Climbing the Ladder

1/250" at f6.7. ISO 100
February 26th, 2008

In my current product and advertising class, one of the portfolio assignments is fashion photography. So, our group got together, Cristina set us up at her office (a high end bath and kitchen appliances showroom), Heather brought in a model, I put together a lighting setup andoff we went. The models name is Morgan Beckham and she was great to work with, she will hopefully joining us on our next shoot as well!

I'm particularly pleased with the this photo, I like the contrast of the black urn and tub, the rich dark wood, and the vibrant blue of her dress. I love the way the curves of her body echo the curves of the urn. She's giving a great look to the camera and what do you know... its another red head. This is a good month for red heads.

Golden

1/100" at f4. ISO 200
February 17th, 2008

Meet Lago, my favorite 7 year old career change guide dog. This past weekend we took a trip up to Tahoe where there are snow drifts up to my head. Lago, being a golden retriever, loves to hop up into them and play around in the snow. His favorite thing to do is to play catch with snowballs, which generally just means having snow explode all over when he slams his jaws shut on them.

I think this picture really shows his personality, a little bit of a dopey grin, flecked with snow that he's been gleefully playing in, focused one hundred percent on playing fetch. This dog is one of the most obsessive fetch players I've ever seen.

Oh, and one more little point of interest, Lago's my friend for another good reason, red heads gotta stick together!

First Job!

1/30" at f11. ISO 1600
February 2nd, 2008

A week ago, I got my first real photography job through my product and advertising class. Now I'm only a photographer as a hobby, I'm not trying to build a career out of it, but this was still pretty cool. I were working for the visitors bureau to take promotional shots of a couple local museums. This is one of my favorite shots of the days.

My first assignment was the Crocker Art Museum, they don't normally allow photography. So just as a little bonus to the day, I got a media badge and special access. The thing on the wall is a giant aluminum parabolic disc that all the kids like to look at. The lighting in the museum is terrible, but it gave me this great shot of a little boy in darkness.

My second assignment was the Towe Auto Museum. Its basically a giant warehouse full of classic cars. This particular car is a 1940 Lincoln Zephyr that's been hidden away for years. When the owner died, his granddaughter found it in storage and loaned it to the museum for display.



1/30" at f3.5. ISO 1600
February 2nd, 2008

Isolation

1/250" at f11. ISO 400
October 28th, 2007

I'm always into trying new things, especially ones that don't have a high likelihood of killing me (skydiving, bungie jumping, croc wrestling). In January, I thought I'd take advantage of the large snow storms we've been getting and try cross country skiing and snow shoeing. I can say without a doubt that I prefer the snowshoeing. Cross country skiing just seemed to be too much work for too little fun.

At any rate, I called up my old friend Cari who loves to hike, and off we went to the mountains to try and break a trail through the snow. Except we aren't crazy, so instead we took a trip to a ski resort of 80 kilometers of trails. We mostly stayed on the trails, though a few times, like a picture above, I wanted to capture a sense of isolation. We slogged out through snow that ranged from ankle to thigh deep to get to a half frozen creek running through the forest. It was beautiful out there, and I'll definitely be going back!