It amuses me whenever someone walks over while I’m working and asks what camera and lens I’m using. I always oblige because I love what I do and enjoy talking about my life and craft. The person asking the question will often say something like “Oh, wow. I’d love to have one of those” meaning my gear. Well, why don’t you? It’s just money, I tell them. They always look shocked when I say that: it’s just money. If you […]
A number of years ago I had the privilege of attending a workshop with a great inspiration of mine: David Alan Harvey. I came away from that week with a ton of important and subtle insight. One bit of wisdom was “Shoot everything”. This was not in the context of an assignment but in general life. If you see a beautiful scene or moment capture it! Even if there is no professional use for the image, especially if there is […]
This has been a long time coming. As you may have figured out, I’m all about telling stories. I’m driven to find elements of other peoples experiences and find a visual way to connect the viewer to my subjects. Yet at the same time, I personally get to go interesting places and see interesting things that are not directly part of my assignment work. I began to feel that these experiences, especially my love for adventure motorcycle travel, would be […]
Lately I’ve read a lot of articles and videos talking about lenses in the context of “interesting” and “boring”. I noticed that all of the lenses in the “interesting/beautiful” category were either very wide/very long or very wide aperture, i.e. F/1.4 or wider. Ok, I get it. Lenses like that create a perspective that is different than what we see with our eyes and as a result produce a perspective that unto itself gets notice either through the separation of […]
This was a shoot that I really don’t normally do. Almost all of the people that I photograph I would qualify as normal-ish but in some way exceptional. My subjects tend to live their lives based on what they know/skills or their talents rather than their image. Scientists, artists, maybe the occasional athlete, business people. They are not necessarily uncomfortable hanging out with me and being in front of my lens it’s just that they don’t do that sort of […]
Somebody told me once that the real trick to photographing the real world is patience. That if you stand in once place long enough something interesting will happen right at your feet. This is pretty much the basis of all documentary and reportage photography. Only you attempt to figure out where and when that interesting thing is likely to happen then you go there and wait. Street photogs know this too. Same deal. Find a target rich environment and get […]
Anyone who spends time with my wife and I know that we have a real, weird, thing for chickens. We totally love the funky little buggers. We think that they are cute, hilarious – especially their odd vocalizations, noble and super tasty when stewed with dumplings. We can be mid sentence in a very serious conversation but if we find one of those feathered guys in our vision somewhere we will promptly proclaim: “Chicken!” with a huge grin on our […]
It was super cool that Colorado Public Radio brought me and one of the couples from my Denver In Color book in for an interview the other day on race and the book. You can see the write up and hear the interview on the CPR web page here.
Mise en place (French pronunciation: [mi zɑ̃ ˈplas]) is a French culinary phrase which means “putting in place” or “everything in its place.” There was a discussion over at The Online Photographer where they were talking about their difficulty of losing memory cards. This baffles me how anyone who takes their photography seriously would be so sloppy with things like the management of their memory cards. No offense intended but it makes me wonder how people work/live without having put much thought into how they […]
Had an amazing time on assignment for the UK Daily Mail doing a piece on Travis Rupp a beer archaeologist working for the Avery Brewing company. You can read the whole story here.
Well folks it’s been a very long time coming but the whole project that I started way back is not only done but fully printed. The Denver In Color project is now available in book form and you can get it direct by clicking this link. The great people at our local TV station 9 News did a piece on the book that’s really well done. You can see it here:
I think that it was a natural extension of how I learned back in my landscape photography days that I’m much more interested in the small things than big picture. By that I mean that I’m not really one for the all encompassing wide shot. There is just too much information and except for certain compositions that are very wide it is designed in a way to let your eye naturally sweep through the scene to land where the real […]
Well folks meet my 2005 Suzuki DL650 V-Strom. I picked her up late last summer with the intent of using her, yes bikes are always female just as ships are, to help get me places that my trusty Honda simply won’t. For those of you not familiar with these things the Strom is what is referred to as an Adventure Touring bike. It’s essentially a street bike with the engine and suspension set up to be able to go off […]
I don’t know what it is but I seem to work in the dim a lot. Rarely do my assignments take me to where the light is bright, the sun is full and I have to deal with almost too much illumination. Rather I’m so often working in less than ideal light from a technical standpoint. This has always been the case it seems. Back in my early years shooting landscapes and nature everything was shot on slow chrome film […]
I have no problem admitting that I’m a bit of a behind the scenes (BTS) junkie. If you are in my office you will regularly see, if not the news, some sort of tutorial or BTS video playing on my secondary screen while I’m working on something else. This is because I want to not only be learning constantly but about all things possible. What has been really bothering me is that when photographers post BTS videos they so often […]
My work for the last few years has developed this neat-o split personality. I do portraits and I do reportage. Sometimes I get to do that for the same assignment which is to me very cool. I do a lot of business profiles and to me it’s important to not only make the head dude/dude-ette look cool but also, if at all possible to show the people who work there who don’t wear the fancy suits. When you realize that […]
I’m gonna tell ya, someone needs to make bounce houses large and tough enough so that us big kids can go nuts inside. Bounce houses are the perfect padded room to let your inner nut case out of his cage and let that freak go wild. I’m so jealous of those little fellas who get to play in them. Was at a place with one the other day and got this shot of Ruth, what a perfect grandma name, waiting […]
Wha? It’s the end of fall you dolt! True enough but let’s be nostalgic for a bit. I mean that’s all the rage innit? Here’s a frame that I got at the local end of summer fair. Not much to say here: I just like the framing and moment. The tool of choice here is my Fuji X100s. The perfect camera for invisible in plain sight work.
This is a little grab shot from my local bistro. There are a lot of little things going on that makes me want to know the rest of the story.
It’s not because I’m used to it, though I am after all these years, but the world is just so boring when seen from where my eyes are normally at. It’s painful really. As a result I constantly strive to find a different way of seeing things. Getting my camera away from my usual eye level is pretty much a given with me. Is it more interesting from the perspective of a five year old? A dog, a bug? Maybe […]