The December desktop background image is here – finally! I’ve been waiting and waiting for some snow and miraculously, we haven’t had any! December in Colorado without snow is unheard of so I had to go back into the archives and pulled this shot of the Flatirons from last spring. Click on your monitor resolution below to view/save the image to your local computer. Enjoy!
The August desktop background image is here! The dog days of summer bring us the Flatirons – located near Boulder, CO. Click on your monitor resolution below to view/save the image to your local computer. Enjoy!
The June desktop background image is here! Another image from Rocky Mountain National Park in Estes Colorado. Click on your monitor resolution below to view/save the image to your local computer. Enjoy!
This past Saturday was the big day – my friends Jessica and Joseph got married. That in itself is big enough news, but I also had the privilege and honor of documenting the ceremony and reception. This would be my first wedding as the official ‘photographer’ and it very well could be my last! More on that to follow.
Anyone who knows me understands that I’m a prepare for the worst and hope for the best kind of guy. I spent a lot of time leading up to the wedding trying different techniques, ordering special diffusers, and generally making myself a nervous wreck leading up to Saturday. Photographing someone’s wedding is a serious responsibility and I would like to think that I treated it as such. There’s no chance for a do-over so you’ve got to get it right the first time.
My wife and I arrived at the location about three hours before the ceremony to set up and take some test shots of different locations and rooms so I would have a baseline from which to work. Going in to the event I was optimistically hoping to be able to shoot at f/5.6 at a shutter speed in the neighborhood of 1/125s at an ISO of no more than 800 (but I was secretly hoping to be able to shoot at an ISO of 400). After I set up a couple of softboxes and remotes, I fired off a couple of shots just to get an ambient reading on the available light. Houston, we have a problem. I realized I would be lucky to get 1/30s shutter speed at f/2.8 at an ISO of 800. This presents several problems. First, at 1/30s shutter speed, camera shake. Second, at f/2.8 I had minimal depth of field. Throw in the noise on my D300 at ISO 800 and I was quickly understanding that this was not going to be easy to pull off.
The show must go on however and I blindly (stupidly?) trudged forward. After getting a comfortable baseline for the groups shots after the ceremony, I sent my wife down to gamble (the wedding was held at a local casino). I started taking some filler shots. What’s a filler shot? I wanted to document some of the finer details that most people might not have the time to pay attention to so I grabbed my macro lens and proceeded to gather as much detail as I could. I then swapped to my fisheye and grabbed a few frames of the environment as a whole. Finally, I stepped outside and fired off a few shots of the exterior – it couldn’t hurt right? It was starting to get close to the ceremony so I headed back to the event center and started to get mentally prepared.
About 15 minutes before the ceremony, I made my second troubling realization of the night – there wasn’t enough light for auto-focus to work reliably. This one concerned me – quite a bit – because you can fix a lot of things in Photoshop but you can’t make a blurry picture look like it’s not blurry. And since I rely on my camera’s auto-focus about 99.999% of the time, well, lets just say I noticed that my palms started sweating just a bit. As I mentioned previously, going in I was hoping to be able to shoot at f/5.6 from a distance of 20 feet. With those settings I guessed I would have had about 2 feet of depth of field – plenty for close enough to be good enough. At f/2.8 though? I would be lucky to have a foot depth of field – maybe less. Needless to say, I was starting to second guess whether or not I would be able to pull this off but there were no other options available so I just had to suck it up and make the best of the situation.
The next thirty minutes were a blur. I rattled off over 400 shots and this is where all the hard work and practice of the previous five years paid off. I would check my LCD and histogram every 30 seconds and make sure I was at least “close” to a good exposure. Frequently I had to make changes on the fly and knowing exactly what change needed to be made, which buttons to push and to what degree to push them really paid off. I expected that a lot of the images I was getting were going to be junk, but I also knew I was going to have a handful – maybe more if I was lucky – that I would be able to work with. As for the ceremony itself? I’m sure it was lovely. I’ll have to confirm that with my wife. I was too busy trying to document the proceedings to be able to pay attention to what was happening around me.
After the ceremony finished, we ran through some traditional wedding shots. Finally, I was presented with something that wasn’t a Tim Wakefield knuckleball! The standard group shots went more or less as expected and they turned out OK – but really a little uninspired and boring if you ask my opinion. Needless to say, this is a wedding and people expect to see the group shots. I took a moment to catch my breath because I knew I had a few more difficult spots ahead of me.
