christmas card. Every year they do a theme based Christmas card where all the employees pose as characters from one television show or movie and then act out different scenarios which are then photographed for the card. This years theme was the Fox hit TV show "Glee" . These are uber creative people mind you who do this sort of thing for a living, so I was really excited to see how everything came together. Hat's off to everyone over at Intrepid. They were so professional, fun and enthusiastic and really knocked it out of the park in front of the cameras. So now that the holiday season is over and the Christmas card has been mailed out to all their clients, set back and enjoy a few images of Intrepid's ode to Glee.

more to come......

Shauna and Steve Jensen Family

2011-01-10T20:14:00.001-07:00

Had a chance over the Christmas break to take portraits of a wonderful family, the Jensen’s of Logan, Utah. Steve and Shauna had all four of their children visiting from various places around the U. S. and decided that this was a great time to get together for some family portraits. That’s where I came in. Here are some of my favorites from the photo shoot. Hope you enjoy them.

more to come....

A Little Off Topic

2010-12-10T15:57:00.001-07:00

Normally I use my blog space to talk about my passion for photography. But every once in a while I read something or something happens that causes me to write about something else. Today is one of those days. A couple of things happened today which caused me to think. #1. Elizabeth Smart's abductor and tormentor Brian David Mitchell was found guilty on all counts for his role in the abduction, rape and torture of Elizabeth Smart. The prosecuting attorney's the witnesses at trial, the police officials and the jurors all stated what a remarkable women Elizabeth Smart was. How she had been able to handle herself and testify in such detail and in such a calm and succinct manner about what she had been through was a key to the proper justice being delivered in the verdict that was announced today.

Then I read an article in the New York Times entitled "The Women's Crusade". written by By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF and SHERYL WuDUNN which was originally published back on August 17, 2009. It made me think about how much better off we would be as a nation and as a world if more was done to empower women. Elizabeth Smart was exploited by an evil man. Many, many women are tortured, abused, mistreated, exploited and pushed down every day by evil men. Yet many women rise above this cesspool of repression and do so with character, humility and strength.

Just to be clear, I am not "man bashing" or "man hating" as I am man myself. The oldest of eleven children. I have six sisters and four brothers younger than me and I have a wife and three daughters, so you could say that I have been lucky enough to be surrounded by women my whole life.

So here is the opening couple of paragraphs of The New York Times article which made me deviate from my normal talk of photography.

IN THE 19TH CENTURY, the paramount moral challenge was slavery. In the 20th century, it was totalitarianism. In this century, it is the brutality inflicted on so many women and girls around the globe: sex trafficking, acid attacks, bride burnings and mass rape.
Yet if the injustices that women in poor countries suffer are of paramount importance, in an economic and geopolitical sense the opportunity they represent is even greater. “Women hold up half the sky,” in the words of a Chinese saying, yet that’s mostly an aspiration: in a large slice of the world, girls are uneducated and women marginalized, and it’s not an accident that those same countries are disproportionately mired in poverty and riven by fundamentalism and chaos. There’s a growing recognition among everyone from theWorld Bank to the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to aid organizations like CARE that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism.

Did you get that. Focusing on women and girls is the MOST effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. I want to carry this a bit further. In my belief. In any government, country, religion, theology, corporation, or home that marginalizes women, that doesn't give them an equal voice and equal power then just plain bad decision making happens. Just for thought, let's think about all the recent chaos and bad decision making that took place on Wall Street that plunged our economy into the worst recession since the great depression. I wonder how many of these decisions were made by women in executive positions? How much input did women get in economic decision making by the Federal Reserve, Banks, Insurance companies and other corporations? What about other areas in our government? How many women set on committees or chair committees at national or local levels? How many women get a chance to run for political office as Senators or for Congress? Only 17 of the 100 Senators in the U.S. are women, yet 50.8% of the U.S. population is women. In Congress we have 76 women and 359 men.

And what about the heads of corporations, banks, or military commanders? And religion? How many women are given a voice or a role in the leadership of major religions around the world. Would certain religions be as prone to extremism or the problems as divisive if women played a more prominent role?
As a father of three daughters at the same time as I worry about their future I am also encouraged by those who have recognized the importance of equality of power for women. I have always encouraged my daughters to take advantage of educational opportunities and to empower themselves with knowledge. My hope is that the world will continue to evolve and that it will be a place where all women, including my daughters will be given an equal voice in politics, economics and in their own homes.

