Montana Wedding Video

this is a link to a wedding I shot outside of Helena. I wanted to see how it worked. let me know what you think.

Life Happens

The day after....recovering from my 6th First Friday studio opening...hard to believe I have had my Missoula Photography Studio for 6 months. The photo studio is beginning to take shape and last night's opening gave me hope that I am moving in the right direction.

The Show was entitled " Life Happens" and I exhibited some of my new photographs of Missoula Women who are Pregnant, maternity photos. I had only three photo sessions but I felt they were all successful the last session being my favorite. Strangely I feel with all my expertise on photographic lighting and passion to capture beauty I have found the challenges of photographing pregnant women to be very photographically satisfying. There are many challenges to capture the right mood and feel without being too contrived. 

It is great to hear the women respond to the images. They see how beautiful they are and discard the comment I hear often when I am photographing them..." I look fat." So I have decided to pursue this track for the next year and see what happens...If I get enough outstanding work I may try to turn it it into a book.

 Let me get back to last night...You never know if any one is ever going to show for First Friday and fortunately the weather was decent. I was able to open my door the whole evening which made it more inviting. I am happy to say it was good turnout. I would say around 50 plus people showed up throughout the night and many were new faces. They seem to take there time to look at all the images and read the material I wrote describing the photographs. Many took my pricing brochure and seemed interested in setting up appointments for a photo session. At the very end of the night my friend Jill Meyer and Shelly and her mom stopped by. Jill and Shelly are working on a great art project to raise money for breast cancer research, which I will talk about in another blog. But Jill is a great Faux artist and we are bartering work. She suggested painting my front door red and she will create some faux art as a trim for the windows...that is what I am going to do this week, paint my front door red...ok that is is for now, it is going to be sunny and warm in Missoula and it is Saturday..hip hip hooray..

Wild Turkeys, Bald Eagles, Snow

It has been too long since I entered any info on my blog. Since I last wrote I mounted an impressive multi media exhibit of twelve  34" x 42" canvas prints, printed by CanvasonDemand, for the "Every Woman Matters" show. It was a  huge success with around 350 people coming to the event.  In addition my article came out in PhotoTechniques with a photo of Claire and her daughter Grace on the cover. 

I had also had a great assignment from a magazine in CA to photograph the dynamic woman Julie Cajune. My assistant and drove to Arlee to photograph her at the Salish Language school. Julie had the daunting and honored task of taking all the written histories of Montana Native Americans Tribes and create texts for all the public schools in Montana. The state of  Montana is the only State in the United States that requires public schools to teach the history of  the Native American. I found Julie to be incredibly informative and very cooperative. After photographing her at work, teaching students we went to Hear View Center for the main portrait. The mountains were snow capped and the skies were stormy. 

A strange but welcome assignment came this week to photograph the same person I photographed two years ago for the same magazine and same cover shot. That has never happened before but like I said it was a welcome assignment, plus it is a road trip to Helena which is always fun.

Lastly, I will be shooting my first wedding of the year this Saturday just outside of Florence. It will be a pretty big wedding of over 200 guests. It should be fun since the theme is Hawaiian, the couple are fun and it will be very colorful.  Nothing like a Wedding in Montana in March, may snow, rain or be hot and sunny...stay tuned.

As Promised Turkeys, Bald Eagles and Snow

Men in Skirts/ Breast Cancer Research

Been a while since my last posting, apologies.  Being a professional photographer is like being a juggler 24/7.  If I am not shooting, I am organizing, bookkeeping, promoting, conceiving, and so on. Since my last posting, I had an interesting day of shooting. The morning I decided to test my lighting and photograph my friend Steve Robertson in his Bagpiping outfit. He brought out his uniform, and bagpipes and I shot away. Little did I know that the person I was photographing would also be bringing in his Kilt for the afternoon shoot. Turns out Jim Hamilton know Steve and they have even played together in the Scottish bagpipe band. Not to be outdone Jim also brought his dogs and had borrowed an antique rifle for the shoot....