I planned on making a wedding book for my friends and I had in my mind the cover and back cover shots that I wanted to capture, so I asked Jessica and Joseph to step out into the hall to grab those shots. Much to my chagrin the bride and groom were feeling it and we ended up spending close to an hour getting different shots and poses all over the casino! That last statement could be misconstrued. Don’t get me wrong, I was unhappy to be doing it, I was mentally going through all of the things that could go wrong and how was I going to overcome that. Thankfully, my wife came along and she took care of some of the minutia while I was able to concentrate on making the image. What is the minutia? The little things like making sure the brides hair is acceptable, getting lint off the grooms coat, pointing out the crappy background we were shooting against. Without her help, the images would have been a lot worse.
Finally, the reception. This was actually the most uneventful part of the evening. Sure there were some shots I had hoped to get during the reception, but logistics weren’t going to allow me to get them so I had to let it go. I for one was a little bit happy to have a break in the action.
Fast forward about two hours. As I moved the files off my memory cards and on to my computer, one of the memory cards threw an error during the process. Oh No! I’m not sure if I had a heart attack but I certainly know I panicked. It’s times like these I’m glad I’m an IT geek. I tried a couple of things and was able to get all of the images copied (and backed up). It was at this point that I realized that I had shot over 950 images in a 3 hour period. It was already 1AM in the morning so I wasn’t going to process them but I just had to browse through them and see how much work I had ahead of me post-processing. There were some real winners and some real losers. I ended up with over 100 solid images to work with. Only a 10% success rate but any photographer will tell you, a 10% success rate – especially at a one of a kind event like a wedding – is actually really acceptable.
What do I take away from this? For one, a whole new appreciation for wedding photographers! I expected a lot of hard work and a good deal of stress but this exceeded my expectations going in by quite a lot. Second, I didn’t understand why/how wedding photographers charge so much – but now I do! It was hard work. If you’re thinking about getting married and want to hire a professional photographer – pay the man (or woman) – they deserve every cent they charge. Third, I’m not always one for bigger, faster, better gear but I would have really appreciated a nifty fifty for this. An f/1.4 50mm lens would have been a godsend. Those two extra stops of light would have saved me hours in post-processing time – more than paying for the $439 price tag. My final realization from this? I have zero interest in becoming a professional wedding photographer. I’m thoroughly grateful for being given this opportunity. It’s just not for me. Please don’t interpret that to assume it was a miserable experience – it truly was an honor and a privilege, I got to help my friends out and I had a great time doing it. (just don’t expect me to say “yes” if you ask me to do it again) =)
My wife is a marketing guru and has been after me for some time to create some stock photography for her. Today was snowy and kind of blech so I set up a mini-light studio in our dining room and went to work.
First, I hung a crisp white sheet on the wall with some gaffer tape and set up my EZ Boxes with SB-600′s in them. I decided to use my Jr Poppers over the built-in Nikon CLS – my only justification was that I could. The two softboxes were set up on either side of the subject – one camera left and one camera right. The camera left flash was set to 1/4 power and the camera right was set to 1/2 power. Then, it was just a matter of dialing in my exposure to get these images – most of them were in the 1/125s and f/8 range (give or take a stop) and firing away. The lens I chose for these shots was my Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 Micro – it’s wicked sharp and always produces great images for me.
Sure, I could have gone with available light and tweaked the exposure compensation to get a pretty decent shot, but I wanted to use the lights to “nuke” the sheet. No matter how much ironing we did, there were still plenty of wrinkles. By throwing a lot of light at the sheet, I was able to accomplish two things. 1) The background looks pretty close to pure white and 2) you don’t see any wrinkles!
The only negative to the shots was I really wanted to get a set up shot of this but of course, I forgot about that until after I had already torn everything down. C’est la vie. Here are some more shots from this afternoon:
The city of Denver turned up their holiday lights on Friday night. We decided to make the trip into the big city on Saturday evening and have some dinner and see what our new town had to offer!
We arrived at the 16th Street Mall around 6PM and were greated by tens of thousands of white lites lining the mall. Many of the buildings were decorated in festive holiday colors as well. There was a wintery chill in the air, but I don’t think anyone noticed as they were too busy taking everything in.
As we made our way east along the mall, we noticed several decorated horse-drawn carriages. We were five this evening but maybe Tara and I will make another trip down for a carriage ride.
We were only a couple of blocks from the Capital and that’s a shot I’ve always wanted to get so we continued east. As we rounded the corner we were struck but the Denver City & County building lit up in blue, greens and red (above). We spent plenty of time on the mall capturing images and even witnessed a wedding photographer working with some happy newly weds in front of the building. What a unique photo that must have been!
I did manage to get some shots of the capital building. It wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for as it was two hours past sunset. The best time to capture nightscapes is about 15 minutes after sunset. The twilight skies are a deep dark blue and help add depth to the image.
After we had our fill of the mall, capital and county building, we headed back down 16th Street Mall and stopped at Marlowe’s Chop House and had a spectacular meal. The filet kabob was a little spicy, but I loved it!
