In case you already forgot from previous posts, the Diana F+ is the name of the camera that’s kinda like the Holga. It survived my Holga… It’s a film camera… Just…
Forget it, here’s some random snapshots 
This HAS to have been a lab accident. I swear I didn’t shoot this lightning looking thing:
More to come soon. I’m working on catching up on the wedding sneak previews… I’ve been falling behind. It’s wedding season so yeah…
Like a good friend of mine would say;
Please hold!
I was rushing to finish that last blog post, so here’s a few more images. All but the first image were taken with an iPhone:
For Sale… In a ghost town…
Gabe found himself a cute one
The Salt Lake City Library’s east-facing facade after a Cowboy Junkies concert:
During the 4th of July fun, this grabbed my attention:
In no particular order and for no other reason other than the fact that I can, here are some things I wanna share on the blog.
Ready.
Steady.
Go!
My 8-year-old and I were talking about outer space not too long ago (he seems to have a real fascination for it) and he asked me the following question: “Dad, if there’s no air in space, how come thrusters work to keep the ship on track?”
Uhhh… [Expletive]… I don’t know…
Two months later, when I finally had some time to research it, I discovered the principle of Reaction Mass. It’s basically material expelled by a rocket to provide thrust. What I struggled to understand was HOW that worked. And for that… Just… Just Google it, I’m not gonna make any sense if I try to explain it and I can’t find the link that made the most sense to me. I’m gonna have a hard enough time trying to explain Reaction Mass to an 8-year-old as it is.
Some questions:
Do dentists hate going to the dentist’s too?
If Justin Timberlake sang “I’m Bringing Sexy Back“, doesn’t that mean he still has it and isn’t sharing it with anyone? He didn’t sing “I BROUGHT Sexy Back”. Next time someone gets divorced, go sue Justin Timberlake.
Does a bear really poop in the woods? Isn’t it possible he sometimes poops in a lake? Or in an abandoned vacation home?
And now, some statements:
I had a great 4th of July. Went swimming at the Grand America, then hung out with a friend and her family. Thanks Lexi, for both of those! How was your 4th?
I was playing a game of soccer last night. We needed an “awesome goal” to call it a night. I SCORED THE AWESOME GOAL!!! YEEEESSSSSSSSSS!!!!! I bet someone will break both my legs on tomorrow’s game. Maybe that can be the “awesome injury” that ends the game.
I was at the dentist’s yesterday morning and couldn’t feel the left side of my mouth for almost five hours afterwards. When the feeling finally came back, it really rushed back, and all I could think of was “I can feel my lips!! I need to just grab someone and kiss them!!” I’m glad I didn’t. I’d rather stay out of jail.
This looks like my kinda funny movie: Vampires Suck
This is my kinda music: Zack Hemsey’s “Mind Heist”
On a related note (to the music thingy just above), Inception is gonna rock like no other. Thank you Hollywood, for allowing original stories to seep through. Yes, Iron Man 16.3 is great, but it’s nice to have something fresh every now and then.
And speaking of movies. Sin City 2, Machete and Predators. Robert Rodriguez is finally back! Let’s see if he’s still got the chops he used to.
Time to throw in some photography. I had the privilege of sharing a scouting expedition with my good friend Brittany who likes to goof around with her own camera. We headed down to Eureka, a creepy, half-ghost-town with lots of interesting stuff. I’ll have more (hopefully) when my roll of Diana shots are developed. Specifically from the breathtaking view atop the Tintic Standard Reduction Mill.
Blue cat, red bat, black cat, dead cat
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to get some cheesecake with random strangers! Kind of a sharp turn from a dead black cat, I know…
I recently recovered a batch of old pictures that had gone missing. It was really very exciting! And it didn’t hit me until I started writing this blog post that all four pictures were snapped using the same camera; my late father’s Pentax ME Super:
“Super”…
There’s a word you don’t see in the description of any new electronics huh? And ME right in front of it too! “ME Super! ME good photographer! ME hungry!”
Anyway, but it’s strange to think of that Pentax as having been there to take pictures of everything from when I was so young until the end of its life (with me at least) in March of 2009 when someone broke into my house and stole it.
Man I miss that camera…
Here’s a few of the shots it was responsible for. Everybody say “awwwwwwwwwww”!!
And here’s my oldest, Gabriel:
I consider myself incredibly lucky; I have very few wedding horror stories to speak of. 99.99% of my brides are a joy to work with.
But every now and then I really just click with my couples. Working with them becomes effortless, talking to them when I’m not behind the camera is easy as pie and staying in touch (my Facebook account is where it’s at, baby!) is a breeze.
With Rob & Lyndsy, that’s exactly what happened. And what a wonderful pleasure it was to work with them.
Now, I can’t speak for other photographers, but I’m a STRONG believer in having a relationship with my clients beyond just the professional one. And I don’t do this as a ploy for future work (although that does tend to happen), I do it because I love people…
You read that right! Imagine that! A photographer who loves people!
Anyway, so without further ado, here’s their wedding day, beginning with my favorite image:
Beyond our professional relationship, Dani and I are close friends. So it made perfect sense that late at night on May 19th, Dani called to see if I’d be available to shoot the very next day. She needed some shots of an outfit before she had to return it to its designer on May 20th, the night of our shoot.
I want to mention something in passing.
I love Dani (big surprise, huh?). It’s no coincidence I’ve worked with her seven times with no apparent end in sight. She’s impossibly fun to be around, easy to work with and endlessly talented.
And about that talent, I remember taking those first few shots thinking “Man, I don’t have to tell her anything. We’re in perfect sync. She just moves exactly the way I’d like a model to.”
This last one isn’t particularly good, it’s just a pre-cursor to something I’m shooting next week
I did a shoot of my boys recently. Thought I’d share
Here’s Mason:
And here’s Gabe:
I’m working through Saturday’s wedding and I remember walking by and being momentarily blinded by sunlight. I stopped and looked but quickly realized that I liked the light, but nothing else.
So I shot it completely out of focus just to see what the light might tell me.
Right now as I look at it, for some reason, the following words come to mind:
“Light in its indiscernible form”
I think I should do more of this.
What is The Music Project? Well, it’s a simple concept of mine. Here we go:
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.
That’s actually not something I’m proud of… First model shoot this year?… That’s terrible!
But here we go anyway and I’m quite proud of some of those. I’ve done another shoot since (where the images absolutely ROCKED!!) and planning at least another two for the coming weeks.
Many thanks to all involved!
I should also mention something. I’m sure some of you have noticed this, but I’ve developed a real thing for black and white photography. So much so that the last concept I shot was designed only as a black and white shoot. Color was never an option. It had to be about movement, composition and more than anything else, the narrative of the story. More on that shoot when I post it. But if you look at the vast majority of these, you’ll see a lot of black and white. I just looked at them and though “Why the hell do I need color in these?”
Enjoy!
