You know life is good when your daily job assignment is to hit the Boulder trails with a cute dog and an even cuter girl for a photo shoot. Even after pinching myself, I still found that I’d been contracted to shoot the cover for Colorado outdoor sports and lifestyle magazine Elevation Outdoors. EO is an inspiring Boulder-based production that tunes readers like myself into local adventure, trends, gear, and general mountain shenanigans, so it was my pleasure to create an image for their June backpacking issue.

The assignment seemed simple enough, capture a cover photo that evoked the image of a blond woman backpacking with her dog mid-summer in the Colorado outdoors. The assignment became less than simple when I was handed a couple weeks of rain and snowfall in mid-May. These images were captured below the snow line in the foothills of South Boulder during a four-hour sunny interlude from thundershowers, yet still managed to include gale force winds. Fortunately, both the human (Jayme) and canine (Jax) models didn’t seem to mind, so I anchored my light stand with a 25-pound rock and kept shooting. Using a strobe is the key to illuminating your subject while maintaining those quintessential deep blue Colorado skies and wind-swept clouds.

Other than the selected cover shot, I thought I’d post some other fun images from the session. Enjoy!

Sometimes I get asked if I ever shoot pet portrait photography. Officially, the answer is no, I’ve never been hired for a paid dog or cat portrait gig. But that doesn’t mean that I couldn’t! I’m just not really sure that a viable, paying market exists for high quality scenic shots. One would think that if the interest was there, that Boulder of all places would be a good market for it. But upon searching the internet, all I seem to find are those cheesy studio shots with little dogs with selective color bows on their heads! So if there is anyone out there who wants shots of their pets in the style that I do the rest of my portraits, don’t be afraid to ask!

Well Sunday morning had some beautiful clouds and morning light.  I was given the exercise to consciously shift my attention near and far.  I thought about how a zen-like attention is integral with capturing great photography.  A sense of peace and comfort can be achieved by tuning in to the infinite compositional permutations of landscapes and detail shots and portraits and moments that are around us every second of our lives.  This peaceful feeling of oneness is what draws thousands of photographers into nature photography.  I found that it is also possible to have a similar experience at a shopping center.

When I went to the parking garage to get my camera, this old woman was staring at me.  She was quite surprised find out that she was to be featured on such a prestigious website.

My camera data tells me that all these images were taken in a period of 11 minutes.

All of the Photoshop was done in Camera Raw.  Not much was done to the photos, other than color tweaking and a 4:5 crop.

He was very nice. He was a little upset that I didn’t have any treats, but I made it better by rubbing his belly.

This was a sculpture outside a furniture store.

And so was this.

I enjoyed taking some time on my Sunday evening to play with some random photos.  I hope you enjoy.  Coming up this week, plenty of pictures of pretty people!