Why I love my job

I love happy people. Growing up, most of my closest friends were theatre-folk. Expressive, confident, and happy. I like being around people who enjoy life and like being with each other.

Doing engagements for Alishia & Tyler made my day! These two are just plain adorable. And I love that everyone can see how in love they are.

 

   I got a greeting card once that said "Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional." It was so much fun to take photos of Alishia & Tyler swinging and riding in the little red wagon, I got all sentimental remembering my childhood!

My favorite was a facebook comment on Alishia's page where she posted the photo below: "This picture looks most like my experience with you as a quasi-roommate. Approval++"

  

We had this magical mix of those bright late-summerish greens and all the awesome fall colors for the shoot. I honestly could not think of a better or more vibrant background to show off how awesome this couple is.

    

  

Be sure and check out their full engagement gallery here. The first half of their photos are up, and the remaining ones will follow.

 

How to shoot a bride in a Walmart parking lot

  As promised, here's the behind-the-scene photos from the bridals and formals I posted the other day.  This was an experiment/demonstration I did for my intern Abby, and is something I've been working on in my head for a long time.  So here it is, how to shoot a bride in a Wal-mart parking lot.

Photographers: Myself and Abby (my lovely intern), with Thomas shooting "behind-the-scene"

Models: Lybie and Ravi

Location: Wal-Mart Parking Lot

Purpose: To prove that there is ALWAYS a beautiful photo to be found, even in unsuspecting locations.

First, here's me :)

I have learned many principles from many people through my photography years, and I have been grateful for all these lessons.  I found a couple of these principles were most applicable to this kind of location shooting and would like to share them with y'all.

Principle #1 - The best photos are taken from below 3 feet and above 6 feet (while most photos you see are taken from between 3ft and 6ft, general standing/crouching height.) Here we shot from low to crop out the parking lot and other distractions to show the sky, with the tree, bush, and light post (love having the light posts in parking lots to work with!) framing her.  3 lights, fill light on the camera, main light from left, backlight from right.  Sometimes I would put a fourth light below the tree to help light it up, but the main light was doing a good job already.

...and this is what we had to work with for that shot, and the next...

Principle #2: Bokeh.  Leaving the bride and lights in the same place, I stood up and actually used the cars and parking lot as a background, but zoomed in as far as possible and dropped the f/stop for a shallow depth of field.  Now instead of obviously being cars and parking lot, it's just a lot of texture. Lybie really wanted an edgy look, and I feel like this complimented the messy-hair and unique bouquet.

Principle #3: Empty space is ok!  And wide open sky shots do not have to include the subject's feet.  This is a simple thing, but one I've been working on recently.  I feel that this photo would not have been pretty if we included the asphalt!  Also played with white balance - warm vs. cold plays an important role in the atmosphere of the photo.  Fill light on camera, main light from the right, car headlights as back light from the left.

Principle #4: Who cares what the background is when the subject fills the frame?

Principle #5: Lighting is everything!!!   This is the photo I'm most proud of.  Yes, she is standing in front of a dumpster.  It might not have smelled fantastic, but we don't have to see the smell on camera!  And with the shadow from the tree on the dumpster, the car lights shooting across it, and backlight on the bride, it makes a great textured background.

...and this is what we had to work with.  Beautiful bride, but an interesting scene indeed.

And again, 200mm, shallow depth of field.  This could be a cool classy downtown night scene, but if you look really closely, you can almost read the Wal-mart "Always" sign behind them.  :)

So here's the deal:  I love shooting at places like Thanksgiving Point Gardens or La Caille, but at the end of the day, it's not the location that determines the quality of the photos, it's the angles, the composition, the depth of field, the lighting, and having awesome subjects to work with.  We can take a location as ordinary as a Wal-Mart parking lot and without walking more than 20 steps in any direction get a wide variety of photos.  I was so excited to have this opportunity and hope to do many more of these experiments in the near future.

If you'd like to see more photos (and behind the scene photos) from the session, take a look at the full gallery here.

Me and My Story

My dad is really my inspiration for photography.  He's a Real Estate Developer by career, but a photographer by heart.  He even set up a family photo contest and brought in a professional photographer to judge it. My first professional camera was a gift from him, and I am so grateful he has encouraged me along the way.
I never considered being a photographer until about 3 years ago.  In Kindergarten, I'd say, "when I grow up, I either want to be a doctor or a garbage man. Doctors help people, and garbage men get to ride on the back of the truck!"

Really though, most of my life has been about sports or music.  I played and refereed soccer for many years, sang, and played piano, French horn, and guitar.  I studied Music Education at BYU, and had planned on becoming a middle school band director.  But things never work out quite how we plan.

The truth about my story is that photography chose me.  I never expected to be here, but I'm so grateful for the path life has taken.

Growing up, my parents were always supportive and encouraging of our hobbies.  Most of my hobbies were sports and music related, but I always had a camera.  Some of my siblings and I would do fashion shoots in Elementary school.  Yes, fashion shoots.  We would find outfits from the dress-up box (consisting mostly of my Mom's amazing 70's style performance costumes) and we would take photos.  I cringe to think of the outfits we encouraged my poor younger brother to wear.
I still remember my first camera: teal & pink, 100% plastic.  But as a 7 year old, I couldn't be happier. My spending money around that time went primarily towards candy and getting my film developed... though I have to admit that the majority probably went to candy.  And it still does.  I was, am, and forever will be completely and utterly addicted to sugar.
In 2008 I married Thomas.  We met two years earlier in a swing dancing club.  We danced our way through 2 years of dating and finally he convinced me to say yes.  I love that he encouraged me in my hobby of photography and helped it to become a career.  Thomas even dove in and learned about cameras, the theory and techniques of photography, and he often shoots with me at weddings.  I am so grateful to be able to share the talent most important to me with the person most important to me.  Our wedding day wasn't anywhere near magazine worthy, but it was still one of the happiest days of my life.  One of the things that sparked my interest in wedding photography as a career was watching the process from the other side of the lens.

I liked the idea of being there at the wedding to capture perfect moments. To see people as they are and preserve the purest looks of love, commitment, and joy.  Photography to me is not about poses, outfits, or locations.  It is about expressions, emotions, and interactions.  That's why I do what I do.