Emotional connections of the family

When you choose a wedding photographer, you will want great pictures of yourselves, but you also want tender loving relationships preserved for your memories. Make sure your photographer understands how important the other people are in your life.

Above is a picture of a "wedding photographer" The bride loved this picture of her brother at the reception.

Jessica's grandmother was so sweet and you could feel the love and respect she had for this grand lady.

This photo is a great contrast, in multiple ways. The solem temple and the irreverant girl, the light of the temple and the dark legs, also the straight up and down of lines of the building and the angled lines of her stockings. I hope this photo is not to irreverant. I just wanted to play with the extreem contrasts co-existing here in Utah.
Here are some other pics from the previously mentioned shoot:

Unconventional model

I was fortunate enough to find a model with an unusual look and a sense of humor. While I was looking for someone to model in a wedding dress, Andrea offered to model for me. We went to Temple Square and to Memory Grove. Here are some of the pictures.

She's so confident!

A good photo is always waiting to happen. You have to be ready and watching. I blurred out the background here by having a long focal length and a wide open lens. This girl was playing soccer with her dad as we waited for our boys soccer practice. The colors are warm and the whole photo has a feeling of ease and peace. The girl is beautiful and waiting for the sunlight to hit her just right makes this one a keeper. Magic photos happen when you are set-up and prepared.

Bones, an unexpected find

I went for a bike ride yesterday morning and a little north of
4500 South I saw a path of into the woods and decided to take it. I only rode about 3 or 4 hundred feet when the path got to rough to ride and I got off my bike and started walking. I ran across a pile of bones. It looked to me like the bones of a mule deer, but I am no expert. The shade from the trees created a lot of contrast and I found this bone sitting in the sun. I thought it would be a nice subject for my new SMC Pentax FA 50mm F1.4 lens. I wanted to see what kind of bokeh it has. It is a nice one. I got a little color fringing so I will have to experiment with that and see what I have to do to reproduce that effect so I know how to control it. I have a couple of other nice shots demonstrating this lens' bokeh. You can find them on my flickr page: FLICKR

This young lady was part of a photography class doing some shooting at Gardner Village. As a photographer, I love the whole recursive cycle. I think that much of good photography of people is much like nature photography. It is great if you can get your backgrounds or foregrounds to give you context, but not distract. Also, having some physical distance from people lets them function less subconsciously and be more natural. Controlling the depth of field also helps pull the focus to the subject. These kind of pictures are wonderful at weddings because the emotion is gentle and tender and the beauty of the subject is so natural.

Hannah is the love of my life. Well, okay,
one of the loves of my life. She is fun to photograph because she likes the attention and smiles, frowns or whatever I ask. Deep down (and bubbling out all over the surface) she is a creative soul. I took this picture of her just before she went to swim lessons, so I got her with good hair. Could any father have a more beautiful daughter? I just love this meditative look that she got. The open lens gave a nice dof and created all the soft blurry back ground, making her the center of attention.

Carson scowls at a doggie

Carson spots a medium sized dog. He had this great spontaneous scowl at the dog. A photographer always has to be ready. This kind of shot gets lost if you are fiddling with memory cards, or doing anything that distracts you from the subjects you are shooting.

Doing Child Portraits are the best fun you can have

This is Carson. I photographed his family a little while ago. We did this location shoot at a park in Murray Utah. He climbed up on this playground equipment and peered over the edge at the big drop down and that was all the further he was gonna go. Shooting kids is a blast because they do so many cute things and they don't care about you or your camera, so after a minute of looking at your camera, they just go about their business. Parents aren't so natural. I'll post some others of these kids. His sister was so cute too!

Environmental pictures

I received a request to allow the use of one of my photos in an environmental website. I think the purpose of the site is to make people aware of environmental issues. I am up for that, but I think that it is easy to use a picture to sell the wrong context. I believe that it is true that plant life in water can give us feedback about the environment. I am not so sure that this picture is an example of the problem that these people are trying to talk about. Here is the link to the site: http://www.nowpublic.com

Some more pics from Dave and Jessica's Wedding

Here are some more pictures from Dave and Jessica's wedding. I will meet with her this week to show her her pics. I'm excited to see her reaction.

Talia head shots

Talia is a voice student of my wife, Jill. Currently she is here at home in SLC for summer break from the Acting School at NYU. She was real easy to work with. I think this photo brings out her amazing eyes and makes the viewer feel connected. I will probably do my hair lighting differently next time.

It is time to do a self-portrait. I've lost 35 lbs and it is time to celebrate the new me. I'll think about a good idea first.

A couple of weeks ago I took some pictures of my family. This is one of David who is a very quiet competitor. He is patient and persistent. He has the most amazing red hair, with brown eyes.

He is a violin player, and does a pretty good job at it. He is working in book 5 of the Suzuki books. Not bad for an eleven year old.

I love the colors here and muted background that bring out the colors in his hair and his face.

My daughter Hannah has been playing the cello now for 2 years and is getting pretty good. While she is not ready for concerts yet, she loves to entertain you if you let her. She is very creative and a giving soul. I think this photo captures her introspective self. She has the most amazing red hair. I know I said that about David too. But they are both different and wonderful. I believe that good photography captures the unique qualities of an individual and draws your attention the the person.

This is my first blog post

So, I have a blog now. All I have to do is figure out how to use it, and find someone to edit my English. I am a photographer and musician. I recently photographed a wedding and I am looking for some more to build experience and my portfolio. The bride and the brides mom were very happy with their photos. That was gratifying. Here are a couple of the photos from Dave and Jessica's wedding.


I'm building a website and learning Dreamweaver. Right now I only have one page from this wedding, but by fall I hope to have a more interesting site.

My site address is: http://sparksartsmedia.com