It’s always fun to look back at your work over the course of an entire year. Time flies by so fast! Obviously, since we are now one week into 2010 I am a little behind on my best of 2009 post, see what I mean about time flying. When I look back on 2009, even though the economy was in the tank and the year started out pretty rough, I would have to say 2009 was one of the best years ever. I can’t really explain it. But I felt like my photography and the direction I want my career to go turn a giant leap this year. I really enjoy teaching. I really love doing workshops, I love shooting environmental portraits and I love lighting. More than any of that though, I love my family and I enjoy every second I get to spend with them. Having two absolutely brilliant and perfect kids and the most amazing wife to home to everyday really makes me a better photographer, a better person and I wouldn’t be where I am today without them.

That said, picking my favorite photos from the year is damn hard! I shot about 150,000 pictures and a ton of hours of video over the last 12 months. My original edit for this post had over 150 pictures! A photographer is his own worst editor however, so I tired to narrow it down to 40. I picked a few of my favorites from each month of 2009. These are maybe not the BEST picture from any given shoot, but they are the ones I liked the best. Maybe it was the work involved to create it, maybe its the story behind it, maybe its just I think its a pretty picture. Click the continue reading link below to see my favs, month by month and get a little back story with each image. And please, give me your feedback, good and bad, it’s comments from my clients and photographer friends that help make me a better photographer.

JANUARY

This photo was shot for an ad for the Broadway Rose Theatre Company’s production of “Patsy Cline” The idea was to make her look like she was singing on stage so we lit up a curtain and let Sara-Catherine do the rest.

This was my absolute favorite shoot of the year. Hands down. This photo is nothing special, but the process to create it is what I like about it. I shot this for Nutrilite, a natural vitamin company down in Orange County. The idea was to create a brochure showing the company visitor center. So, we hired models and hauled in a bunch of lights and shot all day. I love doing big shoots with Art Directors, models, big sets and lots of pressure. The lighting setups were tough and had to be done on the fly in multiple locations around the building all in one day. The shoot took about 12 hours and I had a blast.

FEBRUARY

2009 was also the year of the video. New cameras that shoot both stills and video hit the market and I was quick to jump on it. In February, my good friend Jessie was married and she hired me to shoot it. As a surprise for her, and practice for me, I also shot a video and this is the finished product. It was just my second video and I still like it and stil have a lot to work on when it comes to that. I am looking forward to doing a lot more video production in 2010.

MARCH

The month started with a trip to Sacramento to cover a wedding. I love shooting wedding’s and this is one of my favorite images of the year.

March is also the month I learned that people actually care what I have to say! I wanted to hold a lighting workshop for local photographers to help people out with off camera light. I sent out an little email and within 24 hours over 50 people said they wanted to listen to me run my mouth. I was humbled for sure. This image was from that first workshop.

I shot this image of Portland City Commissioner Randy Leonard for a local newspaper cover story. We wanted to shoot him showing City Hall in the background so I setup my lights in the little park across the street…little did I know that it was a Federal Park and within two minutes of setup I had Homeland Security SUV’s pulling up asking me what I was doing. Kinda funny. They let me do the shoot and the paper ran a totally different photo that I really hated and looked like crap. So now you can see the good one.

APRIL

Another Broadway Rose Promo. This time for the show “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”

I have been shooting for the Portland Timbers and Portland Beavers at PGE Park for the last 4 or 5 years and every spring they bring me in to shoot portraits of the players for ads and programs, etc. It’s always a lot of fun.

In April 2009 the Trailblazers made the playoffs for the first time in a long time and my job during game 2 was remotes. I setup 4 cameras in various angles around the Rose Garden. This photo of LaMarcus Aldridge dunking was from a floor remote. I love it and have tried to recreate it with a floor remote at about 15 games this season and have not been even close.

MAY

I shot this photo at the end of a long photo shoot for MotoSport. We spend most of the day shooting inside for the catalog cover and then I wanted to mix it up a little so I threw some lights in the back of the truck and made an image I really like.

When the bride says, “Hey were are going to go to a dive bar and sing some karaoke, wanna come?” at the end of a wedding, you say yes! It’s not everyday you see something like this!

JUNE

June is the kickoff the the crazy busy season. With engagement sessions and baseball games and wedding’s, its a crazy month. I’m always looking for fun places to shoot and having an engagement session at the Rose Festival was awesome.

One of the things I love about this job is getting to go places and see things I normally would not. This Church in Mt. Angel, OR was one of the coolest buildings I have ever been in.

