The King of Instruments

I had a few down moments earlier this week whille I was waiting for a client to change outfits and I spent some time exploring this beautiful instrument. This is the organ at Libby Gardner Hall at the University of Utah

Dancers from backstage

I shot these girls from the wings durring performance, and back stage. Sometimes I can arrange to shoot in a dress rehearsal and then I can have better angles to shoot from.

Team Photos

Team and Group photography is something that I am trying to get into. Today I got to shoot a couple of this team when they decided to shun the photographer hired by the rec center.
I'm keeping the official team photo of the net for a while, but here are some other fun shots.

The top photo happened just two seconds after the coach suggested that the boys hold hands with the girls. Boy o boy if those girls didn't scatter fast!!

Childrens Portraits

I had the lovely opportunity to photograph this family yesterday. Here are some of the photos of the children. They were very fun to photograph. Some of these are candid photos that were taken while getting other people ready to shoot.

Choir Photo Published on ChoralNet.org

I just went to one of my favorite choral web sites and the first thing I noticed was one of my photos being featured. It will probably only run for a week there before they refresh, but it is cool to see it published. For choral directors and musicians, a favorite site is choralnet.org

Olivia

Olivia is a vocal performance major at the U of U. She was very easy to work with. Her face is beautiful in motion. I tried to capture a sense of how animated her face is. So many of her photographs were so nice, that it was hard to whittle the pile down to just a handful. Here is that handful. I think it is so totaly awesome to spend an hour or two with someone and just focus on catching them at their best, and working to make them look good. Olivia made it easy.

University of Utah Singers

I had the privelage of photographing the University of Utah Singers last Sunday. They are a superb choir. Many members are friends of mine. I would give my left .... uh, anyway, I'd love to be able to sing with them for a year. Under the direction of Dr. Brady Allred, the choir tours and wins acclaim (and contests) all over the world. They are a beautiful group, but the real beauty must be seen with the ears.

Jazz Concert at OJH

So last night we sponsored a jazz concert at my school, in my classroom. We brought in the band Zone Azule. The place was lousy for taking great photos, but I have processed a couple of them that have turned out to look interesting, but sooc they suck.

Our Children

I had an unusual experience yesterday, one that made me take stock of my life and what is important. I have 4 beautiful children ages 9 to 20. As an adult we can get busy and forget to take the time to cherish the few short years we get to mentor these beautiful souls.

Yesterday morning I took my 3rd child, my eleven year old David, to the state soccer tournament. It was cold and a few snowflakes were falling as the boys went through their 8 am warm-ups. I was getting my self ready with my chair, camera gear etc. when I heard people calling me from the team side of the field. Not sure what they wanted with me I began to saunter over to the team bench and was directed to the corner of the field where I saw one of the coaches on the ground motioning for me to come over. I realized that there was a boy on the ground at his feet.

In an instant I knew who the boy was. It was David. My heart leaped because I also knew what had happened. When I got to them, David was shaking and his lips were blue. His eyes were rolled back and he was unresponsive. I no longer felt the biting cold of the morning as I tried to comfort my boy. David has had seizures three times before but this was the first time I actually witnessed the seizure. I wasn't panicked, but worried. I knew that he would get through it. I just held him and someone brought a blanket to keep him warm. In a few minutes he quit shaking and a few minutes later his eyes opened in a way that I could tell he was again aware of his environment. He was weak and would only utter the most basic responses to questions.

A seizure takes all his energy, his game day was over before the game started. But the awesome thing was the people around who offered care, concern and help. One parent was a nurse and she stayed with David until we were ready to drive away.

While David was going through this my whole world was centered on him. Not on feeling cold, or getting pictures, or any other care. I have been thinking about how I need to give more of that care and more focus of my life onto the lives of my children. I'm grateful that David is here. I have more days to love him and photograph him and to enjoy his special and unique character. I hope we can all remember to focus our lives on the people we love first.

Family Portraits are great Christmas gifts

Family Portraits are great gifts. Consider giving someone you love a portrait session for Christmas. My gift certificates are reasonable. The person or family you love will always keep and treasure the pictures from the portrait session you gave them.
tomsparks@sparksartsmedia.com

Rose Cornforth wedding

Emily and Charlton share their cake.





















Watching them, you could see how much they love each other.

A new color process.

I am working with a few new color processes now and I think I like this one. Let me know what you think. One of the beauties of working with RAW files is that I can show several options to a bride and groom and let them pick which ones they like best.
My email address is: tomsparks@sparksartsmedia.com

Charlton and Emily Wedding Pictures

Charlton and Emily had fun taking some of these pics. The picture of Charlton hugging Emily is just after a little fire happened as they were unwrapping a gift!

Cornforth/Rose wedding

Emily and Charleton had a lovely wedding yesterday. The weather ruminated all day, but by evening when the wedding began, the skys were clear. Emily was such a pretty bride and both she and Charlton had great smiles, and were so obviously in love. The Rose Sachs Garden was a beautiful setting too. These are a few of the hundreds of photos I took.