... in line for 25 minutes at the alpine lunge slide at winter park this afternoon.... until it started raining on our party. sad face :(

we’ll try again first thing tomorrow morning. summer adventures at winter park include mini-golf (see background), the trampoline, downhill mountain biking, the human maze, among others fun stuff. our thrill: straight up full-throttle down on the alpine slide!

it has been an awesome little break to step out into the mountains for some 25 plus degree cooler weather and watch animal planet on the hotel tv (yes, we still do not have tv at home). after two weddings and a full work week, we’re ready to enjoy the time off during labor day! the good old winter park mountain lodge has great $88 deals for one night, including free doggie room upgrades!

while vacationing, dash gets the leftover sushi which makes him feel like he’s on vacation (or so we think).

we’ve got two weddings to blog and another radtastic fun-booth from last night that had guests lining up out the door :)

nerd alert: i’m wrapping up a little comparison project on the difference of nikon dx versus fx sensors with regard to depth of field & bokeh. and here’s a sampling with the 85 f/1.4. see if you can spot tell which was shot with the newest kid on the block, the nikon d-700, and our trusty d-300:

we’ve been working on a new recipe for reception photo fun. it goes something like this:

one anti-photo booth + crazy-fun people + boldness + audaciousness = one bodacious fun-booth.

breaking out of the traditional photobooth mold has never been more fun!

we surprised carrie & nick with our first ever fun-booth at their backyard wedding last saturday. guests lined up and kept coming back for more and more... even during pack-up time:)

two important rules for the fun-booth:

rule #1. you gotta have fun.

rule #2. you gotta have fun.

our take on senior prom portraits:


nice deltoids:


as the night progressed, more and more guys ended up in flip-flops.


wild antics from wedding clients & referrers extraordinaire, andi & brett:


the “problem” about upside-down photos: one is just never enough!


these guys get the most-recently engaged award. congrats again!



the girls hammed it up with some super cheeze:


a grand ‘lady & the tramp’ impression:


pg-13:



one simple prop turns the father-of-the-groom into clint eastwood:


even the string quartet jumped in!


pink gerber daisies were our wedding flowers on july 2, 2005.... so we had to feature them in a proper human vase.


Troublemakers. that’s right, with a capital “T”.



stay tuned in a few days to see the rest of the story.

friends & family: sign the guestbook and receive an email once carrie & nick’s event is released!

ps-- a special shout-out to the fine folks at the imageisfound for their contagious crazybooth inspiration.

the d700 arrived yesterday and we are super excited to break it out this weekend for carrie and nick’s greeley, co wedding. rj will be sporting the trusty d300, while i, nicole, will be making some magic happen with this new beauty! i threw a few of our favorite lenses onto the d700 yesterday to check out the fx sensor and to mess around with the iso a bit since i have been a bit constrained by my little d80’s graininess at 1600. dash was my model as r.j. distracted him with the light reflection from his watch face... if only we could all be amused by such trivial things :)

i have yet to play around with it enough to give much feedback, but one thing i can say is, how ‘bout that eyepiece!!

a rare shot of dash with teeth.... he was panting a little from all of the reflection-chasing. and check out the bokeh! plus the fabulous focusing of the d700 allowed me to get those eyes tack-sharp even with a distractable, quick-moving vizsla as my model. (d700 with the 85mm at f/1.4, 1/640 sec, at iso 1600).


i dig the “wideness” (for lack of a better word) of the 50mm on this camera. and i love the detail of the furbag’s fur :) (d700 with the 50mm at f/1.4, 1/200, at iso 1000).


this is dash’s usual expression as he is a bit camera shy -- or he could just be feeling guilty about something he ate of our’s earlier in the day. plus a great shot of dash’s nose scar which makes him look tough for all the girls at the dog park. (d700 with the 50mm at f/1.4, 1/160, at iso 1000).


we’ll post photos soon of this weekend’s wedding along with more comments about our new creative tool toy!

last thursday night i attended the free to succeed tour held in denver by radtastic famous wedding photographers, david jay & becker. they were 100% real. and by that, i mean themselves, uncut, and genuine. wow. what a lightbulb experience. it is one thing to see their online work. and another to see their prices (gulp). and another to hear their experiences, lessons learned, and whites of their eyes. the best thing: they answered every one of my questions (which numbered up there to multiple digits :) thank you!

david jay and becker were the inspiration behind the kern-photo coffee-shop class, which is all about paying it forward by giving back to the photography community.