View from my back porch

2010-11-18T15:58:00.000-07:00

We recently moved to Logan, Utah where we are basing our Wedding, Portrait, Commercial and Editorial photo business. Some people have asked me why we wanted to live in Logan, Utah. We'll I took a few photos from my back porch last night and a couple of photos from a walk we went on in the late afternoon yesterday, just a few miles away from my home so you could see for yourself.

Aside from the natural beauty of Cache Valley, with the internet and the ability to travel and work from just about anywhere we decided that Logan would be a great location for our family. So far we like the schools much better than where we lived before and my daughter is raving about the school lunch at her middle school. She comes home excited about the menu and how good the food tastes in comparison to her last school where the district used food that was prepared ahead of time at a centralized location, distributed to all the schools then warmed up.

The town seems to have a vibrant and quant downtown with a plethora of small shops and dining spots that are thriving despite the encroachment of all the big box stores on the outskirts of town.

And the commute time to clients up and down the Wasatch front is less than the commute time I used to have going to work in St. Louis or a typical rush hour commute in Los Angeles. And If I need to hop on a plane to get to a photo shoot location, the Salt Lake International Airport is only about and hour and 15 minutes from my doorstep.

more later.........

Nicki and Brodie

2010-11-12T00:06:00.001-07:00

Had a chance today to take some fashion bridal photos of Nicki for an advertisement I was shooting and while I was at it I did a few portraits of her son Brodie. Nicki was a great model and so was her son Brodie.

I love it when you can get the wonderful spontaneous moments in between the posed shots that are really the photos and moments that you are looking for to begin with.

Here are the photos of Nicki with a few of her son Brodie mixed in for fun.
enjoy!!

more to come........

Andrews Family Portraits

2010-11-09T18:18:00.000-07:00

Had a chance to photograph the Andrews family last Saturday in Ogden. They are a wonderful family and it was a lot of fun to get some great photos of them. Braxton the youngest son was a big fan of trains and so it was a double fun day for him as he got to go to the Union Station in Ogden and see the trains and then latter on that day he and his dad headed to the Utah Jazz game in Salt Lake.

Braxton also helped me scout out locations for the photos and it was his idea to take the photos from the back platform of the hospital train car. Great light and wonderful families always combine for great photos.

Here are a few from the session.

more to come......

Eborn Family Photos

2010-10-18T19:50:00.001-06:00

Last week I found myself up Big Cottonwood Canyon east of Salt Lake City to take family portraits of the Eborn Family. They were so fun and easy to work with and the children were so well behaved it was easy to get a lot of great photos of each of them and a nice group photo as well.

Here are just a few....

Two choices, a vertical and the horizontal below. Which one to do you like?

Hunter Family Photos

2010-10-05T18:39:00.000-06:00

Got a chance to take some photos of the Hunter Family and they really turned out great. They wanted something traditional and different this year so we did the fall leaves on a bridge and then headed to the Historic Union Station in Ogden for something different. What a fun family!!!!!!!!!!

And now for the photos....

more to come........

Logan High School Cheerleaders

2010-10-05T18:18:00.000-06:00

I've had a couple of recent photo shoots that were both and fun and gave me some great images.
Here are some photos from the first shoot at Logan High School about a week ago. I was contracted to take photos of the Logan High School cheerleaders. What a great group of talented and fun girls. And a great game with Logan beating rival Mountain Crest by one point when Mountain Crest failed to convert on a two-point play at the end of regulation.

Here are some photos. Enjoy!!!

more to come.....

A New Adventure

2010-09-28T22:28:00.000-06:00

It's been awhile since I updated my blog. Sorry for the delay, but a lot has happened since I last posted. The newspaper where I have worked as an assistant photo editor for the last six years decided to lay off about 43% of it's staff and an even higher percentage of it's photo staff.

I am one of the the 84 people who is no longer employed at the newspaper. I have worked in the newspaper and magazine world for the last 23 years, but" times they are a changing" in the media world and especially at newspapers which have struggled due to bad management and an outdated business model to make a profit.

It's hard to keep people employed when you give your product away for free on the internet and no one needs to take out a classified ad in your printed paper anymore, when they can do it online for free.

So now my new adventure begins. As newspapers continue to lay off people in droves around the country I am no longer pursuing a position in that field. Magazines seem to be doing a little better as they are basically publications that cater to specific"niche" audiences and they have never had to base their business model on classified advertisements or daily distribution in print. They also know how to use photography much better than newspapers and how to target their specific audiences better. They seem to get the new technologies of distribution much better than newspapers and I feel are much better positioned as we move into the era of the "app" whether on the iPad, iPhone, HDTV or some Android equivalent.

