Brian Kraft Photography

Please enjoy yourself here at my blog and don’t forget to also visit my photography website at BrianKraft.com

I decided to tag along and photograph a couple things on the adventures of Elizabeth and her mom shopping for garden plants. We went to Dardano’s Flowerland, Denver’s longest running garden center to pick up what we needed. To say that Elizabeth gets excited about her herb/vegetable/fruit growing is a serious understatement. Elizabeth is able to pack in so many fancy heirloom varieties into the nutrient-rich soil she’s cultivated. Last year we ate very well out of the garden and were still giving bags upon bags of vegetables away to friends and family. This is the ‘year of the balanced garden’, however. Not to say we won’t have an excess, but a more balanced variety of excess– as opposed to the tomatoes we were swimming in last year off our 21 tomato plants! Wow. 

Sunday morning. After a fun evening at the dinner party we hosted last night. I thought that while I got together a handful of photos I took during the past week while doing nothing in particular (driving, walking, chilling) that the piles of dishes in the kitchen would have cleaned themselves. Boy was I wrong. I just checked and I’m pretty sure those dirty dishes have started to multiply. Well now that I’ve got these photos together, I guess it’s time to go clean the dishes. But first, let me ease the pain a little with pleasant reminders of the fun we had while dirtying those plates.

Elizabeth is the queen of the dinner party. Her menus and meals are always unreal– all from scratch. Russian cheese bread (inside- goat cheese, sundried tomatoes, caramelized onions); mixed spring green salad with candied walnuts, grilled asparagus, and a roasted shallot vinaigrette; creamy potato leak soup topped with roasted red peppers; pan seared swordfish in a parsley (from our garden) pesto; orange essence crepes filled with fresh whipped cream and covered in a lavender infused honey. Um, yeah. We all had a lot of fun dining outside on our patio in the perfect evening air. Lots of laughs. Lots. I think my cheeks are still hurting. Ok, the photos… 

OK, to the dishes…

How can photography create a family??? Well, when it’s the Heart Gallery it does! The Heart Gallery– made up of a group of photographers volunteering across more than 40 States that photograph “waiting children.” These children are up for adoption and are the ones that have been longest on that waiting list. The program has received a lot of national attention, such as appearing on TV’s 20/20 in 2005 and 2006  I am one of those photographers for the Colorado Heart Gallery. The goal is for this highly visible traveling gallery of images to try to increase awareness and hopefully attract prospective adoptive families. The outcome measures do show that with each successive year the rate of adoption of these children continually increases.

We are just now kicking off the initial work to get the 2008-2009 Gallery started. The Colorado Heart Gallery’s grand opening will be on October 6th, with musician Hazel Miller helping to kick off the opening at a location to be determined. The gallery will then move to a new public location every 6 weeks around Colorado for a full year. 

Typical adoption photographs…

“They look like mug shots,” said David Bergman, a Sports Illustrated Photographer who was one of the volunteers. “You can’t really get a glimpse into a child’s personality, or you really don’t know anything about them by looking at those pictures.”

I will be posting updates and my own work for the Gallery over the next few months. In the meantime, have a look at this video that takes a little closer look into The Heart Gallery at one of the other national locations– in Alabama.

For about the last year and a half I’ve been running a friendly little monthly photo contest. The contestants and the voters are spread around the world and everyone seems to really have fun with it. Each month we have a new theme and each submit 3 of our top photos from the month– things like “Cold”, “Animals”, “Film Noir”, etc. The last one was “Diptych– a pair of photos of the same subject with a different perspective or point in time” and I happened to win this month. Here’s one of my 3 photos that received the most votes.   

I planned it out and took the dry one first- thinking it would probably snow again here in Denver before the end of April. And it did, but man… I was miserable out there. It had been so warm the many days before and I figured it was just a warm-ish snow day… I went out (walking from my house) with not enough layers on and the wind was whipping across the lake into my eyes as I approached the spot. I could barely even keep my eyes open to see where I was walking. Freezing. I fired off about 5 shots hoping I’d nail the same placement and angle and all- since I couldn’t stand to sit there and inspect the earlier shots that I still had on my camera- not to mention trying to protect my camera and lens from getting drenched. I got the photos and got out of there fast. Glad it paid off though and helped me with the win.

You can take a look at the full results and all entries. If you are interested in joining in as a voter just contact me brian@briankraft.com If you’d like to participate as a contestant you can also email me. We’re also open to suggestions for the monthly theme ideas– again, email me!

I was recently commissioned by the wonderful Highland’s Garden Cafe to re-vamp their logo. They were happy with their older logo, but one of the problems was they only had it in a very, very small size and it was posing a problem when various marketing firms and restaurant reviewers wanted to publish their logo at the sizes they needed. We decided to keep the feel very similar to the older style, but add a new twist to it. The Cafe, one of Colorado’s top restaurants, is known not only for exquisite food, but also for its beautiful atmosphere– which includes luxurious gardens that surround the two Victorian houses of the restaurant. Patricia and Chuck Perry, the owners, have an amazing elequent style and wanted to keep that floral theme of the restaurant in their new logo.

Using the Perry’s heirloom patinated silver vase, I arranged a variety of flowers for the first stage of the process. I then photographed the flowers in the vase in my studio. Using one of my new favorite tools– Corel’s Painter X (thanks for the tips, Tanya!), I used hand painting techniques on the photograph to give the image a more painterly quality. I then created the oval setting and lettering into which I placed the flowers. The Cafe loves it and so do I!

No, not me. But that’s what The Franchise Builders company helps other companies do. I had a photo shoot several days ago at one of their offices. They wanted about 100 different shots taken of a handful of the print collateral they’ve developed for their clients. I shot everything on a couple different materials, including this wood.

We also did a few shots of the art director’s monitor, which he’d later put online with different images embedded on the screen for their website.

Being a photographer in Denver is such a great thing. There are parks everywhere. Lots of them. The most park space of any other city in the U.S. And they are beautiful. I love to take photos while walking around the park, like I did yesterday.