well, I guess I should post something

So, it's been awhile. Life has been crazy. Here is a recap.

• Father was diagnosed with bladder cancer and died 3 months later
• We moved to California for a year to take care of his "estate"
• So far have made over two dozen dump runs so far in taking care of his "estate"
• Much great writing, artwork, and photographs from my dad's have been collected
• My niece just got home from her mission in Indonesia
• Have reconnected with old friends
• Have visited old outdoor stomping grounds - Wright's Lake, Horsetail Falls, Icehouse, SF of the American, Quintette, Apple Hill, Bodega Bay, Redwoods, etc
• Have been writing my own stories based on concepts by my father
• Went to Hawaii with my wife, son, my brother and his family
  
• My son is growing. He talks, swims (with a life jacket), runs, laughs, flies kites, and is in general, a great joy to me
• My wife is patient (usually) and is fabulous for being a willing participant in this year long adventure

Life is pretty good, despite the death of my father. I find that when I am not angry at him for being a hoarder and putting me through this...trial?... I really do miss him. I wish Ethan was old enough to be able to remember him, but it is what it is. His house is haunted by my memories of him.

F@#!*&!! cancer...

First, my mother. Then Grandmother. Now it stalks two more loved ones like a ravenous beast bent on our destruction. Our enemy gives no quarter, shows no mercy, only relentless, insatiable hunger. The battle is truly lost before it's begun, yet fight we must, and hope. Yet fervent prayers from faithless lips fall only on deaf ears. I desperately need some hope. Not the hope for some improbably miracle, nor the hopeful platitudes of the well intentioned, not even the hope of a reunion hereafter, just a plain, simple hope that we can get through this, again, somehow.

Hot air balloon ride - Provo UT

OT - Simple things to save money

Like many, we have been looking at easy ways to save money thanks to our economic recession. Here are a few that we are doing:

1> if you have a cell phone, get rid of your land telephone line - I haven't had one in 5 years and I don't miss it at all. Saves $30 a month.
2> get rid of cable/satelite - a lot of TV programming is available online via Hulu.com and other sites and you can get local channels with an antennae - even in HD with the right equipment. We are killing ours this month and expect to save $80 a month.
3> for Utah residents - take advantage of Questar and Rocky Mountain Power rebates for new insulation. We literally had someone come out and install new insulation in our 30 year old home for free. We just send them the rebates when they come. Too early to say what the monthly cost savings will be, but this is free insulation! We are hoping for $20-25 savings per month in peak winter and summer months.
4> air dry dishes and clothes - we hope to save $10-20 a month doing this. For a large family, I imagine the savings would be more substantial. Also make sure that your machine is completely full to maximize the value of each wash cycle. The clothes aren't so "easy". :)
5> clip coupons - we routinely get $10-20 savings each time we grocery shop when we do this. Now we just need to be more consistent :). And leverage those gas cards at the grocery store - we routinely save another $10-20 a month with those gas discounts.
6> Compact flourescent bulbs - 15watt CFB = 60watt incandescent bulb. Mutliply by the number of bulbs in your house and it adds up. Also, turn off the lights when you leave a room and kill your outdoor lighting unless needed.
7> Get a credit card with reward options. We chose Amex and get frequent flyer miles as our bonus. We put every purchase we can on it and it has paid for numerous vacation flights over the years saving us literally thousands of $$$. There are lots of other options out there including cash back, but if you use a credit card, you are a fool not to get a card with "rewards".
8> Rent instead of buy - I have a large DVD collection, since my logic was that it was roughly the same price to buy the DVD as to see the film in the theater. But I have recently discovered the magic of Red Box and now rent any film that I don't consider "must have" instead for just a buck. Of course, since it is summer and there are quite a few movies I plan on seeing in theater, I plan on seeing most of this summer films as matinees to save a few bucks. I expect to save $200-300 a year doing this.

Photoshop experiments

While I adjust to having a newborn around (we love him so much it's ridiculous), I have found myself playing around with Photoshop more. Here is a couple of pics I just worked up of my brother-in-law from his senior portrait shoot. In addition to the traditional natural backdrop shots for mom and dad, we shot some fun stuff against seamless white paper that would allow a little more of his personality to come out (he likes to draw and play video games). Then I took some of his artwork and incorporated it into the first one and then photochopped the other with some PS brushes and metal textures (Metal Heart is a comic he draws). It was a lot of fun even if mom and dad aren't going to order a 16x24 (they actually did get an 8x10 of the first one) :)

My firstborn

Have to post a couple of pictures of my newborn son, Ethan, who was born this weekend. My wife was amazing and both are healthy and happy. Being a first time dad has it's challenges, but all it takes is one look at his face, hand, or toe to put a smile on my face.