So now that I no longer have to spend my nights and weekends toiling to fill the pages and antiquated websites of newspapers I am moving forward with my own photography business. I plan to focus on Weddings, Portraits, Commercial and Editorial magazine work.

Here are a few select photos from a couple of recent photos shoots.

What a fun couple. He is from Hong Kong and she is from Utah. Getting married in the Bountiful LDS Temple.

The Garrett Family of Farmington, Utah and all their children. What a great group and so much fun to shoot!!!

more to come......

California Vacation

2010-08-09T12:30:00.001-06:00

Just a quick post from my recent trip to California. My 81-year-old mother-in-law has wanted to go to Disneyland and the beach for the last five years with some of her grandchildren. We finally were able to take her down to California for what will probably be her last major trip due to her age and declining health. It was a short quick trip of just a couple of days but the weather was nice and the trip was enjoyable.

Here are a few photos, all taken with a Nikon point and shoot digital.

more to come....

Tori and Rob's Bridals

2010-07-22T16:03:00.001-06:00

Yesterday I got a chance to drive up to Logan and take photos of my niece and her soon to be husband Rob. They wanted more formal type portraits, so this is what I came up with. Most are lit with a photek softlighter II and some snooted Canon 580 EX II's.

Here are a few favorites from the photo shoot.

let me know what you think in the comments....

Mary Norman 15 Holes in one

2010-07-15T10:12:00.000-06:00

Mary Norman, a 69 year old golfer just recorded her 15th hole-in-one and I was asked to take a portrait of her to go with the story.

I met her at the club house at the East Bay golf course in Provo. A very humble, nice and gracious lady. she was kind enough to pose for me on the practice green behind the clubhouse.

Lighting was done with profoto D1 air system.

Here is the portraits I came up with. I liked the one where we threw 15 balls in the air to represent her 15 holes-in-one.

more to come.....

Utah quarterback Jordan Wynn

2010-06-29T12:23:00.000-06:00

Here is a recent photo shoot I did of University of Utah quarterback Jordan Wynn. It was a last minute assignment where I had about 30 minutes to grab some lights find a location and get ready for the photo shoot.

So I opted to keep the light, location and shoot as simple as I could.

Here is what I came up with.

more to come.........

Dennis Dahle

2010-06-03T12:43:00.001-06:00

The last week has been very hard for me personally and especially for my wife and our children as my wife's brother Dennis was killed while working out his races horses when the horse he was riding was startled and reared over backwards on him.

Last Saturday all Dennis' horse friends took his two horses that he had been training up to Pocatello, Idaho for the featured race. My wife and her family asked me if I could come and take photos of the race to include in a DVD of images that would be played at his viewing. I have known Dennis for over 26 years and I was honored that they would ask me.

Thanks to Keith Johnson who volunteered to work my photo edit shift on Saturday night I was able to drive up to Pocatello and cover the race.

I have photographed a lot of horse races in my day, but this race was like none other. Dennis had two horses entered in the last race of the day, a ten-horse field. One horse Royal Rumbo was a 25-1 long shot and the other Corona Light was an 8-1 listing.

The jockey on the favorite horse fell off coming out of the gate.

In a stunning upset, Dennis horses ended the race in a photo-finish 1st and 2nd place, with Royal Rumba just edging out Corona Light for the win. Prior to the start of the race, as he was a long time regular at the track, the stadium announcer acknowledged Dennis and told of his death just a few days before.

After the race all the jockey's and family gathered in the winners circle at the finish line hugging and crying at the amazing results. Dirk Crane, the winning jockey said, "I have won a lot of races in my career but I don't think I will ever have another race like this," "The feeling during the race and how the horse ran was something I will never forget".

For me personally all I will say is it is really hard to take photographs with tears streaming down your face.

To my wife, her family and my children and all those who knew and loved Dennis, may we all find peace and comfort in all the good memories and times we shared together.

Dennis was taken by horse drawn carriage to the Lewiston, Utah cemetery where he was laid to rest on Tuesday June 1, 2010.

Rest in peace Dennis.

Corona Light, far left. Royal Rumbo second from right.

Dennis Dahle December 31, 1953 to May 26, 2010.

For all the jockey's who have asked for photos here is my email address: amiller@desnews.com

Also for a nice article on the race in the Idaho State Journal click here.