Viva Las Vegas!

I just got back from an awesome trip in Las Vegas. I went with a group from BYU-Idaho and attended Photoshop World, the biggest digital photography conference in the country. Uh-mazing! We had 3 solid days of constant, non-stop, mind-blowing, outa-this-world workshops that seriously changed the way I look at photography and where I want to take it in my career. We got to meet with some of the top photographers and designers in the country and learn how we can improve our skills. I was able to get some pretty cool shots while I was down there. I am still trying to go through them all and decide which ones to edit. I came across this one of Erica and I just had to stop right there and try out some of the editing tricks I learned at Photoshop World. I will hopefully get some more up soon, so check back often.

Oh, by the way: PLEASE leave comments! I want to know what you think about the photos on my blog. If you have any tips, advice, requests, etc...I would definitely love to hear them. I have a long way to go in improving myself, so any feedback is helpful. Thanks!

Light Painting

Last night my friends Ashlee and Dustin and I decided to go try our luck at a technique called light painting. What this is is taking several different shots of the same subject, but in each shot lighting up a small section of the subject with a light. Then you take each of these images and merge them together in Photoshop. It took us roughly two hours to get all the pieces that we needed. My camera settings were f/ 8.0, ISO 100, with a ten-second exposure. In Photoshop, I brought in the different images and then masked out the parts that I wanted. Once I had that all done, I put the image through Camera RAW to boost the colors, vibrance and clarity.

There are a couple of different ways to do light paining. The technique we used was following Eric Curry's amazing example. Another technique is demonstrated by Dave Black, who only does one shot in a 20-30 second exposure. He doesn't light the whole subject, but instead leaves part of the subject dark to add more character and texture. I'm hoping to try out his style soon.

Cowley Family Portraits

Tonight we did an awesome family photo session with the Cowley Family. It was a blast to work with these guys up at the BYU-Idaho Gardens. Sometimes it can be really tricky to get some good photos of kids, but these lil guys and gals were amazing. The Cowley's were way fun to photograph because of their high energy and enthusiasm. Thanks guys, it was a blast!

Hansen Family Portraits

Megan and her family came up to Idaho for a visit and asked me to take some family portraits. We headed out to the St. Anthony Sand Dunes and got some really killer shots. These are a few that turned out awesome! Thanks Megan and fam!!

Riley

Carson

The Hansen Family

The Old School in Swan Valley

Last Sunday I took a quick trip up to Swan Valley. I was a little worried that the rain was gonna cause me problems, but it ended up being perfect. This is an old school house that is right by the highway up to Driggs. It is a really popular for the local photographers so I wanted to get my own version of it. For this photo, I 3 different shots at different exposures. Then I ran it through the HDR process in CS5. I turned it monochromatic, then added a sepia overlay. I gave it a strong vignette, and then finished it off with a scratch texture layer. I was really happy with how good this turned out. I printed an 8X10 of it at Wallymart and it looks perty legit! I have quite a few more shots from the trip, so I'll have to get those up soon.

Ty and Karen's Engagements

We headed up to Montana to take Ty and Karen's engagement photos. We only had to fight the weather for a little bit, but then it cleared up and we had an awesome afternoon. Ty and Karen did great and we were able to get some good shots. Congrats guys!