Solstice Outdoors-Ski and Snowshoe Rental Poster

Usually things slow down in the late fall and early winter. Portrait season has passed and it's still a little early for the good winter sports photo assignments in the mid-west. So in years past, it's been fewer photos and more sitting-around-reading, which isn't so bad. But this year I've been busy with a lot more graphic design work. I love this stuff. Here's a new poster I just finished for Katie at Solstice Outdoors to advertise their ski and snowshoe rentals. Anyone else out there needing some design?

Senior Portraits-Kylie

Had a great senior portrait shoot this past Wednesday in Ashland with Kylie. It was a fairly chilly out, but we still got some really nice things outside and Kylie did an awesome job looking warm and happy on a cold day. Then, after we lost the sun, we headed indoors for some more formal portraits. This was probably my last senior session of the season, and it was a great way to wrap up a busy year. It seems like everyone's images are due into the yearbook in the next week or two, so if you had a session with me earlier in the season and still need to choose an image to touched up for submission, let me know ASAP.

Senior Portraits-Jackson.

Hey everyone, meet Jackson. Jackson is a fairly eclectic guy. He's a bow-hunter, a fisherman, a runner, a snow board racer, a scuba diver, a fire fighter, etcetera etcetera. The list goes on. I feel like a total bum talking to this kid. Anyway, someone like Jackson deserves some unique senior portraits, so we put together a shoot that was a little different than most. From the start, it seemed that the universe was against us. There were cloudy skies and boat motors that wouldn't start and lost arrows. But we persevered and, after defaulting to a second day of shooting, we got some really great images. For me that's the fun part.

 

Joe & Greta.

After a couple crazy weeks including a trip to Voyageurs National Park, I'm finally processing photos from the last wedding of the season. Joe and Greta had a beautiful ceremony at Living Adventure, Inc. outside of Bayfield, Wisconsin, followed by an amazing dinner which promptly lead into a TOTALLY ROCKIN' DANCE PARTY (insert fist pump and high kick here. Yeah!) at the Bayfield Pavilion. Congratulations, you crazy kids.

 

FROST? Are you kidding me?

Yesterday morning was a particularly rough episode in my ongoing struggle to accept the end of summer. Frost. Really, Mother Nature? Was that entirely necessary. I'm not trying to tell you how to do your job, but that seemed a little over the top. Just because you can cause the untimely end of our garden doesn't mean you should. That's just mean. After we harvested everything that was even remotely ripe the other night in the freezing drizzle (thanks for that also) I took a few photos of this spicy thai pepper. Our neighbors Mike and Tonia, grew these in the garden this year. Pretty? Yes. Incredibly hot? Also, yes. About a week ago, Mike double-dog dared me to eat one, and of course if someone double-dog dares you to do something you pretty much have to. So I did. Let me just say that I didn't realize that the human tongue could sweat, but I'm pretty sure that's what was happening. I will now be using this little guy as a heat source.

More Photos.

 

A few more recent photos. Above, a headshot for friend Noah Siegler, Artistic Director for StageNorth in Washburn, Wisconsin. This was just a quick headshot after shooting some images for a play poster. Not sure if the play has been announced yet, so I'm not going to spill the beans here, but keep an eye out for that soon. This was also a first experiment with using an extension tube to get a shallower depth of field for a portrait. A little harder to nail the focus than with just the normal lens, but I kind of like the look. Watch for more experiments with that in the near future. Below, my favorite frame from a weekend shoot at Ashland Yoga Studio. Check out their new fall schedule, lots of great classes going on. September's shaping up to be a pretty busy month. Watch for more in the next couple weeks, including something competely different in the beginning of October.

Family Portrait.

First let me say thanks to the Sandor Family. They were great to work with for this shoot at the beach in Cornucopia, Wisconsin. Super relaxed and flexible, even if not everyone was quite up for pictures. Thanks also for letting me use you as an example.

Okay. Family portraits can be tough. I think they're one of the hardest genres of photography to do really well. Especially with little kids. It's a lot of factors to deal with all at once. Sometimes you get lucky and everyone looks the same way at the exact same moment and smiles their biggest, happiest smile and you get the photo and you're all set. But sometimes, no matter what you do, not everyone is on the same page. It happens. We all have those days (in fact, I might be having one right now, but that's a different story). That doesn't have to mean the shoot is a loss though; you can still come away with some great images. It just means you need to re-imagine the photos you planned to get. And that's the biggest challenge. Once you have a concept mapped out in your head it's hard to walk away from it, but sometimes it's necessary. Sometimes you have to step back and find another route to the same destination: great photos. For the shoot with the Sandor's that meant abandoning the formal family photo and changing to a less formal arrangement like the more candid images below. It's different, but in the end I think everyone was happier. Watch for more.

