I’ve noticed a trend. People really like my staggered setup, multiple light group/team photos and it seems I’ve been asked to shoot them quite a bit lately, which is ok by me because they are fun to do. When Milwaukie’s coach called me up wanting to take a cool photo for the team, I said no problem. being a former Mustang myself, I always jump at the chance to shoot photos for my Alma Mater. Plus, they are literally 8 blocks from my studio, so the commute is good. :). When talking about setting aup a shoot time he mentioned they get done with practice at 7pm, which was perfect since sunset was 8pm. I thought it would be cool to shoot the photo away from the high school field and just a few blocks from the school (and my office) is a boat ramp/tiny little beach area along the Willamette River. I thought it would be perfect and it was. Again i used 4 Alien Bee lights and a couple of speedlights, using my now patented “gaff tape the crap out of the strobe and put it on the person’s back” method of getting light where I need it in the group. Here are a couple frames of the setup (that’s my stud intern Nick checking to make sure everything is firing):

I also video taped the whole shoot, Nick told me all the cool photographers video tape themselves and post it online and I want to be cool, so, once I figure out how to edit the video and such I’ll post it. Once again the Vagabond proved to be a true workhorse, firing all the lights without any problem. This time, I hard wired 3 of the lights together and fired three lights on one wizard, to free up pocket wizards for the speedlights. I need more pocket wizards!

After the team photo was done I pulled one of the seniors aside, he had booked with me to shoot his portraits next week, to make a cool photo of him for that. I basically used the same setup as the team photo, just had him stand close to the light I would use as a key and then by happy accident I got some nice fill from the other lights in the setup and it turned out nice. I’m happy.

I shot a group photo of a local law firm that will end up in Forbes Magazine. I didn’t want to take a boring group photo, so I was able to talk them into meeting me down at the Eastbank Esplanade to shoot against the city instead of in their office on SE Burnside. I wasn’t sure it was going to work out, when I talked with them a couple of days ago it didn’t sound like it was going to work, but when I arrived at the office today and was looking (unsuccessfully) for a place to shoot there, they said they were all for going to the river, so that was a huge relief for me. I setup 5 lights and my Alien Bee Vagabond was put to the test for sure. It worked like a champ, firing all the lights, most on full power, with no problem. Sure the recycle time was like 4 or 5 seconds, but when your on a boardwalk next to the river with no power in sight, you take what you can get.

These two areas are within 50 feet of each other, so I was able to get two pretty different looks in about 20-30 minutes, including moving all the gear and setting up in a new place. My intern Nick was the man, carrying two lights and a cart full of cases and getting everything set back up very quickly. Not quite sure which image I like better yet. What do you think?

Spent some more time on the road last weekend shooting a couple of fun weddings. The first (above) was in Junction City. It was hot. 103 with no wind hot. Groom getting dressed in a freezer hot (lower left photo). 90 at 10:30 at night hot. So hot, I think I was sweating just editing the photos. even though the heat sucked, the place was really nice and the sunset was amazing. every time I looked at the sky it was a new bright color, purple, orange, red it was really cool. I wanted to just do nothing but shoot that!

After the wedding Friday I hopped in the car and was never so happy to have A/C. I drove straight to the Oregon Coast and checked into a hotel around 1am in Neskowin. Saturday morning I woke up to a foggy beach and a cool 60 degrees, much more my style! Knowing it was 95 again back home I was so glad to be on the cool foggy beach all day! They had a great band and great friends and family that danced into the late night, and as with any wedding on a beach with a hot band, even had a few wedding crashers, which they welcomed with pen arms! Went back to the hotel around 11pm and woke up the next day very tired from walking in the sand all day long, but at least the heat wave was over when I got back home!

Took a few photos of my baby boy this morning, this one is my favorite. I think he saying, “Hey chubby, if you take one more photo of me I’m gonna knock you out!”

It’s that time of year again, I’m shooting 5-6 seniors a week right now. That combined with 2 weddings a week in August and I’m staying super busy. Here are a couple from today that I really like. Click on the image to see a larger version.

Here is the proofbook cover from the wedding I shot last weekend outside of Washington DC. The location was Whitehall Manor, a very cool old farm house in what seemed to me like the middle of nowhere in Northern Virginia. The entire trip was so great, the wedding was fantastic and the light was perfect. A tiny little shaft of sunlight through the trees spotlighting the bride and groom the entire ceremony. I had a great time. The wedding was on Sunday and on Monday before coming home Jenn and I had a laundry list of places to go visit, the first being the USA Today offices, which were right on the way back to DC from where we were staying. I met with a couple of editors I work with, always nice to put a name with a face, and got a nice tour of the offices and met a few people I have not worked with yet, so that’s always a good thing. After that went to Arlington National Cemetary and walked around there for a bit. Very surreal. I would post some photos, but I only shot a few with my iPhone. Didn’t want to lug a camera around all day. Next we went to the White House and then the Capital building, but, my favorite stop of all was Newseum. I wish we would have had 5 more hours to hang out there, but we had a flight to catch and had to cut it short. The Pulitzer gallery (every Pulitzer photograph and the story behind it) was amazing as was the 9/11 gallery, which had the front page of every single newspaper in the world the from 9/11 as well as many other galleries and artifacts. I want to go back there soon. If you are in the area check it out for sure, well worth the admission. After that we went to the airport and that was that. A great trip. Click on the cover to view a larger image.

I am currently in the Washington DC area, just shot a really fantastic wedding about 45 minutes away in Virginia. Here is a portrait from today. The wedding was in a great location, everyone was a little worried when there were severe thunderstorm warnings all day and it poured about an hour before the ceremony, but everything worked out and the sun even came out for a bit. Good thing about lingering thunderstorms is that they make for cool looking skies. I will have more for you later. Tomorrow Jenn and I are going to hit up all the touristy stuff in DC before coming home, should be fun.

My brother in law got married on Friday and Jordyn was the flower girl. I was the photographer. She was perfect. So cute.

I had a last minute assignment this morning to shoot a photo for the Portland Business Journal to go with a story about a new class at PCC. In the fall, the school will begin to teach auto shop students to work on Hybrid cars. The assignment called for a photo of some students working on a Hybrid, so I used a canon speedlight and a pocketwizard and placed them in the engine and had the students go to work.