Lee is another one of those uber-talented folks I know. I seem to come in contact with a lot of them! Poor guy’s been waiting for me to finish my short film NURF Wars since February of 2009… Yes, Lee was in that.

Anyway, I’ve worked with him since then on projects from other local filmmakers, usually where I’m shooting behind the scenes stuff, so I knew him pretty well and knew right from the start that I wanted to include him in this.

I went to his house and although I wasn’t gonna be able to shoot him in action as an actor, we started chatting and I quickly re-discovered just how involved he is with music. He regularly performs on stage, working closely with a lot of theater productions and, to my great delight, writes his own stuff. Either for the stage or for fun.

I always love to watch creative people at work. There’s something deeply special about being the creator to something that is uniquely yours…

Ok, without further ado, here’s Lee!

And like any normal family, there are struggles.

Struggles to be everything to everyone, struggles to maintain some degree of order and control in the household, neither of which, frankly, are entirely possible. Add to that the endless list of day to day responsibilities without losing oneself, maintaining some sense of a unique identity, and anyone can see just how difficult the balance becomes.

That feeling of overload became clear when I tried (quite unsuccessfully) to pin down how I could visually define Jeremy. Husband, parent, churchgoer, soccer player (until he recently got injured), cook, gardener and student; I didn’t know how to boil him down.

Then I realized… “Let’s do all of it!”

Shelly, in the meantime, though far from leading a simple life, is a stay-at-home mom to their two beautiful kids as well as a piano teacher.

And just like their parents, when we were all done, the kids shut the door on me and stared. Yeah, the Vissers are an interesting bunch…

But I’m sure glad they’re my neighbors

Dani is my close friend. That’s the first thing that comes to my mind. We have a good, solid friendship that I’ve cherished since it began.

A talented model with whom I’ve worked many, many times, she’s finally moving to L.A. in just a few short months to pursue a career in acting. Now I can’t say I’m crazy about L.A., but I’m unapologetically excited for her to leave Utah in pursuit of far greater heights than I feel she could ever have reached here.

Man am I gonna miss her…

Because beyond all of that, she’s full of life, full of energy and positivity, and best of all, it’s infectious. You can’t help but feel better when you’re around her. You can’t help but turn into a goofball when you’re around her.

Well ok, I can’t help but become a total goofball when I’m around her.

So when she decided to pretend like her hands were having a mostly violent conversation with one another, well…

That’s just Dani

And here, just for kicks, are all the best images from all the shoots we’ve done together, starting with what could very well be the last shoot we do together for a long long time. How apropos that it be a gradual evolution as she prepares for a new adventure of her own.

Evolution:

Lexi works as an event planner at the beautiful and classy Grand America Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City.

When I asked her what she wanted to do as the second shot, she quickly decided that she wanted to show off her shoes. She has a TON of them piled sky-high in her closet, so we picked just a teeny tiny selection of her favorites and went outside.

I love how these turned out:

Before I end this blog post, I’d like to clarify something important:

You don’t necessarily have to feel you’re not photogenic to be in this project.

Apparently some people felt they shouldn’t be part of it because they already like themselves in pictures…

So let me completely clarify the two criterion for this project:

You have to be a human being and still be alive.

So if you’re a dead sea-turtle, I’m afraid I can’t help you.

If, on the other hand, you’re a client of any kind (future or past), if you’re an acquaintance, if you’re a friend of a friend, if you’re a complete stranger to me, if you’re an actor, a model, an electrician, a plumber… You get the idea. All are welcome, regardless of how you feel about yourself (photogenic or not).

Hope that clears things up

And they haven’t read so much as two words from that first paragraph… They’re down below checking out their pictures of themselves!

Aaaaaand welcome back guys

Ok, so here’s the idea for this project:

I can’t tell you how often I hear friends, acquaintances, brides, wedding guests, random people to whom I reveal that I’m a photographer, say that they’re not photogenic.

It’s a load of crap.

Nobody is not photogenic.

The trouble actually lies, no offense, with your friends. Your friends aren’t used to being photographers, so they rarely understand light, composition, context, character, editing, even more rarely shoot in any mode besides Auto and then don’t enhance the images once they’re out of the camera. I don’t mean enhancing in Photoshop either, I mean adjusting things like color, exposure; things like that.

So whenever someone would say to me “I’m not photogenic”, my response was always the following:

“You’re wrong. Gimme 5 minutes and I’ll prove it to you.”

Finally, instead of just saying it every time I heard it, I decided it was time to do a few things.