Casper Grundy Wedding

I had the pleasure to shoot the wedding of Alyssa and Alax last weekend in Sacramento CA. They were a dream to work with - ready smiles, extremely patient, and fun to shoot. Here are a few of my favorites.

Some new pics

Been a while since I have posted, but here are some favorites from a recent shoot with the Reisbeck family - their girls are just plain adorable so it was a lot of fun to shoot.

Canon 5d Mark 2 pics

So I picked up my 5d Mark 2 the day it came out and have been very pleased so far. Here is a test shot I did of my brother-in-law as we were preparing to shoot his senior pics - since he was making "big eyes" it showed off his eye detail nicely. I cropped down the image at 100% so you could see the level of detail it is capturing, even at a decent distance from the subject. First, the original image for a "distance from subject" reference - this shot is straight out of the camera except for a slight exposure bump.


Now here is the 100% crop of his eyes - this is straight out of the camera with a Sharpening Amount setting of 25


Here is the Sharpening Amount at 75 with no masking

Now a setting of 100 with no masking:

Now a setting of 150 with no masking!

And finally, I added a Masking setting of 70 with the Amount still set at 150



Of course these are lossy jpeg images, but hopefully you get an idea of what this camera is capable of. I couldn't get this amount of eye detail with my old 10D using a macro lens! I wish I would have shot some with my 5D for comparison, but I am sure that with 75% more megapixels the Mark 2 would definitely outshine it, especially when you consider how well the Mark 2 held up to sharpening.

I hope to post some high ISO comparison images soon as I was very impressed with this camera at iso3200.

Harris Family

Last week I got the chance to snap some pics of the Harris family's new baby boy, Max. Here are just a few favorites from the shoot.

Carson Family Shoot

Had the opportunity to shoot the Carson family on Friday at the AF amphitheater - the weather was a bit cold and windy, but they were brave and toughed out the hour or so long shoot. Adam, the youngest simply did not want to be held by anyone, so we tried some things that allowed him a little more individual freedom and he did great. Thanks again Sam and Jim - you guys are awesome!

I love Halloween!

I'll say it again, I love Halloween! While this doesn't compare to a lot of home haunts out there, we try to make the yard/house fun for the kids and they seem to appreciate the effort. This year I created a new pneumatic powered prop that hid behind a large tombstone until triggered by an infrared motion detector. When triggered, a spot light would light up the tombstone and the prop would leap up from behind it to it's fully extended height of over 6 feet! It took a lot of work :) but the kids seemed to really enjoy it.



















It is not easy to capture shots like this - bright spotlights combined with darkness, fog, moving props, etc make it difficult. I just ramped up the iso, opened up my aperture, and shot handheld. In the window is old "bluie" - he was my first animated prop, a flying crank ghost that is blacklit and hovers in the window

My wife

My wonderful wife and I are having our first baby - a little boy due in January! She has been bugging me for a while to take some pictures of her pregnant so that she can use them in her baby journal. Well, we finally got some time yesterday to go up to the Sundance area and take some pictures. The black shirt made it difficult to really emphasize her tummy, but I tried it out with some back lighting and then cross lighted her with a 40" silver reflector with some on camera flash for fill - I think it worked ok.

In The Trees

Here are some shots from a recent trip to the Sundance area. Utah has wonderful variety of color to shoot in the autumn and my favorite has to be aspens. This was a "scouting" run in preparation for the fall color change, so the leaves hadn't turned yet, so I went with (surprise) black and white.

I tried to emphasizes the light play among the trees by increasing the contrast and using a negative clarity adjustment in Adobe Lightroom to soften the light. The great thing about this area is that these shots are literally right on the side of the road - the Sundance wilderness area is truly amazing - one of my
favorite places in Utah.

At The Beach

Here are a couple more pics from my trip to Dillon Beach, CA. Most of the photos that I have been posting are treated using a duo or tritone effect to give them some warmth. The wind made for some great textures in the sand.
























The tides combined with the unique slope of the beach made for some interesting sand formations once the tide went out.

Trip to Northern California

Went out to visit my family in California last weekend with my wife. We spent a couple of days on the coast at Dillon Beach which is a source of many fond childhood memories. It had been 20 years or so since I had been there and of course the wind was terrible and it was colder than I remember, but it was still nice to share it with Susan and my family. Took some pics on the beach and in the town of Tomales, CA on the way home. Tomales is this great little town located a bit further inland on Route 1. Here are some of my favorites from the trip.