Author Headshot Photography
The pioneer of machine quilting, Harriet Hargrave, and her daughter, Carrie, are putting out their first joint book together. Harriet has written many books on quilting and is considered a national authority on quilting, traveling the country to impart her knowledge to those wanting to learn more from a master. Harriet and Carrie came to me to photograph for their upcoming book. They came to my Denver studio with quilts in hand and we photographed them with their quilts, as well as some headshots for the book cover and jacket. We had lots of laughs. It was great to meet the two of them. They have a 6 book deal and will call on me to be their photographer for additional books’ photography. Next time we’ll go to Carrie’s garden in Arvada, Colorado for a photoshoot and probably to Harriet’s rose garden for the photoshoot after that. To see more Commercial Photography and more, head on over to the main photography site.
Automotive Photography
You know Car Talk? Well there’s the national guys on talk radio. There’s also a pair of guys on a Clear Channel radio station in Colorado. They hired me to photograph them along side a couple of their cars. The location was a park in Denver where we could have somewhat of a mountain background in the photos. I don’t know how they chose which cars to bring, considering one of the talk show hosts told me he owns 80 cars. What!? Where do you put 80 cars? In a traffic jam I’ve seen 80 cars, but not many other places. One of the hosts, John Rush, brought a giant white truck. It looked more like a motel than something to travel in. And quite to the other end of the spectrum, host, Donny Seyfer, brought a little zippy looking orange car. I photographed them in front of their cars, inside their cars, and away from their cars. It was a fun little commercial photoshoot. That’s something great about doing work as a commercial photographer, there is always something new and different to photograph.
Travel Photography
I got the opportunity to take some time away from Denver to travel to the Pacific NW. I didn’t get much of an opportunity to do much travel photography while there since I was so wrapped up with other professional photography work. I did get a brief opportunity to take in some of the scenery– which has such a drastically different look and feel from Denver. The Seattle area is so wet. The Denver area is so dry. The former is so green and lush with plant-life growing in every little nook and cranny. The latter is not terribly green and plant-life seems to struggle to survive unless watered by somebody. Being in that different setting allowed me to look at everything anew and capture some of that on film. I don’t often get the chance to photograph more of the fine art elements around me, but sometimes I am lucky enough to.
Architecture Photography
I was hired by a firm that builds buildings to photograph a couple of the commercial spaces they built. The first location to get photos of was an architecture firm in Denver, which is a little funny since I was doing architecture photography. It was a beautiful place in Downtown. One of the challenges of doing architecture photography is the light, especially coming through windows, which can create shadowed or overly bright (or both!) areas which lack good detail. I use a method I created– well maybe other commercial photographers are using the method, I don’t know, but it’s a method I came up with that I really like. It’s essentially taking various multiple exposures of the same scene and unlike many photographers, I’m manually bringing them all together into the same photo to bring out the best of each exposure. The 2nd location we went to was in Lone Tree, Colorado. It was a beautiful dentist’s office. To see additional architecture photography head on over to the main site.
Lifestyle Photography
When I do couples photography it’s usually for a wedding, engagement session, or maternity session. But sometimes I’ll photograph more as a lifestyle photographer and simply capture the couple just as they are. These Colorado natives (a rare thing these days) hadn’t had portraits done since their wedding, so they asked me to so in my Denver studio. It was a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde portrait session. The first half was more traditional posing of the loving couple– innocent, fun, both with religious crosses around their necks. And then the second half was clearly marked when he changed outfits (gold teeth, rings, and all) to put on a more dramatic urban look and feel. Their whole demeanor changed to a more tough hip-hop attitude. As a professional photographer I’m always trying to bring out the personality of the people I photograph, so I completely went with it to enhance the whole look. I got some more dramtic lighting set up in my studio and even went with a matching color scheme- adding some red to my background light. He also wanted some shots by himself. I don’t know what he wanted to do with his individual photograph, but I think it would make a great album cover to his debut hip-hop record. I think they all turned out great and had a lot of fun with it.