First of all, to provide those who think they’re not photogenic with images of themselves that they can actually be happy with, hopefully breaking the usually deep-rooted belief that they’re no good in front of a camera.

But as I thought this, I realized it would also be deeply interesting, for me at least, to document what my circle of friends looks like. Who are they? What do they do? What are they passionate about? What are their quirks? And why the hell CAN’T they make a face when confronted with a camera?!

Before long I came to the conclusion that… Well… Why limit this to just my friends? I hear the photogenic complaint from everyone! I wanna include them too.

And once the project became about EVERYONE… Well things got complicated for me. I had to figure out how I’d do this without killing myself in the process.

Now, I know this isn’t groundbreaking photography by any stretch of the imagination, but this is something I care about. It’s the only reason for it to exist.

Here’s my start with a few of my friends, followed by the “rules” of my game so you can be part of this too

Dani, showing off her gum:

Bina really resisted this:

No shot of either Dani or Bina would be complete without the other in it. These two are best of friends and are completely inseparable:

Brittany’s hobby is… You guessed it; photography. She’s also a terrific painter:

Lisa is one of my closest friends. She has a false reputation for being short-tempered. She’s just loud sometimes, so I asked her to scream at me:

Strangely, although Lisa and I are very close, Bruce and I always talk the most when I go hang out with them:

Believe it or not, everyone in the pictures above felt they weren’t photogenic… I’d like to think I did SOMETHING to improve how they feel about that. Speaking of which, if there’s an image here of you, please give me your email address so I can send you everything I thought was good. Email me or talk to me on Facebook.

Ok, now for the “rules”, in no particular order:

– You can be anyone. Past/future client, acquaintance, friend; I don’t care. Zero restrictions here. You can even have me take pictures of someone you know.

– The shoot will last no more than about 5 minutes.

– I’ll be posting at least one, but a maximum of two images of my choosing on the blog. One will be a portrait of just you, but in the other I want something that is kind of representative of you. This can be anything, I just wanna see the real you. Make a face, show me your hobby, invite someone that means a lot to you, bring something of great personal value, show off your favorite tattoo, etc. I’m open to anything. I just wanna see the real you somehow.

– I’ll be needing your email address so I can send you the results (especially if I feel that we ended up with more than 2 good ones – already the case above) and you’re welcome to download the images from the blog as well of course. Make sure to click on the images so you can get the larger versions if you take them from the blog.

– The images won’t be Photoshopped at all

– Delivery of the images will be at 640 pixels tall or 640 pixels wide, depending on whether the shot is vertical or horizontal.

– I need you to meet me around the Salt Lake City area UNLESS I happen to be visiting your state or country… Sorry people from Pakistan, I can’t fly half-way across the world for a 5-minute shoot!

– We shoot where we meet. No extensive location scouting. The pictures above were shot in a parking lot and a house, so clearly locations don’t matter much in this project’s case anyway.

– I will ONLY shoot using my Canon 85mm f1.2 L lens, with which I am deeply in love. And I’ll probably always be shooting wide-open too (for those of you who know what that means).

– I haven’t yet determined a time-limit on this project, if any.

– If there are any photographers out there who are able and willing, could you do the same for me?! I hate every recent picture of myself that I have…

That’s it! Email me or add me on Facebook if you’d like to get in closer contact with me so we can more easily arrange a shoot!

The Music Project

Listening to great music, and I mean really great music, elicits an avalanche of powerful images in my head. So powerful in fact, that with the best of songs or melodies, I am completely paralyzed in my visual imagination run amuck. The whole world falls away and all I’m left with is what I see from what I’m listening to.

So one day, I decided to attempt releasing everything that remained a prisoner in my mind.

Because I want you to experience what I do.

I started digging through all the music I loved, asking myself the biggest question behind the concept for The Music Project:

“What do I see?”

This will be an ongoing project with new photography concepts for new songs. I won’t be posting the songs together with the images, or even the lyrics. Hopefully, if you enjoy my work enough, it’ll make you want to go out and buy albums and MP3s. Nothing would make me happier than to find out there’s a spike in sales for every song that inspires me to a shoot.

Let’s kick things off with Regina Spektor’s “Summer in the City”.

Many thanks to Shanda Palmer and Nick Hemsley for the amazing makeup and hair, respectively, and of course my good friend, the endlessly energetic and beautiful Dani Jae for modeling, even in a bar full of men who all wanted to buy her a drink. I was planning on buying her a drink for the shoot anyway, but a customer did it for me.

Today, my picture-a-day-for-365-days project, comes to an end with the final picture. And this time, it’s more about the experience of the project than it is about the picture itself. So yes, that means more reading.

