Little Angel

As mentioned previously, this last weekend I traveled with family to Idaho to conduct funeral services for my mother.  It was an emotional weekend while we celebrated her life, sharing great memories.

I tried to keep my camera unobtrusive, but as my family knows I like to document significant events like this, and always keep on the look out to get photos of family and friends.

Just before leaving the cemetery I spotted my niece tracing the inscription of a nearby headstone with a feather she had found.  I quickly snapped this shot of her.  I thought she portrayed a little angle inscribing into the headstone.  I am sure someone more creative (and with the time) could turn this into a more angelic scene, but I thought the foundation for it were well portrayed.

Maternal Instinct

This is a photo of my lovely bride holding her most recent nephew.  Moments like this used to scare me because I knew another child was in our near future I kid, but my wife is the most loving natural mother I have ever known. She loves to hold babies and will be immediately drawn to care for a child. One of the many reasons I love her.

This last weekend we traveled to Idaho Falls to have a funeral for my mom.  It is always an emotional time to lose a family member, especially a parent.  That said, we had a wonderful weekend visiting with family, which is something my mom always loved for us to do.

She was buried in the Ammon, ID cemetery next to her parents.  We took a few minutes to visit the Idaho Falls and of course snap a few photos.

This is one of the “snapshot” photos I took.  I always smile when I realize I am taking the typical touristy snapshot, yet we have to take them, right?  I do try to wander around and find different ways to capture the same scene different than the next photographer, but I do try to get the”typical” shot as well.

I’ve been neglecting blogging, posting and even photography for a bit.  Frankly I was burnt out.  That happens every so often though, and I find a little time off can be a good thing.  I really am trying to work up the motivation to launch a more focused photography blog and likely shutter this one.  I’ll keep up the old posts though either here or on the new site.

On another note, my sister-in-law wrote up a nice tribute to my mom over on her site.

Scott Jarvie Teaching a Lightroom Workshop

Last night I had the opportunity to help out a little on a Lightroom workshop being taught by my buddy Scott Jarvie.  He has been doing these fairly regularly in an effort to both share with the photographer community, but also refine his teaching skills.

Those who know me are aware of my propensity to get involved in efforts like this. I enjoy teaching, sharing and being a part of a great community of like-minded people.  The Utah photographer community has and continues to grow, as is evidence by the surge in numbers participating in my favorite group Photowalking Utah. It has been really fun to be a part of that growth.

Held at East Bay Studios – the location of PhotoCamp Utah 2009 fame – The class was fun, intended as an intermediate audience following up from the beginners course on Tuesday.  I have been along on a couple others Scott has done in the past as well, seeing how he is refining his teaching style.  Though I consider myself a fairly advanced Lightroom user at this point, there are always little tidbits I pick up here and there.  Dave Terry and Suzanne pitched in with some great segments that I found particularly interesting.

Though the class went a little long for my taste (just a little feedback there), I think as he continues to refine and compress the knowledge this series of classes will be an increasing hit.  It’s people like Scott, Dave & Suzanne that make this local community of photographers such a pleasure to be a part of.

If you are local to Utah and have the opportunity to come out for a workshop, mini-clinic or photowalk, I highly recommend you do.  I’ll give you fair warning though, it is addictive; you will quickly find yourself coming out on a regular basis!

Scott Jarvie & his Intermediate Workshop Crowd

Suzanne in full teaching mode

Scott Jarvie Striking a Pose for the Camera

All photos captured with 5D Mark II at 3200 ISO. Gotta love that high ISO performance

Are We Dancer?

I had the opportunity last week to take some photos at a dance recital at a local college.  A family friend was  having performed her senior project.

Though this particular dancer was not a part of that performance, I wanted to post it because I was happy I was even able to get this scene captured.  Let me explain.  The entire show was set up in a small studio room at the local University.  Lighting was, I kid you not, two halogen shop lights in the back of the room controlled by plugging and unplugging the extension cord.  Needless to say, not optimal lighting for photos.

The 5D Mark II performed very well considering the conditions.  I shot most of the show at 3200 ISO to get any kind of decent shutter speed to shop action.  Hand holding my 70-200 from the side of the crowd I was happy with the results.

Canon 5D Mark II, 70-200L 2.8, 1/125 at f/2.8 and ISO 3200

Details

I had the opportunity to help out my friend Scott the other day on a bridal shoot in Salt Lake City as an assistant/second camera. It is always so interesting to me to be along on photo shoots with other photographers to see how they work.

I was mainly there to carry bags, help with lighting, etc., but with my camera in hand I tried to get other angles and offer suggestions.

I won’t post many shots as this was not my shoot, but a few perhaps. When I am a second shooter, I often like to try and get detail shots that may not be thought of by the main photographer. I particularly liked the color of the flowers against this wall.

