What’s Gotta Stay

In my post yesterday I highlighted a few photos from our company outing where I shot a lot of candids of the day where we all had fun. One of the photos was of my co-worker and his young daughter enjoying the waterfront, as most little kids love to do.

The shot was a candid like the rest, shot with my versatile Sigma 50-500 lens. Because it was so bright, and the limitations of the lens, most of the entire scene was in focus. Unlike a portrait setting, I didn’t think about distracting elements in the background and just dealt with the lighting conditions as best as I could.

They loved the shot, and want to print & frame it, so I decided to play with a little post-processing to see if I could improve the image. I had read and seen examples of people using the Alien Skin Bokeh plugin to blur the background, so I downloaded the trial version to see what I could do with it (versus doing it by hand). After learning the various settings & options I was pretty happy with the results. Adding in a few “content-aware” and patch tool edits to remove distracting elements, the end result is what you see above. I was pretty happy with the results of just a few minutes of edits.

I was happy with how easy the tool was to use. I made a selection of the dad & daughter before entering the plugin, then used the “planar” setting to do a foreground to background blur emulating an 85mm f/2 DOF.

For comparison, here is the original photo again. Quite a difference.

Tags: bokeh, edit, post-processing

Yesterday we had our annual company party/outing, and this year they decided to do a water fun day on Deer Creek Reservoir (Utah). We had a boat plus 4 wave runners for the afternoon plus all the junk food you could handle plus a great mexican dinner. If it is any measure of how much fun was had, my kids rated this “even better than Lagoon” which since they love Lagoon, that’s saying something.

I’m not sure if everyone necessarily likes me having the camera in hand on days like this, but I think their resigned to the fact that I will It’s always fun for me to try and capture the expressions and fun situations of events like this. Here are a few favorites from the day.

All of these photos were taken with the Sigma 50-500 lens, which was great for reaching out into the activities on the water. My only regret was forgetting my monopod to help hold that beast steady when fully zoomed!

Tags: company, efn, family, water

It’s that family portrait time of year! Actually I usually am much busier with family portraits closer to fall, but I have had quite a number of requests much earlier this year. I really enjoy working with families and trying to make portraits they will be happy to display on their walls and treasure for years to come.

This session was the extended family of an old friend that came into town last weekend. He thought last minute of getting in touch with me and seeing if I could do their family photos. I was happy I could juggle my schedule a bit and make it work!

This location is Cedar Hills Heritage Park, Utah, which ended up being a bit busier than I had hoped with kids playing in the river & families lounging about. It was tough to find some angles without people in the background, but we made it work.

As usual, here are just a few from the session I thought I’d share. Hope you enjoy & if you are interested in family portraits in the Utah area, let me know!

Tags: family, portrait

Recently I had the opportunity to do conduct a portrait session for the extended family of some friends. They wanted a mountain scene as one of the looks for their group shot, but also welcomed some variety for options and for the sub-families. One of my favorite places locally for this kind of look is American Fork Canyon, specifically the Tibble Fork. Within a few miles you can find a variety of looks, from river to meadow to small lake along with the mountain range.

I always feel a bit more pressure when making portraits for family or friends as I want to do my best to give them the quality they are expecting, and hopefully exceeding those expectations. Here are just a few shots from the session showing this beautiful location and great looking family.

Tags: canyon, family, portrait

For those from Poulsbo, WA, nothing more needs to be said.

For the rest of the world, if you happen to visit the small Scandinavian town of Poulsbo, be sure to stop by Sluys’ Bakery for a little bit of sweet indulgence.

I had the opportunity to spend a day last week driving around my old hometown. What a flood of memories as I visited various places. I’ll be posting a few photos in the next few days from my solo photo walk/drive plus selected shots from my sister’s wedding.

Tags: poulsbo, sign

Taken at the Freedom Festival in Provo, UT on Saturday. Big thanks to the owner and pilot of this balloon Tim for taking my kids and I inside the balloon as it was filling with air. I only wish I had had time to get my wide angle lens on to get an even more dramatic view of this amazing scene!

Tags: freedom festival, hot air balloon

This last weekend I had the opportunity to make portraits of the wonderful Rapoza kids. Lately I have been doing many photo sessions in the American Fork Canyon with the beautiful trees & mountain scenes. We used a couple of locations and took a number of shots with all the kids and of course singles of each one. With seven kids that equals quite a number of photos! Here are a few previews of the session.

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This was a particularly tough shoot in the middle of some strong mid-day sun, but that was when we could do the shoot, so we made the most of it. Between a diffuser and a single speed light we were able to create some better scenes. I did leave this session thinking a lot more about getting or creating a much bigger diffuser like a Scrim Jim or Sun Swatter. Of course some big lighting for locations would be nice too – the wish list is never ending in the photography world!

Tags: family, portraits

This little one had just barely joined this world, having hatched barely before my being there. Huddled down in the rocks, I would have completely missed seeing this nest due to the perfect camoflague with the colors of the rocks. This little guy was obeying his insticts as well as mama telling him to hunker down and hold still. I was there shooting some portraits in the yard and the family had been keeping track of the nest and noticed one had hatched.

I snuck in a couple of photos but quickly left when the mama killdeer started complaining from a distance.

Tags: baby, bird

The city I live in, Pleasant Grove, Utah, has an annual week long celebration called Strawberry Days. It is a good old fashioned, small town agrarian festival full of family activities from baby contests to a PRCA rodeo. Downtown is transformed to a carnival that the kids enjoy hitting each year, full of booths, heart stopping food and of course the requisite rides.

I was able to steal away for an hour one night with camera and tripod to try and capture some long exposures. The rides are crammed into one city block street, but with some creative angles I was able to capture a few shots I was happy with.

Light trails are easy, just a matter of toying with the long exposure to match the setting. A tripod is a must, so with the crowds you have to find a suitable position and watch the legs from getting kicked by the crowd, but I found most people to be very kind about watching out and actually interested in what I was doing.

Here are a few other shots that I hope you enjoy.

With this next shot I didn’t find the ride to be all that interesting in motion, only forming basic lines. Instead capturing the ride while stationary had some cool stars from the aperture blades of at f/22.

This last weekend I had a great time in sunny Phoenix, Arizona with the responsibility of photographing a wonderful wedding. I have a ton of photos to work through, pick the best and do the processing to make them look as good as possible. I figured I’d share a couple of photos for a “sneak peak” of what I was able to capture.

Thank you for entrusting me to document your special day.

EDIT: Forgot to point out how happy I was with the low light performance combo of my 50mm 1.4, 5D Mark ii and Lightroom 3. The top image was taken in very low light conditions without any flash. Shot at 5000 ISO, f/2.8 and with some noise reduction the image turned out very usable despite the conditions!

Tags: reception, wedding