But I hope you enjoy my recollection of the project and its significance in my life and potentially, your life, should you choose to someday do the same.

Enjoy.

Day 364/365

And finally… *drumroll*…

Tadaaaaa!!! I’m finished!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So why did I leave this for last?

Because this image, that time… It’s 8 minutes to midnight and I can’t tell you how many times that happened to me throughout the year. It’s late, I’m tired, I feel like I’m forgetting something but hey I’ll get to it tomorrow, but still not being able to sleep I look at the clock to see how late it is and how long I’ve been trying to fall asleep and suddenly it hits me like a ton of bricks.

“CRAP!!! Forgot the picture of the day!!”

So I bounce out of bed and hunt for something, anything, to take a picture of.

And I think that image, crappy as it is, represents to me what the project was often like.

I mentioned this a while ago, but a 365 project leaves you at a loss for ideas in a big friggin’ hurry. Especially when you’re a busy guy/gal. And I don’t know about other shooters who have undertaken this project, but I felt like I often forgot taking a shot until just before midnight.

But I learned a few things with this project.

First, as mentioned above, the stream of ideas dies very quickly. Like the saying goes, it’s 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration. And I wasn’t about to give up when my 10% ran out. I’m proud of that fact. I never gave up. It was never even an option. At the worst of times, it was a tedious task to take a picture, but giving up wasn’t gonna happen. Period.

Second, I noticed myself getting lazy on a bunch of my shots. I either didn’t have the time or on some occasions, simply didn’t have the inclination to try and take something I felt was good. I had good days, I had bad days. All of this became especially apparent once I got my iPhone. It became so easy to postpone taking a shot because I didn’t have a bulky camera to pickup. I could be done quickly.

Third, no question about it, I took an enormous amount of images that I would never have taken had I not been working on that project. Some were good enough to end up in my portfolio, but for the most part the project really forced me to observe the world that existed around me at that moment. You see the world around you every day, but it’s not until you raise a camera at it that you’re forced to really examine it. Understand it. Enjoy it. And as it becomes a habit, what happens is that even when your camera isn’t around, you see things as if you were looking through its viewfinder.

The camera transitions successfully into your subconscious.

That’s cool.

And finally; the memories.

At its most basic, a camera is simply a visual recording tool. It doesn’t lie. It doesn’t distort. It just says.

In the year that I started and ended this project, I went through two MAJOR, life-changing events and countless experiences in between.

Some were amazing, others were excruciating.

And I’ve heard it said about drawing on paper and I feel the same about photography; even when you’re not taking pictures of the event itself, the imagery you create becomes so strongly associated with those events that it’s essentially as good as having taken a picture of your emotions, your state of mind, your boredom, your anticipation, your happiness or your misery.

Those aren’t things you can take pictures of. Because they’re intangible from the camera’s perspective. But you capture them anyway. At least for yourself.

And yes, to me that’s invaluable. I cherish those images, whatever they’re connected to.

I have two shots that jump out at me when I think back at the whole year and as it so happens, they’re the two major, life-changing events. I couldn’t take a picture of either event, nor do I really want to divulge what they were.

But they’ve been forever seared in my mind.

A picture of my calendar: I was ecstatic. Relieved. I felt I could finally rest and live peacefully. The whole world melted away and everything in my future looked bright and filled with freedom.

A picture of my Honda framed by my garage door: I was hopelessly depressed. I remember sitting on the steps to my back door. No longer knowing what to do with myself. No longer seeing the point to it all.

I don’t regret either memory. They’re mine. No one can take them away from me. And despite them meaning nothing to all but my closest of friends and family and not even being all that great to look at, they’re incredibly powerful and meaningful to me. I can revisit my past with all of its ups and downs, just by looking at these two pictures.

I like that.

There are some photographers who still lament the advent of digital cameras, making it child’s play for anyone to take a picture.

Not me.

I cherish what we have. I love that I’m alive at this time in our history when all you need is a phone to record your lives and the lives of others with so much ease and frequency, and an outlet as simple, open and infinite as the internet.

So take many, many pictures my friends. Take as many as you can.

You’ll thank yourself for it later.

The last moment of real happiness for my poor little Mason… And for myself for that matter.

This was shot at the Brussels airport. It was a playground with TVs, games, toys, cushion-y areas to jump on. Really fun.

But because of the snow, we were about to experience the worst trip of our lives. Well Mason is four, but it was by far the worst trip of MY life.