Canon 5D Mark II, 70-200L 2.8, 1/200 f/2.8 ISO200

Lost In Thought

Yesterday morning I had the opportunity to be in Salt Lake City yesterday morning to photograph for a bridal shoot with my good friend Scott Jarvie.  Afterwards, we headed over to Temple Square to take in the first session of General Conference and photograph the crowd around this great event.  Here are a few photos from the day, plus you can see my full set over on Flickr.

Thanks for stopping by.  Please see my full set over on Flickr.

You can also find me on twitter:  twitter.com/jeremyhall

PhotoCamp Utah 2009

In the last year I have grown to really enjoy the local photographer community in Utah.  Not only are there great opportunities to get out and take photos, but there are great people to run shoulders with and learn from.  I am happy to announce PhotoCamp Utah 2009 as the first of hopefully many photography conferences in northern Utah.

In the last year I have had the opportunity to help some local photographers organize events for Photowalking Utah and Utah Strobists, and visited a few other outings along the way.  There are other groups I hope to visit soon because there is so many great people to meet and associate with.  The people are amazing in their willingness to share in their knowledge and passion for photography.  It is the people I meet and networking with fellow photographers that makes these events so valuable to me on top of the opportunity to get out and take photos!

Thom Allen, an organizer for PodCamp and other conferences suggested it would be great to put on a photography themed conference in the camp theme, and thus the PhotoCamp Utah ideas started brewing.  I was very excited for the idea and jumped at the chance to help put it together.  I am excited for the schedule of awesome speakers that have stepped up to present – I plan to hit every class I can to get the most out of the day myself!

Photocamp Utah is not tied to any one photo club or group; in fact, we have been reaching out to every group we can think of to invite their involvement.  PhotoCamp is all about everyone in the photography community getting together for learning, fun, networking and inspiration.

Everything has been coming together so well, from the volunteers helping with the organization to the speakers sharing their expertise.  A big help in making this event happen was Peter and East Bay Studios offering up their facility for the event.  A perfect location with everything we need to put on a great show!  Sponsors are starting to line up with great donations for giveaways.  It is all coming together in a big way!

If you are in Utah and have yet to register, get on over to PhotoCampUtah.com to check out all the details and get registered.  You can see the growing info on the Schedule of Events for the day, including new info on speakers just added later today and with more to come!  Seriously, don’t miss this awesome day.  The cost is only $10 for the entire day, all of which goes towards the expenses of putting on the event.  This is a not-for-profit event BY local photographers FOR local photographers.

On one last note for this post, I am going to let a little exciting info leak out…

Smugmug was one of the first sponsors to commit to the event, and they did in a big way.  Get this: along with some cool swag they are sending out, from camera straps to stickers, every PhotoCamp Utah 2009 attendee will receive 50% off a Smugmug membership of their choosing.  Depending on which membership you choose, that is $20 t0 $75 in savings!  On top of that, Smugmug has donated 10 1 year PRO memberships to be given away at the event.  How cool is that!  Not only do you get an amazing day for cheap, you will get your money back and then some!

Have I sold you yet?  I hope so!  Get on over to the site and see what this is all about.  Get registered and tell your photography friends to do the same.  Seating is limited, so reserve your seat right away!

Kati & Kyle in studio

I realized that I had posted the second set from my photo shoot last week on Flickr but never over on this site.  Whoops! Sorry about the delay.  I really haven’t been keeping up with my blog posts as well as I should lately, mainly because I still would like to switch this site to a domain associated solely with my photography.  I have enjoyed the whole WGG/WGS thing, but I think it is done and time for me to retire to a simple photo blog.  One of these days I’ll get it done.

As mentioned previously, after shooting outdoors we retired to Mark’s indoor/basement studio for some further photography.  Kati & Kyle were as photogenic as ever and provided some good practice for me to see how Mark’s lit the scene for this high key background & subtle shadow/reflection.

A few other selected shots from the shoot:

Kyle in studio - "Hero" pose

Kati in studio

Kyle in studio

Kati & Kyle in studio

Kyle in studio

I hope to get out on more short/impromptu shoots in the near future.  I find the more I shoot, the more I find creative opportunities popping up all around me.  I have to balance my life of course, but I find I am driven to spend more of my available time in photography.  It’s fun having something I enjoy doing that I can do so freely.

Love Story

I had a great time this week on a photo shoot with Kati, Kyle and Mark, assisting and doing a little shooting myself.  Mark had a cool abandoned house by where he lives that they wanted to try out, and Kati & Kyle were available to model. I was happy to be invited along to be a part of the shoot to see how they all worked together and catch a few shots myself.

We tried a variety of locations and poses, primarily using a diffuser and reflector to help balance the light.  Kati & Kyle have modeled together before and were naturals in front of the camera.  I always say, it’s easy to take photos of beautiful people!

Afterward we headed back to Mark’s home studio and did some seamless shots, which was great for me to see how he set up his lights as well.  I’ll post some from the indoor session tomorrow.

Thanks for the great outing guys!  Here are a few other photos from the shoot:

Focus

Kyle

Kati & Kyle

Love Story 2

Kati & Kyle

Kyle