Steve-Z.com

Driving along the barren interstate at sunset, we were struck by the beauty of the rolling crop fields in central Washington. The sun was setting, and we were reflecting on a spontaneous journey gone by.  It seemed like the perfect setting to take some new Facebook profile pics!

That’s all for Chapter 5. You can check out more photos from the trip on Mel’s blog.

Hi. Steve here. I have a ton of new photos and posts to publish from my latest adventures. But first things first. I gotta change the name of this website! This is a blog of personal photos and adventures, and as a result it is a steadily morphing entity. As I evolve as a human and as a photographer, the look and feel of the site needs to change with me.

“The Dark Side” was a name that I impulsively came up with a couple years ago one late night when I was changing both of my blogs to my new ProPhoto WordPress blog template (great template, there is a discount coupon at the bottom of the page!).  My professional websites took over an all-white theme, and I thought it would be fun to have my personal site reflect the opposite of that. So I just started calling the two, the Light Side, and the Dark Side. It was never really a well thought out plan, I will admit. One was white, one was black. One was professional work, one was personal work. It was really supposed to be temporary, but, I’m pretty busy with all the tons of things to do with this photo biz, so I just never got around to changing it, mostly because I never really thought of anything else to call it.

What is the purpose of this site anyway? Do I really need it? Does it really matter?

To me, it does. I love photography. I’m passionate about it, and addicted to it. I love taking photos when I’m on my adventures. Sometimes the photos are just travel snaps. But once in a while I get a really cool shot, the kind that I’d like to hang on the wall of my house. So I feel the need to put them out there and share them with the world, rather than have them live a cold and lonely life on a computer hard drive. I want them to see the light of day. I’d like to set up a cart where they could be purchased . . . but that’s a whole nutha project.

I need a new title that is more representative to the photography work that I publish here. In all reality, there isn’t much that is Dark about my photography. I’m more interested in beauty than sadness. I do have a quirky sense of humor, no doubt. I love what I do and I do have some pretty cool adventures where I have a lot of fun. The Dark Side had some people thinking that they were going to see horror movie stuff or something! So I need a title that is smart and clever, and possibly hints that this is a photo blog featuring photos from my travel, biking and snowboarding, and other random photos I take in my free time. There is also occasionally some technical and educational info for photographers, although I don’t seem to manage to find the time to publish a quarter of the articles that I think of in my mind. How do I sum all of that up in a title? How do I sum up 39 years of me in a couple words?

Until I come up with a cool new title . . . I’m just going to have a clean white sheet of paper.  The Great Title-less Blog! I just couldn’t stand the old look any more and had to change it immediately! I made a Facebook comment about changing the name; in a dream world someone will come up with a clever name for me! I’m not counting on that though. My best ideas usually come from an unexpected moment of clarity, and will just pop into my head when the time is right. As for now, I’m going to throw out the idea that I’m ready for the new name to come to me.

As for the photo . . . It’s just a funny self portrait that I took on my recent trip to Washington State. My chin is all distorted and enormous due to the distortion of my Nikon 14-24mm lens. I love to take beautiful pictures. But I also like taking funny and somewhat distorted pictures as well!

If you actually read all of this, thanks. I hope you keep coming back for years to come, as this blog will still be around, although the format may completely different. Evolution is like that.  Cheers, Steve Z.

I have lots of difficultly buying a product that just works. It seems like when I purchase something, there is only a 50% chance that I will be able to have it work, function, or look like it is supposed to on the first try.  There doesn’t seem to be quality of products any more. We live in a disposable society, where products are actually designed to fail so that you will be forced to buy a new one in a few years.  Additionally, many are just scurrying about with their tails between their legs hiding from The Recession. Consumers are searching for a cheaper and cheaper deal all the time without thinking about where the costs are being cut.

Photography is a luxury expense. As a result, many photo pros running top notch businesses are feeling the crunch of the economic downturn.  No one really understands why it costs so much to run a photography business these days.  I don’t blame them one bit.  I really didn’t have a very good idea when I started doing this either!  There are so many hidden costs that it never ceases to amaze me. And as long as I continue, more and more costs keep surfacing.  My latest is it’s going to cost $1000 just to adjust and calibrate my cameras and half of my lenses.  How much would the already expensive equipment have to cost for the quality to be perfect, so that I didn’t have to make these adjustments and repairs? Sure, I could just deal with my cameras the way they are, but I’m committed to having perfectly calibrated cameras so that my images are perfectly sharp.

The real lesson here, is that quality is just plain expensive.  Just take this photo of this screw for example. It’s hard to tell from the photo, but there are no true threads, just metal rings!  When did it become difficult to buy something with screws that actually had functioning threads?  There were screws like this in two  sofa tables that I bought to display my albums in the studio.  I really don’t have the funds to buy them from Design Within Reach, so I bought some cheap bolt together ones from Target online.  The first ones showed up with brush marks and hand prints under the clear coat on the wood.  Then the second set showed up with non-functioning screws.  Luckily I had screws from the first set, so I could put the tables together.  So while I got a cheaper deal, I still had to waste a bunch of time assembling, disassembling, calling, reshipping, etc.