Holy Sh*t, it's September.

Can you believe this, people: it's September. This weekend is frickin' Labor Day. LABOR DAY. That's the end. Finito. Done. Summer=Over. What the hell happened? Wasn't it June 1st like three and half days ago or something? Where did it go? Rough estimate, I only did 2.83% of the things I wanted to do this summer. I'm no math-stronaut, but I can tell you those odds aren't very good. Here-to-fore, I am annexing September into the canon of summer months. June, July, August, September. There, more summer. That feels better. Your welcome, everyone. Enjoy.

P.S. The little fellow up top has been hanging out on our window screens the last couple nights. I like him. I've named him Renaldo. The photo was taken at night using two headlamps from opposing angles. Same thing with the wasps below. Except they don't have names. I don't like them.

 

Senior Portraits-Adam.

 

One of my favorites from a senior portrait shoot last week with Adam in Washburn. Headed to Michigan again at the end of this week, then I'm back for more shoots in the Chequamegon Bay Area. Lots more of these to come during the end of this month and the beginning of September. If you still need to book a senior portrait session for this season give me a call soon, the calendar is getting pretty full. Enjoy the last couple weeks of summer, it's going fast.

August. The first half.

Another crazy month, another random sampling of images from recent shoots. I've had a little more interest in some of my wildlife work lately, so I've been keeping an eye out for a few more opportunities in that category (i.e. Bald eagles carrying fish and that sort of thing, a "right place at the right time" kind of shot that I caught last week during lunch). This month has been insane though. All over the map literally and figuratively. In between shoots, I'm also pulling together a calendar for a handful of photography workshops that I'll be teaching in the fall. Watch for the schedule to be posted here in the next few weeks and sign up early, the classes fill really fast.

This shoot was a major flash back to working for newspapers, something I used to do more of a few years back. The client needed an environmental portrait of Dr. Nehring, a dentist in Mercer, Wisconsin, but he's super-busy this time of year and only had about 10 minutes in the middle of a day to give us a photo op. That's tight, but doable. So I got everything set up for a shoot in this operatory while he finished a root canal in the room next door. I even had someone else sit in for a few test shots to make sure everything was dialed in. Once Dr. Nehring was finished next door he popped in smiled and we got the shot in a few frames (turns out dentists are pretty good at turning on the smile, didn't need much direction on that). Nice and quick. He was already back in gloves and a mask before I was out the door with my lights. Surgical strike photography. It took about five times as long to get there and back as it did to shoot, and we came away with a great image. Thanks to Charmaine and Jess, who both helped put this one together.

And another shot from a night at the Big Top Chautauqua. This is from the house show "Ladies of the Canyon." Four lovely ladies and the Blue Canvas Orchestra performing the music of Joni Mitchell, Mama Cass, Carli Simon and others. Pretty amazing. Next up, senior portraits. Lots of 'em. Watch for more.

Back Home.

Wow. It's been a busy couple weeks. But I'm home again from shoots in Georgia and then Michigan. Here's a random sampling of images from the last couple weeks. Some catalogue photos, some portraits sessions, and finally some dive photos on a couple of shipwrecks in Lake Huron. All in all a pretty random assortment of shoots, but what is it that they say about variety being spicy? Or is it life that's spicy. I always forget. You get the idea. Either way, I love this job. Stay tuned for more.

Nori.

This post could also be called Breaking Sh*t...and then learning how to fix it. Okay, let me start by saying that I had two shoots scheduled yesterday. The first one early in the morning got rained out, which is fortunate because while I was setting up for it (pre-cancellation), I totally smoked an important piece of equipment on the ground and busticated the power switch. Bummer. This is where being a little handy pays off. (P.S. the top photo is from the second shoot yesterday, that's Nori, keep reading to find out more about her.)

So, this thing is the battery pack for a portable mono block light that I use pretty much all the time for outdoor portraits. It's not super expensive, but it's expensive enough that I don't really want to buy another one. Not to mention, I couldn't buy another one in to time for the evening shoot; It's not exactly a regularly stocked item. Case in point, when I brought it in to Radio Shack I had to first explain what it was before they could help me out. Explanation complete, there was some chin scratching and some rifling through drawers before they hooked me up with the switch that I needed and I started playing mad scientist for a little while.

