Best Birthday Present Ever!

For my birthday, my sister arranged for me to talk to Bill Slaughter, the photography guru at the Church Archives! I got to see original daguerreotypes from the 1850's of Wilford Woodruff and Brigham Young as well as prints from George Edward Anderson's 1907 mission to the church history sites, early images of Salt Lake City and the Mormon Trail from C.R. Savage and other prints from the large photo collection of the LDS church. For a photo nerd/history buff it was a really sweet birthday present! My sister is so good at thoughtful gift-giving! It was good clean fun.

Thanks Bill!

My Dad and the Cleadus

My dad recently had a kidney transplant. My brother unselfishly donated one of his. The transplant went without a hitch and Cleadus is doing great. (No, my parents don't hate him, his real name is David but that's too ordinary a name for someone as simply cool as my brother. He's been Cleadus since he was a wee lad.) My dad has had some complications. It's been really tough on my mom but I have the greatest family on the planet so it's all going to work out.
Being a photographer, I process things through pictures. So I've been thinking of some of my favorite images of my Dad and Cleadus and since this is where I deposit most of my mental wrangling and wandering, I figured I'd post them here.

Colleen & Derek

I've been wanting to post this one for some time. I posted a couple of images of the groom and his best man previously but I wanted to post my favorites now that the whole wedding is processed.
Derek and Colleen (click here to see their engagements) got married March 18th, 2009 in the Provo LDS Temple. Their luncheon and reception were at the beautiful White Willow Reception Center in Provo.
The top hats and classic tuxes worn by the groomsmen quite nearly competed with Colleen's custom-made dress straight from a designer friend in New York. Everything was timeless and classic. It all worked out: a fun couple + a beautiful location + crazy family and friends = everyone had a fabulous time!
If you have some time, hang out and watch Colleen and Derek's story unfold in slideshow #1. If you're in a hurry, check out a few of my very favorites in slideshow #2.

Slide Show #1 - The Story

Slide Show #2 (The Cliff Notes Version)

Jamon. Class of 2009

Once again I got the chance to collaborate with Andrea Hanks on a shoot.
Jamon is a senior at Syracuse High School. He played football for the Titans this year and got the chance to play up on the turf at Rice-Eccles Stadium, (the home of the people's National Champion Utah Utes.) We thought that seemed like a fitting place to take his senior photos and it was every bit as cool as we hoped it would be. I like shooting seniors. It's such a great time of life and I love capturing the identities they have earned through the traumas and joys of high school. I meet people like Jamon and I feel like the future is in pretty good hands.

You can check out the rest of Jamon's shoot on Andrea's blog.

Little McKenna

John and Melissa originally met us at our very first wedding show ever. They wanted us to shoot their wedding. It didn't work out at the time but we've stayed friends and I was excited that to do a session with their 2-year-old daughter, McKenna. We shot in our home studio (aka our dining room) and then out around our pond. McKenna loved the ducks and it allowed us to have a good distraction from just how vehemently she didn't want to take photos. Kids from one year to two are the very hardest to shoot because they don't fully understand what's going on and they're basically impossible to reason with. Younger and they don't care that you have a camera. Older and you can bribe them to at least get a couple of good shots. This one came out well. She is one cute kid!

What's my Wallpaper? (Episode 2)

It's time to play another game of, "What's My Wallpaper?!"

My current wallpaper is a shot I took while driving around photographing houses. Believe it or not, it's through a field looking east from about 13th east in Sandy, Utah. Basically right in the middle of the city.

Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of, What's My Wallpaper!?!

Camden Simons. Can the world survive another Tom?

We met Tom and Leesha at the very first wedding show we ever did. They came by and we just clicked. They hired us to do their wedding and along the way we became great friends. We went out to Wendover and the Salt Flats for their engagements (which are currently NOT on my website for some unknown reason but they will be on there soon after a brief appearance on this blog.) It was Leesha's bridal shoot that brought us to the Crandall Building to shoot for the first time. Then their actual wedding involved some of my favorite ceremony shots ever as well as a gorgeous Mustang convertible.
One of our favorite weddings EVER!
So now, a few years later, Tom and Leesha Simons had a baby boy and unleashed a second generation of Tom's genes on an unsuspecting public...and we were there to document it! (Well, not the actual birth--now THERE'S an untapped niche for all you photographers out there...)
Tom's a firefighter so we shot Camden in his helmet with his boots tagging along for the glory. It was a pleasure, as always, to hang out with them and to be part of recording their lives.
(It wasn't much of a pleasure for Camden...he had to sit naked in a helmet. Judging from his expressions it wasn't nearly as comfortable as the LoveSac he got to lay in for the first part of the shoot.)

Sarah & Kerry - Engagements

Sarah and Kerry wanted something different and artistic. I decided to do the entire shoot with an colored flash. I'd never done it before--but that's what I love about the challenge to "be artistic". Art is inherently risky. You have to try something new that may or may not work. If it's tried and proven that means everyone's already doing it. I wanted to get a really warm light but mix it with the bluish daylight and dusk lighting. I didn't end up using it the whole shoot but when I did I loved the results. Mostly it's pretty subtle but there are definitely a few where it's noticeable. Once we got Kerry out of his I'm-taking-a-picture smile you can see that even he had a good time. (Dude, I'm telling nobody.)

Dani + Cam

One more from my impromptu friend sessions. While I'm none too happy about their decision to move, (even if it IS a ways down the road) I still think they are pretty much the cat's meow. So here, without further ado, Danielle and Cameron when they had no idea they were getting their pictures taken that evening. You know they're good friends when they agree to an ambush photo session. (I owe you guys one.)
PS.I think I'll go clear back to August of 2007 and post some of the photos from their wedding.