The plane in Brussels was an hour late. We got to London and we had to hurry so we could get on the next plane to Chicago. I first went down the wrong line for my connecting tickets. Then I went in the right line with less and less time to make my flight, but the line was strangely very empty…

I get to the front desk and talk to a rep there.

My flight to Chicago had been cancelled due to the weather… Oh no… NO!!!!… Now what?! They told me that I was on my own because it was a weather delay so United Airlines couldn’t book me into a hotel; I’d have to pay for it myself. Oh thanks. And there were absolutely no other airlines that could get me back to the states. Great. I was gonna have to call Travelocity to see if they could help. I paid extra to have their travel protection, they better pay up and help out!

Another guy came along at the United Airlines desk and said the best they could do was put me on standby on a flight to Washington, which would then connect to Denver and then finally back to Salt Lake. No guarantee that I could get on the first plane, let alone the other two, and the extra connection sucked, but it was something. They’d re-route my checked luggage too of course, which I would have to pickup in Washington and check back in (standard procedure when entering the country from abroad).

I hurry to the gate for the flight that’s headed for Washington, anticipating a full flight that wouldn’t have any room for Mason and me, but to my great surprise, we got in! We had two seats! Hallelujah!

There WAS one little problem though… The only reason we made it to that flight, besides blind luck with being on standby for seats, is that the plane was delayed pretty significantly… That’s gonna make it hard to make the connection from Washington to Denver, but I’m sure it’ll be fine. Besides, I’d be in the US and I’d have more options.

The flight was long. The sun stays up longer when you’re flying west and Mason wouldn’t close his eyes and get any sleep. That is, not until just before landing, by which time everyone, and I mean EVERYONE on the plane, was in panic, because the large majority of people on the plane knew they’d have to hurry up where they could and wait enormously long lines through security to get to their connecting flights.

I could hear several in nearby seats who had already given up hope on making their connecting flights.

Me on the other hand, I refused to give up hope. I’m gonna make it. I have more time than most. I’m gonna make it. I’m gonna be fine.

Everyone on the plane has a screen in the seat in front of them. You can watch movies, but many of us watched the map indicating our distance from Washington and our approximate landing time. We were finally within 4 minutes of our approximate landing time.

But then it stayed at 4 minutes for about 10 minutes… And we’re turning a lot…

Oh you’ve gotta be kidding me… We’re circling the airport NOW?!

Finally, we land. And Mason is fast asleep… But I have to wake him up. And I do. And nobody likes me now. And he’s inconsolable.

I rush out of the plane, hauling a stroller, my camera bag, a backpack-sized carry-on and Mason. We make it to the long line for security and now we wait. And wait. And wait. Catching our flight to Denver is really not looking good now. And we still have the long line after picking up our suitcase so we can check it back in and I’m not really sure how I’m gonna push a stroller, a carry-on, deal with Mason and pull a large suitcase to anywhere… I don’t have enough hands now…

Lucky for me, United managed to lose my suitcase for the second time, which means I spent a good 30 minutes looking for something that was never going to show up in the first place. Cool, so I ask someone where my suitcase is and they said to file a claim once I get to Salt Lake. And I’m looking at my time, and I’ve got about 7 minutes to cross an airport I’ve never been to with almost more luggage than I have hands to hold them and a child who’s really not in the mood anymore just so I can make it to a connecting flight to a place that’s still not home…

I ask one of the staff if I can make it. She says yes, I can make it.

Run.

So I book it. And I mean that, I’m running across the airport like a friggin’ maniac with the stroller in front of me and Mason, very unhappy, not enjoying the fastest ride I’ve ever given him on it.

I finally get to the gate, breathing very heavily. I look up at the status screen and it says the flight is leaving at the time it’s supposed to, at 5:25pm. I can’t believe it! I made it!

I walk up to the counter and ask about the flight.

It’s been delayed by four hours.

I’m not gonna make the connection in Denver to get home and there’s no other way to Salt Lake, Mason is still crying and screaming his head off and I gotta say, I don’t smoke, don’t have any interest in starting whatsoever, but I finally understood why people smoke.

“You mean after as many setbacks as I’ve been through all day today, after I ran like a psycho to make it here, it’s been delayed by FOUR HOURS?!… Excuse me for a second (pulls out a cigarette), I’m gonna go kill myself now. Slowly.”

We finally made it to Denver, at 11:30pm, by which time Mason had fallen asleep on the plane of course, which meant I had another 20 straight minutes of screaming child to deal with. We got to the hotel at about 12:30am, which United had decided they would book for me, since this time there was no excuse for the plane being 4 hours late, and were finally in bed by 1am.

