Well the lens came today, and I’m pretty excited about a new lens that I’ve never owned before. I took a couple sample shots here in the office, to compare the 85 to the 45. The differences probably aren’t huge to the untrained eye, but to me they are pretty significant! To me it’s easy to see how the 45 still has a wide angle effect to it, as seen in this first shot of the loose change on the window sill.  In the 45 shot, it looks like the dime and the nickel are at different angles, while they appear more parallel in the 2nd shot.  Interestingly, the lens causes the camera to perceive that the coins are at different angles, as you can see that the amount of reflected light off the silver coins is much different in the 45mm image than the 85mm image.  Also notice how I shot the stacks of coins at an angle, but aligned the focal plane along the tops of the coins, leaving the change below blurred out. This is what I jokingly call using the tilt shift “The Right Way”, when you are intentionally aligning things with the focal plane. Both of these lenses are excellently sharp, even hand held wide open at f/2.8.

left- 45mm .:. right- 85mm

Secondly I took a couple silly pictures of Richie in the foyer. Once again, the 45 has more of a wide angle to it. In this particular composition, I like the 45mm better.  But I’m pretty sure that if I was doing a close in headshot, that I’d like the more flattering flatness of the 85mm. In both these shots I’m using the lens ” The Wrong Way”, where I use the angled focal plane to blur out everything but the eyes.

left- 45mm .:. right- 85mm

Now I acknowledge wasn’t a particularly scientific “test” by any means. I didn’t even do a very good job of keeping the subjects face at the same angle so that you can compare the shots.  This was just an excuse to play with my new toy and to make funny faces for the blog!

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!

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. :>)

I’m always following the weather during the winter, tracking the big storms that yield glorious dumps of fluffy powder. I wasn’t able to get away too much this year, just too much business stuff combined with a pretty dry winter.  Well the storms finally showed up in late March and early April, and I was determined to get my money’s worth out of the pass.  So through the glory of Facebook, I found a co-pilot, 2 places to stay near Vail, and we set out for 3 days of bottomless powder hunting.

Things started out normally enough the first day at Vail. Until about 2 hours in the day I randomly shared a chairlift ride with a couple, and the girl had a piece of bridal veil material in her helmet. Turns out they were in town from Houston to get married at the swanky new Arabelle Resort in Lionshead. So we were chatting about weddings, and I mentioned that I have a shoot planned soon where I’m going to do portraits of the bride and groom in the dress and tux on skis. Tricia looks at me and says, “Can we do that on Sunday!?” Fortunately I had my camera gear with me, and I booked the shoot, thereby lengthening my trip another day. Well now I know that I need to get up skiing more often next year! And does this mean that I can write off my pass next year as a business expense?! Look for pics from that shoot soon on The Light Side.

Two runs later I went into the lodge to meet up with Io. She was talking with a man, who had a cute little girl pulling on his leg. Turns out he does energy-body work in Boulder. I asked him if he was interested in trading some family photos for body work . . . Yes! Two shoots hooked up in an hour! The next two days went pretty much as planned. I did a crazy amount of tree skiing. The next shot shows the aspen trees that lead down to the High Noon lift in the far Western back bowls. I’ve never skied them before because the slope is southwest-ish facing and is usually pretty bare. But after feet and feet of snow in two weeks, I was able to hit the chute just to the right of the lift, fresh tracks all the way. Very deep and steeper than it looks!

The second day at Beaver Creek was my best day there ever. We woke up that morning, and it dumped a foot of snow in 6 hours. It snowed crazy hard and I would have taken more pics but I was way too busy shredding. It was snowing too hard anyway. I hit tons of glades: Bachelor Gulch, Coyote Glade, Thresher Glade, Heads Up, 4 Get About It, Corkscrew, Stickline . . . my only regret is not hitting some of the steep upper glades earlier, by the time I got there they were closed. Next time I’ll know where to go first.

My last photo from this set is of a random guy who I shared a lift ride with. His beard was so awesomely coated with icicles that I had to take a portrait. Can you say, face shots?

So, I booked photo shoots, while skiing deep powder. I think it’s apparent that I need to manifest a place to live in Eagle County!

I got a last minute invite to a fashion model/photographer event down in Denver this week. The group is called Poise, and they organize by using Meetup.com. My first reaction was, “Oh no, yet another online networking thing that I have to create a profile for…” But this event turned out to be really fun and productive, so I think I will be improving my Meetup profile soon.

So the event was very fashion modeling oriented. I had my own agenda though, because I was borrowing an 85mm 1.8 lens that I wanted to test. So while most of the photographers were shooting model-ish poses in a pack under the hot lights; I was working on my portrait shots on a one on one basis. I had a good time, good some good shots, learned some tricks, and made some contacts.

So over the next couple days I will be posting my favorite shots. First up we have the lovely Kimberly. I love this photo.

I’ve been working on my studio lighting techniques. Here is Tali, one of the victims of my experimentation. You can check out her and Spencer playing live at the downtown Amante on Friday evenings.

Wingnut is turning old on Friday. His birthday party night conveniently coincides with Steve G’s art opening, it’s going to be an epic night. If you are wondering what to get him, I’ll give you a tip; he likes booze.

Brayden is such a good model. I don’t even know where he comes up with this stuff. You wouldn’t know that the insanity of the Boulder Cup Cyclocross run-up is right below us. See the people in the tree in the picture below this one? That is where we are.