What is the cost of the cheap tables?  The margins are so tight that they are trying to remove fractions of pennies out of the cost of the tables, and the screws.  Should I always just buy designer tables so that they will (hopefully) work the first time? Should I support local merchants in the way that I hope to have my business supported? My accounting spreadsheet doesn’t really support buying top of the line studio furnishings in a business where I’m always being undercut by photographers who are willing to sell out their digital files for nothing.
Despite the sliding trend of photo studio profitability, I am working towards reaching the higher end of the market where quality is respected.  I am seeking the clients that will recognize the top quality of the product that I offer.  While some people in the world will continue to be content to display their Wal-Mart  prints with bad skin tones proudly on their Target sofa tables with hand prints and screwed up screws, I pledge to offer services that represent, support, and exude Quality. The perfectionist in me will only be satisfied offering a premium product at a premium price.

I spend some time the last two weekends up in Estes Park.  My friend Io lives there so I stopped by. She has a porch.  And a dog named Amber. I have an 85mm Perspective Control Lens. And a photography problem. This is what happened.

Greetings sports fans! While some of you might not follow all of the happenings over on Steve Z’s Light Side, here is a post that you don’t want to miss! Sport The Dress™ session up at Arapahoe Basin. Check out the full post HERE.

I had a lot of fun taking pictures of my nephews. I’m still enthusiastic enough with photography that I’m always shooting when I have willing subjects. It doesn’t get any more willing than this! Look at these poses!

The playground in Frenchtown NJ is classic. It has lots of old-school playground features. You know, the kind that kids can get seriously injured on, lik merry-go-rounds and see-saws! It was like being in the 70s again!

After the playground we got smoothies near the Frenchtown Bridge which crosses over the Delaware River.

So far all my images from this trip have been in color, and fairly ‘normal’ to boot. We are going to rectify that situation for the last photo.

On the second day, the sun came out and we were able to go play in the yard. Grammy’s house is a cabin in the woods.  So we headed out to take some family pics for the photo album. Things started out a little slowly at first.  Travis wasn’t super exited for the posed shot at first.  Evi is just a big ham and was ready to go from the get-go!

I didn’t want to burn the kids out with too much posing, so I decided not to set up strobes, even though I really wanted to! The sun was bright and it was mid-day, but I just wanted the boys to have some fun.  So I pointed them at some small trees that they could climb and shot away!  These next shots are with the 85mm 1.4 shot wide open.  I love the background blur!  Well, other than the crazy mad adorableness of the nephews.  Can you believe that spell-check says that ‘adorableness’ is a real word?

After I ran out of ideas of how to trick the boys into doing things that I thought would make great photos, we headed back onto the porch. Next I decided to trick them into smelling the flowers so I could take ridiculously cute photos of young boys stiffing flowers. You might think that I would be beyond that level of cheesiness, but clearly I’m not! Can you believe that spell-check says that ‘cheesiness’ is a real word?

Last up we have some extreme close up eye photos! I love these! The Nikon tilt shift is also a macro lens. Handy. :>)

The contents of this post have been moved to my professional blogsite: CLICK HERE

One byproduct of all this crazy Colorado spring weather has been lots of cool clouds to shoot under. Last week I woke up early one morning to notice a cool, moody overcast sky. I was itching to overpower the sun with some of my Strobist gear so I tried rounding up a model at the last minute. I wasn’t successful, but I did convince my fellow photographer Bobby Turner to bust out a business suit and some pomade and head out to the country.  Later that day I ironically came across a story in The Onion about Guys With Slicked Back Hair!

By the time we started shooting the clouds were just breaking up, and gave way to beautiful puffy clouds and blue sky. I’m really happy with the wrap around lighting that I used. I think the images have a nice 3-D look to them. If you are interested in more of the details of the shoot and the technical, how-to, Strobist info, you can check out my post on the Boulder Strobist website HERE.

I’m getting more and more requests for cool, edgy, and fun business portraits. It seems a lot of professionals are tired of having their photos taken in front of boring blue studio backgrounds.  Which is of course great news for me!  I just had a great photo session in Denver yesterday for a paid client, so this type of shoot is becoming more common for me.  Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

I was hired to shoot some portraits of Robin Peglow from Signs of Life Health. Robin is a certified Holistic Health Counselor, as was looking for some updated photos to promote her business. She wanted photos that evoke a feeling of positivity and health for individual clients, as well as portray an image of maturity and professionalism for her corporate clients. She knew that she wouldn’t be satisfied with a boring corporate headshot, so we headed down near Commons Park in Denver for some creative shooting.

Robin is psyched at her photos, and wrote: “I’ve never considered myself photogenic. Despite being pretty animated in my life, I get oddly shy in front of the camera. I needed some photos for my business that felt confident, professional, approachable and peaceful, a tall order for me while feeling wildly photo-awkward. You helped me relax and have fun with it, and were terrific at capturing those real moments where my personality actually came through. I got exactly the photos I needed! Thank you!”