I’m not sure why I like this image, it’s just a headshot in the studio, but I think it’s because I like the light and pose and look and it just works for me.

As I said earlier, I spend a lot of time at PGE Park in the summer. While shooting I met the fiance of Jon Ellis, a pitcher for the Beavers. They hired me to come to the ballpark and shoot engagement photos of the two of them. Makes perfect sense, if you play baseball for a living, you’ll want some photos in a ballpark.

Sometimes, cool pictures happen in unexpected places. This was not the intended location for this shoot, but, I couldn’t resist the hillside full of flowers. You can’t tell, but is raining, the hillside is super steep and I’m standing on the roof of my truck to get a good angle. Totally worth it.

My little brother was in the Marine Corps for 8 years. 6 of those years spent overseas in one country or another, including part of 2009 in Iraq. I was down in San Diego for a shoot and wanted to take a cool photo of him. He actually hates this photo and will probably call me to take it off the blog once he see’s it on here, but I like it, so screw him. We shot this on the back patio of his apartment with 4 speedlights at about midnight one night.

JULY

A tandem bike and sparklers?!? Need I say more? Coolest exit of the year.

At a wedding I always have one eye on the action and one eye on the sky, when the sky is just right I like to grab the bride and groom for a quick portrait. Only takes about 2 minutes, this one is my favorite from last year.

The thing I remember most from this wedding is that it was right around 167 degrees outside. In the shade. My sweat was sweating. But even though it was the hottest day of the year, everyone still had a great time and I like this fun picture.

Another mid season Timbers shoot. This time, I wanted to challenge myself to not use any lights and not shoot on the field, so I brought just one lens and one reflector and came up with this. It’s one of my favorites for sure.

AUGUST

Another crazy hot day, I had an assignment from a construction magazine to shoot a cover for the story about contractors “working hard and getting nowhere fast”. So, we drug a treadmill out to a construction site and had this poor guy jog for a bit until we got the photo.

My 4th and I think my favorite/best video of the year was shot in August at Zenith Vineyards in Salem.

It sounded like a good idea in my head when we scheduled the shoot and it was 103 outside. Jumping into the Willamette would be fun! But when the shoot day came, it was 50 and cloudy and cold. But, clouds make great photos and no lights fell into the river while we extended them 5 inches from the water plugged into power packs. What could have possibly gone wrong there? She jumped in, braved the frigid waters and we had our picture 2 minutes later.

I can’t believe I have gone this long without a picture of my kids! Well, here you go. My little man loves baseball and I shot this photo while in Bend at my friend Rob Kerr’s house. I love his perfect stance and left handed swing and great backlight. I’ll cherish this photo for the rest of my life. The little man turns 2 on Monday.

SEPTEMBER

Sometimes you get lucky.

In September I held my 4th lighting workshop of the year. This time at the Japanese Garden. The Garden supplied the models and wardrobe and awesome location and once again, people came out to listen to me run my mouth about light. A really great time.

Olivia and Hans brought me down to Carmel, CA in September and we made this photo at dusk with a couple of speedlights. One of the most fun trips I made this year. Carmel is a beautiful place.

My production manager Liz loves desaturated photos. I never really did, but this one works for me. And he has the same shoes as Carter, which I found amusing.

OCTOBER

You didn’t know that in the off season Santa worked on his MX skills? He was kind enough to let me shoot him in October for the MotoSport holiday catalog cover.

Ok, can’t post one kid and not the other. She turned 5 this year and is basically my twin. We think and act the exact same. I love it!

NOVEMBER

In November, I shot Taylor Swift’s twin, also named Taylor!

I also traveled to Guadalajara, Mexico to document Annie and Jose’s wedding, detailed a few posts down.

DECEMBER

Finally December. The month started off with the Civil War. One of the best games in the 108 year history of the game. The winner gets to play in the Rose Bowl and wins the Pac-10 Title. The Ducks won and this photo was picked up by USA Today.

In the middle of the month we had a cold snap, bitter bitter cold. 18 degrees for a week straight. Well, at least it was sunny which does not happen in Oregon in December very often. I was sent down to Eugene by Scholastic News magazine to shoot a cover. The story was about the schools “stop walk, talk” program aimed at helping kids avoid playground bullies. Setting up lights in the cold and getting 12 plus 8 year olds to hold still on a playground is harder than it looks!

Finally, my final favorite from 2009 was shot the last day of the year at a New Year’s Eve wedding. Thanks for looking at my work. I can’t wait to get rolling in 2010!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 at 10:59 am and is filed under Editorial, Other, Personal, Sports, Weddings, Workshops. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.