I am also working a project entitled " Every Woman Matters." I am photographing 12 women who are either disabled and are survivors of breast cancer. They are from all over Montana and I photographed the first four last weekend. My studio will house the multi media installation 

the First Friday in March. The women are also being filmed and interview by Jeremy Lurgio of UM and students. This project has many wonderful volunteers from UM MSU and will be funded by the CDC ( Center for Disease Control) and Susan Komen Foudations...I will be completing the shooting this weekend....should be a good show...Between now and then I will be doing a book signing at Fact and Fiction...I have done book signings before but they terrify me....I mean what if no one shows up???? Here is portrait of one of the women I photographed:

I did have my 15 minutes of fame in Missoula...they ran a story and a photo of me at work on the front page of the news...good thing the inauguration wasn't that day... Oh well back to the bookkeeping, maybe I will practice my saxophone for a while or walk the dog...

hats; holidays; and sub zero temps

It has been a while since my last post. I have been busy wrapping up an architectural job that started in September, organizing the offfice in my new space and moving lots of beds. I had a photo shoot last Saturday that was a lot of fun. Everest Designs. who create winter hats made in Nepal hired me to shoot some images for their 2009 catalog. I got the call on Thuresday to see if I was available on the weekend. At that time it was around 35 degrees and not a drop of snow. On Friday the artic blast arrived. dropping the temps below O and bring about an inch of snow, perfect for ths shoot but a bit too cold. I woke up the morning of the shoot and my outdoor themometer said minus 15 degrees. I had made sure I was charging all the my batteries the night before to be ready. I got to my studio around 11 am where I met my lovely assistant Cathy Walters. she also modeled that day. The client Matt and Choti arrived with three other models and 4 large cartons of hats and hand warmers. We discussed the days shoot and since the weather was sooooo cold I suggested we stay close to the studio. They laid out the hats all around my studio and sorted the hats and wardrobe. Fortunately there is a great coffee shop next to my studio, where we set up the first shoot. There were three great scenes we set up that were cozy and warm with views of wintery downtown Missoula. I had cleared the site with the owner of the store the day before. It was a lot of fun and my client and I were happy with the results. We decided to regroup at my studio and plot the outdoor shots, the temp was about 10 degrees and dropping....I decided to travel light and have my assistant carry my Canon55o EX flash and an extra light. It was slaved to my Canon 580 EX flash on my camera with a diffuser....It worked really well and created a sunshine look on an very cold and overcast day,,,,we walked around downtown to the Higgins Bridge and I continued to shoot till dusk...the models faces where blush from the cold and their eyes were watering from the cold wind but we were getting great shots....my closing shots when everyone was heading back to my studio were some of my favorite....I will be posting some of the images soon....
Now I am trying to close down my office for the holidays and begin the accounting for 2008, my most dreadful part of the business,,,,,,Happy holidays...ps my book seems to be doing well on Amazon, I have gotten three rave reviews.....

My First Book Review

I got my first book review and I am happy to say it was very positive.  It somewhat rewarding to get positive feedback from a professional peer.  Kevin Kitchen was the reviewer and he has a great photography site called photographyvoice.com.  The link will take you to my review. 

On another note, I just realized I need to decorate my studio for the holidays...oy vey. Although it great to have a studio I forgot about all the day to day work it takes to maintain the studio. I did a family portrait yesterday and it was easy and fun to just move the lighting around, rather than unpack it out of my travel cases and set up the background. I invested in the three roll background pulley system which allows me to raise and lower different shades of seamless like a window shade. I got if from Calumet in LA. in addition I purchase three rolls of seamless, black, gray and white. I was able to set up for the family in about 15 minutes and break down in 5 minutes...It was good shoot, an attractive family and lots of fun. Photos to follow

Book Arrives..hooray!!!!!

Well, my book "50 Lighting Setups for Portrait Photographers," has finally arrived and you should be able to purchase the book at any retail bookstore, Amazon or AmherstMedia, by next week.  Or you could e-mail me and I could sell you a signed book for $30 plus shipping....If you are really nice you will write a good review on Amazon, once you looked over the book. Let me know what you think....