the A+ learning experience wasn’t all about the things i heard, but the people and HOW they said them. they speak from the heart with aim to help. for those not starstruck by famous wedding photographers you meet on the street, let me offer an example: as an art history major in college, it was one thing to see a slide of painting in class of famous russian abstractionist vladimir kandinsky, then memorizing dates, places, and minutia in the importance of the artists work to the period. but it was completely another thing to actually EXPERIENCE his work. rounding a corner at the museum of modern art in new york and seeing it firsthand hanging on the wall, brush strokes and all.... the real deal.... WOW. that’s kinda like meeting david jay and becker, in my aspiring & enthusiastic photographer mind :)

take away messages from their talk included not letting our buisness control our lives, being happy at being ourselves, and ensuring 100% top-notch customer service to our clients. i’ll need a few more weeks to completely digest, rethink, and re-digest what was learned. however, it was a grand experience and worth every penny of time & effort.

some favorite moments of the evening including sitting next to buddy gino siller and sharing “guy moments”, being inspired by the husband-and-wife pearls of wisdom from katie & chris humphreys, energizing with my sisters from anotha motha paige elizabeth & shannon & wade kaple (had to steal that one, shannon :), hearing about erin cady’s move closer to denver, meeting lynsey peterson for the first time who was so awesome to have referred us a wedding without even meeting us, and talking about leading a balanced family life with family guys james christianson & jared wilson. there’s a wonderful sharing community among denver wedding photographers and i’m proud to be there to help.

i took only a few photos that evening, mainly because the emphasis was thinking and taking notes, not shooting. however, the whole experience was part of #87 on my 101 photo goals in 1,001 days.

here’s david jay (dj), father of open source photo:


becker rivotted the crowd with his personal experiences of how he overcame being a “newbie” and learned to work with other wedding photographers instead against. that has made his buisness today one of the most profitable wedding photography buisnesses in the industry. spot d. j. in the far right.


professor [b] speaks without a PhD, but with real world experience. in the wedding photography industry, that is what matters most. mark twain once said, “never let school interfere with your education.” true that!


paige elizabeth, shannon & wade kaple, nicole marie embrace the david jay experience.


crazy boys:


okay, okay... 1/20 second has it’s weakenesses. but i still love this cheesy moment with two heros :)


vania posted some rocktastic images from the event over at her blog. i love her blog title, “the begining of the super photographer mom.”

the big day - 08.09.08
wedding - cheesman park
reception - the oxford

leila & ben, thank you thank you for making us part of your day. we wish you many blessings in your new life together!

to sign the guestbook & view more images, click HERE. view slideshow HERE.



nicole tells me her “biological clock is ticking.” proof:


one of the perks of being a husband & wife team is i can count on nicole for being a “pretty subject” to meter exposures using our off-camera strobe before clients step in front of the camera. while clients rarely see these outtakes, they’ve become almost a mini-personal project of capturing the where, when, and why of what is it like to run a husband & wife photography buisness. most of the time were are coming off an emotional high from the ceremony and then quickly switch brain hemispheres to check the camera technical stuff.... groupings, lighting, metering, focus, am i gonna back into a toddler... all while we round up & rally the family and the clock ticks on.

mmmmm.... white linen pants! added bonus: a 77mm lens cap in pocket :)


back to regular programming... the gals strutting their stuff:


after some fresh. modern. fun. shots of the bridesmaids in the fountain, i glanced down and saw the wet footprints and smiled. reminds me of being at the pool as a kid :)


mmmm.... cheesecake.


dressed in black cranked out some awesome musical vibe inspiring rockstar dance performances by ocean, one cool studmuffin:

for a girl who would rather don a helmet on an all-terrain vehicle than a dress, maelee surely rocked it up during her funtastic senior portrait session. within three whopping hours of photo action, photo ingredients included some pretty kern-photo light, edgy lightpainting, sand & water fun, and then topped off some ghetto graffitti flare. ‘variety is the spice of life’ was the anthem of this session garnished with our fresh. fun. modern. perspectives :)

view maelee’s slideshow HERE. be sure to sign the guest book & see more images on pictage HERE.



another anti-senior portrait, captured as is, with no color-correction or special effects:


a variation with additional creativity:



maelee wanted her atv part of her senior portrait, so we found some authentic denver graffitt and cross-light it with two off-camera strobes (filtered with a special kern-photo 25 cent snoot to reduce light spread).