The car ride home was real quiet as I think at least two of the riders were sleeping after a long, full day in our new home.
Saturday morning we drove about an hour outside of Denver to Georgetown – the Silver Queen of the Rockies. Georgetown is an old silver mining town with about 1200 residents and a quaint little historic district. First stop – Breakfast!
We ate at the Happy Cooker in the historic district. Great food. Great atmosphere. And Sarah, our server, was far too perky for that early on a Saturday morning. If you ever make it there, get the home fries – they are to die for!
After hitting a couple of the shops, we made our way to our real destination – the Georgetown Loop Railroad!. Tara had purchased tickets weeks ago for Santa’s Polar Adventure. Normally, the train stops running around Halloween but this year, they decided to have special holiday season trips themed around Cris Cringle himself. We boarded about 11AM and by 11:30 we had started chugging up the narrow gauge rails towards Silver Plume.
We were lucky. Conducter Dan (shown above) was on our train and was a font of historical information not only about the Georgetown-Silver Plume loop but train knowledge in general. This really made the father-in-law happy! Round trip, our journey only took about an hour but during that time we were treated to beautiful views, warm cookies and even Santa himself!
I tried something a little different with my camera during this trip – I turned my digital SLR camera into an expensive point-and-shoot by choosing all of the automatic settings that I could. Why? Well, this trip wasn’t about taking photos to be used for prints or stock photography. This was capturing family memories. With my camera in fully automatic mode, all I had to do was point it in the general direction and push the button. Easy Peasy. I like easy. Rest assured, the auto settings will be turned off – but maybe not until after are night-time trip to Denver.
Preparations for Thanksgiving in Colorado have begun! Since we’re somewhat out of our element, I’ve had to pick up the slack and figure out how to make some shortbread cookies. I’m sure they won’t be as good as those made by my Florida supplier Marie, but I’m willing to try. This is version 2. Version 1 was a C+. Version 2 looks to be about a B. I need to get these cookies up to “A” status by Thursday.
Yeah – taste testing is a tough job. But someone has to do it!!!
My friend Jenny’s cupcake business is really starting to take off. Her menu is burdgeoning with flavors and new tasty treates are being added daily. As such, she needs a photographer to help forge her online presence.
I headed down the the Perfect Serendipity megaplex this morning and spent a few hours capturing new creations and re-taking some shots of old tastes. As a bonus, I got to go to lunch with Jenny and James! I also helped create a postcard that she is going to be mailing out the masses next week. Fun stuff!
Oh, and I got to sample some of the sweets. I definitely have discriminating tastes and Jenny’s cupcakes pass with flying colors. Just don’t tell my wife that Jenny sent seven cupcakes home with me (there are only four left) =)
I’ve been on vacation all week. For the most part, I’ve done a whole lot of nothing! Well, that’s not entirely true, it seems like the days have flown by and it has been quite eventful around our house.
The week started off with our terminally ill beagle Sidney getting drastically worse. We knew that he had pancreatic cancer and we suspect his pancreas burst on late Saturday afternoon. There really isn’t much that can be done to cure this particular form of cancer. So while we were somewhat prepared for his imminent passing, it came far too quickly for both myself and Tara. On Sunday morning, we brought the little guy to the vet for the last time. R.I.P. little dude!
I spent quite a bit of the week working on both this website as well as learning, practicing and honing my small flash photography skills. An invaluable resource during this time was Kelby Training. Some people I know have used this and recommended it in the past, but being stubborn, I didn’t really pay attention. I wanted to beef up my Photoshop skills so I thought I would give Kelby Training a try and wouldn’t you know, I’ve spent over 10 hours learning about photography and off camera flash from the likes of Joe McNally! Kelby Training definitely rocks and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about photography or photo processing.
With the week winding down, I’ve also whittled my “to-do” list down as well, including raking all the leaves. I decided I better get some “fall” pictures or my wife would never forgive me. Some of these photos aren’t typical fall foliage orange, red and yellow, but I think they represent how I feel about fall. I love the change of season, especially in fall as it gets cooler out.
Still plenty to do this weekend as well. We’re planning to make a short trip up to Rocky Mountain National Park tomorrow morning and then I have a date with my friends Rachel and Greg. They purchased a great old farmhouse on the outskirts of town and they are letting me (cajoling me?) play in their barn for the afternoon! This could be trouble!
John is a freelance photographer in the Denver, CO. In his spare time, John instructs others in the art of capturing great images.
Understanding Exposure
Bryan Peterson
Within the Frame: The Journey of Photographic Vision
David duChemin
VisionMongers: Making a Life and a Living in Photography
David duChemin
The Digital Photography Book
Scott Kelby
The Moment It Clicks: Photography secrets from one of the world's top shooters
Joe McNally