Day 356/365

The view from our hotel in Denver the next morning. It wasn’t an early flight out, but jetlag had woken me up at about 4am and I caught some of that sunrise.

A few more screaming child episodes between the plane, the airport and the ride to my house, and on January 7th, we were finally home.

You know what’s funny? I hated United after that flight. Hated them. But I got $150 in credit for my next flight with them… And as 2 weeks went by and nobody could tell me where my suitcase had gone until one morning it finally appeared at my door, it meant I was lucky enough to spend hours talking to customer service, asking them where in the world my suitcase was; literally. Chicago? Denver? Salt Lake? London? Brussels? Zimbabwe? Where on this planet was my suitcase? So they gave me another $250 voucher and a $150 voucher.

I should have called more often. Maybe they’d have shipped me a box of cigarettes (see above).

And now, like an idiot, I’m wondering where I should go. San Francisco for a few days in the summer sounds great to me. Anyone have some awesome suggestions?

Day 357/365

Getting home was important because I had the Bridal Showcase at the Salt Palace to do starting on the 8th. I did have a backup plan, as I enrolled the help of the wonderful Heidi J Photography to setup in case I couldn’t make it due to delays.

Day 358/365

Junk food helps get you through a day at the bridal show when you have no time to shove any other food down your throat.

Day 359/365

Sunset on my way out of a movie.

Day 360/365

I’m coming to the stop sign of my 365 project!

Day 361/365

Went to Antelope Island with my good friend and fellow photographer, Heidi, and it was this horizon that took my breath away. I hadn’t planned to go out there, so I only had my iPhone unfortunately and I’d run out of shots from my Holga.

Day 362/365

If I can find you and I happen to be getting rid of old portfolio pieces, I like to give the print to you, free of charge. I’m just gonna chuck them anyway, why not make someone happy instead? Sarah and Dani.

Day 363/365

Pulled over on the way home as I rose above the fog down below.

Day 365/365

Posting this one first because I want to end this project on a little note regarding the image on day 364 and its meaning.

Engagement session with Joe & Heather. These guys were a ton of fun to work with! I love being able to have me some fun and watch my subjects join in. They were up for anything!

Not so superstitious

BLUE STEEL!!!! hahaha

Groom: Where’d they go boss?
Bride: That-a-way!!

And the last image of the 365 project…

Comes tomorrow!!!

Yes, I just pulled a Ryan Seacrest

Just a few days before this shoot, Natasha Roos calls me up and says she wants to shoot.

“I have a car”, she says. “A baby blue, mint condition, ’66 Ford Thunderbird.”

Whoa. That’s cool.

It’s especially cool because it’s not hers and we still get to use it. It’s her friend’s roommate’s boyfriend’s doctor’s wife’s father’s cousin’s nephew’s car dealer’s Thunderbird.

Who cares, we have a ’66 T-Bird!

“How long do we have with it?”, I ask, thinking we’ll have a limited amount of time in a specific location, like I was stuck doing the last time I got to play with some cars and a model.

“We have it all day and we get to take it wherever we want”, she replies.

No way…

So I suggested we take it by the Saltair. There’s a long, lonely road that goes along the I-80, just west of Salt Lake City. It looks remote enough. Perfect.

Now we just need to find a model, and I immediately thought of Dani, a personal friend and model I’ve worked with repeatedly and with great success. I call her up, and she’s all over it.

Sweet.

The following pictures resulted:

Tic, toc, tic, toc.

I really wanted to do this one back when I was shooting NURF Wars.

Day 77/365

The light pole across the street snapped in half the night before I took this. I never heard it break, and I certainly didn’t think the winds were so strong as to snap a light pole clean in half!

My little boy Mason and I went out with our cameras to take some shots.

Day 78/365

Showing off the business cards. Why? Because I’m replacing my wedding-related business card with a new one.

Out with the old:

In with the new:

And the other two, just for good measure:

Day 79/365

Models I’m going to be working with. Hopefully soon. I did a casting call at a local talent agency to try and recruit more male models to work with.

I’m especially excited to work with Pat, the first and oldest of the three. He has the most interesting face ever. Just this quick snapshot is kinda cool!

Oh and if Pat looks familiar, it’s because he was the farmer in the very successful Napoleon Dynamite movie.

Day 80/365

My son’s bike chain. It was late and I was hurrying to take something before midnight. I’d almost forgotten to take one that day. But so I was rushing, snapped this real quick, looked at it and thought “Wow… Cool”

Day 81/365

My guitar picks.

A bridal and two female model shoots coming up next.

Stay tuned!