maelee issued at top notch photography school assignment inspired from a michael jordan shot we all know (palming the basketball in one hand). she really liked the “knowledge is power” graffitti in the background with the moon, but getting both in the same shot was the challenge because of the sheer angles. however... where there is a will, there is ALWAYS a way. and since the client is the supreme boss, we managed to climb up a 12-foot storage container (yes, a waiver was signed) and shot this at f/8. to pull in the ambiant light, a shutter speed of 1/15 second was used along with some flash flavor thanks to our nikon sb-600 flash i-ttl minus 1 stop at iso 800. to capture the wide angle, our nikon 12-24 f/4 lens served as the perspective on our nikon d300. no tripod or lightstand was used, mainly because we had to work fast, or go home.



a variation on the above shot with a different angle and some mild post-processing. the same single off-camera sb-600 was wirelessly triggered and shot through a mini-soft box handheld by videographer guru brian martinez, who also experimented with some steady-cam hd video during our shoot. stay tuned in his video which will offer behind-the-scenes action of how we ride.

a few seconds later


zooming in to 300mm and exploring some detail:


context within in our little condo complex:


almost like smoke.


none of these images have been color enhanced in photoshop in anyway... they appear as shot. God’s magesty strikes at odd times.... sometimes right when you least expect it but need it most :)

nick has yet to defy gravity, but one day he may engineer the precise superpower technology to give mortals the power to float. away from his summer reading adventures (we all know how that goes :), nick enjoys restoration of his classic ford mustang which he hopes to complete in two months. he plans to pursue engineering in college and no doubt he’ll excel. nick is nicole’s cousin so that makes him my cousin... in law?

anyrate, this anti-senior portrait drew laughs from our family during his sister’s birthday celebration this evening:



to please the traditional crowd & yearbook staff, here are a few casual headshots:


and we wrapped up with some stylish shots to please his girlfriend :)

the big day - 08.02.08
wedding - denver botanic gardens
reception - magnolia grand ballroom

a special thanks to travis broxton for allowing me to serve as his second-shooter.



not usually part of the job description, travis lends a helping hand to bridemaids when getting ready:


a father & daughter moment before the ceremony:



casual portraits never go out of style:


whiel travis was shooting the formals of the gals, i grabbed this shot of c. r. and his groomsmen:


two anti-bridal portraits, taken 7 seconds apart:

so, r. j. and i were at barnes & noble the other day, and i found this awesome kit of stupid sock creatures that you could make on your own. i am really into those ugly dolls, and when i saw this kit, i figured that i could just make my own ugly dolls. r. j. was pretty resistant to the purchase of this kit, but i wasn't going to leave the store without it. so we can all guess how that ended because of the four photos posted below :)

it all started with a simple pair of socks. ugly socks at that.


there were of course a few more steps in between the first photo and this one, which included cutting up one of r. j.'s old neckties -- with his permission of course. here is our ugly friend with his new set of eyes, but yet to be stuffed.


here is our ugly friend **freestanding** on our kitchen table!!! a great success!


our little friend requested a photojournalistic portrait of himself -- he asked me to touch up some of his imperfections, but i told him that we photojournalists avoid retouching whenever possible. age is beauty, i told him.

last weekend, nicole and i brought dash up on his very first overnight backpacking & overnight camping trip. we headed a few thousand feet above vail, colorado to pitkin lake (above 11,000 feet) in search of snow (it was christmas in july :), alpine cooking, some wild trout, bountiful flowers, backcountry cooking with beef stroganoff, and marmot families. we found them all!

here’s proof that dogs know the best drinking water there is.... straight from the glacial source a few hundred feet away!


nose lickin’ good:


our family summer self-portrait:


gummi bears make for yummy snacks and are easy attention getters for trail food for a particular viszla named ‘dash‘:


a quick snap of the moutain meadows up to vail’s pitkin lake.


hmmm, thinking big dog thoughts on mountain top?


meandering alpine streams were such a cool thing to watch and listen to... all the technological stress seems to melt away!


typical landscape shot with dash around:


yet another ‘dash-ruined’ shot of a lake reflection... in a good way :)


a glimmer of warmth of a mountain sunset cast a nice backdrop of these douglass fir trees growing along side a larger bush. they almost look naturally ‘bonsaied’22:


perfecto!


our humble night’s abode (nicole popped the flash inside the tent for effect :)


as the cherry on top, and worth a few laughs, here’s dash experiencing wild trout for the very first time, along with his youtube debut!