Now, the new switch wasn't exactly the same size, shape, or orientation as the old one. In fact nothing about it was the same except the voltage/amperage something rating, but I set about fanoogling it all into working order. After a few blue flashes, some quiet cussing, and a little bit of quality time with a screwdriver, I managed to install the new switch. Is it pretty? No. Does it work? Yes. Did I need to cancel my second shoot for the day? No. Mission: Successful. Now I just need to remember not to drop it again. Here are the extra/broken parts I had left after I put it back together: (I don't even know what the zip tie was doing in there before I took it apart. Hopefully nothing important, cause it's not doing it anymore. Weird. But not bad considering I had no idea what I was doing.) I'll say it, I'm proud of me.

Okay, so Nori. Nori is a totally rockin' fiddle player from Ashland, Wisconsin. She's just starting to hit the regional music scene and she was needing a few head-shots. She's also working on a new album which will also need some photos and judging from what she was playing during the shoot, it's going to be awesome. So, we put together a little shoot down by the lake that gave us several different settings in one little area. Combined with a perfect evening it worked out great. Here are a few more:

Flowers.

I had a little time yesterday afternoon to get out the old camera, slap on a macro lens and putter around in the yard for a while. It's a pretty sweet time of year to be out, lots of great things in bloom, and this is probably my last chance to play around for a while. July (which for your information starts THIS Friday. Holy Crap) is shaping up to be a ridiculously busy month with shoots scheduled in Michigan and Georgia along with a couple really cool projects in the Washburn area. Watch for some sweet new posts mid-month. Now I'm not saying anything more. You can't make me. You'll just have to check back and see for yourself. Gooooo, Summer!

New shoes, old skateboard.

 

I did it. I got new shoes. For those of you that know me, this is a big move. Epic even. The planets finally aligned (sort of literally) and I went down to Solstice Outdoors Monday afternoon to get some sweet new kicks. I've had my eye on these Patagonia Boaris shoes pretty much since Solstice opened. I looked at these every time I was in there, but I held off...until Monday. Mostly, I was worried Katie would sell out of my size during their Solstice Sale yesterday. But there were also other factors at play.

You see, I've been needing some new long-boarding shoes for a long time (I know all you purists are shaking your heads and saying you shouldn't long-board in shoes, but I'm really bad at it and rocks really hurt, so mind your own frickin' business, huh?). And since June 21st was also "Go Skateboarding Day", I thought "the time has come." So I pulled the trigger and just got 'em. In celebration of the new shoes and the skater-holiday and the summer solstice and the fact that we now have a sweet outdoor shop where you can actually get stuff like this in Ashland, I had to put together this photo.

See a few more versions of the same concept and check out how I did it below:

**Disclaimer: Taking photos like this is a really efficient way to destroy expensive camera equipment in a fraction of a second. Trust me I have a box of mangled camera pieces from other stupid ideas to prove it. But the pay out on these kinds of gambles can be totally sweet photos. And isn't that the whole reason to have a camera anyway? If a cameras going to die, shouldn't it go out doing what it loves? Still, try this at your own risk.

Step Uno: Drill a hole in your long-board deck. What's that you say? You don't want to drill holes in your stuff? It takes guts to attack your personal possessions with a whirling power tool. Sadly, not everyone is cut out for this project. If you're feeling uncomfortable, maybe you should take up origami or checkers instead.

 

Step Deux: Mount a ball-head onto a bolt fed through the hole. Add washers to prevent potentially tragic loosening mid-skate. For the ultra-cheap version you can mount the camera directly to a 1/4-20 bolt through the hole (and tighten a stopper nut against the deck to stop if from twisting), but you sacrifice the range of motion.

Step Three: Mount camera with cable release to ball-head. Aim, manually focus and lock it in place with gaffers tape to prevent zoom-creep. Zoom-creep is when, due to vibration or gravity or both, the lens inadvertently changes focal length. Some lenses have a lock switch to prevent this, but a little tab of gaffers tape does the same thing.

 

Step IV: Set the exposure for desired depth of field and/or motion blur based on ambient light conditions. You may want to do this with a grey card as the black grip tape and dark asphalt may give you a misleading exposure reading. Take a few tests before you start rolling and check the histogram to make sure you're on the money (for example, as the histogram reveals the image shown below is not on the money, too dark.)

Step 5: Get to scootin'... and try really hard not to crash. Push the button. A lot. Process and serve with cold beer. Happy new shoes/Go Skateboarding Day, America.