Shoot Journal: Slack Line Photography

Basic slack lining takes a  lot of balance, strength, and determination to learn.  It's a lot of fun, but doesn't appear to be too exciting (photographically at least).  For my shoot last night, I decided to try and capture it in a more artistic and dynamic way.  My goal was to make the athlete look like a model on the slack line.  It was tough to accomplish this, and the results aren't what I was intending for, but I ended up with some very cool shots by changing the approach part way through.

Ladies Restroom photography...need I say more?

On-Location photography with mixed lighting, and a failing flash is a worst case scenario for someone like me.  I definitely prefer the great outdoors, with a simple mixture of sun in the equation.

I was assigned to shoot photos for a case-study this week at the Eagle County Regional Airport.  They needed photos of the partitions in the ladies restroom, along with photos of the GM of the airport and the architect who designed them.  Pretty weird if you ask me....

Skate Denver Shoot

Sunny weather, smelly people(you know who you are...), sessioning features, and sun burns.  These are just some of the aspects that made up the great shoot that I had on Thursday for Cavan Images.


Read more and learn some of my methods to the madness.....................................

Preparing for a stock shoot...

The day shoot seems like such a simple idea, you get your models together, head out and shoot.  Easy right? 


Read more by clicking link below...........................................

NYC- The Rest of the Story

Although the start of the trip was a bit rough ( read post below to learn several quick valuable life lessons). The rest of my stay went great!  The first night, I decided to head out and shoot some photos.  It was my first time ever walking around the city, so I ended up pulling out my camera a total of 2 times and becoming completely lost.  Where I come from, its very easy to tell which direction you are facing.  In NYC however, there are huge buildings everywhere, and no mountains as a reference point.  Luckily, two random girls on a street corner were able to point me in the right direction, and get me home(thank you whoever you are).  Turns out I had been walking farther away from the hotel, and was over 15 blocks in the wrong direction.  I did see a lot of cool sights, and managed to get home before midnight!

The next day was the first day of the PhotoPlus Expo.  I've never been to any photo shows before, and was overwhelmed the first time I walked through.  It was one of those "grass is always greener on the other side" moments, and every booth I almost stopped at, I would see one near that I wanted to check out even more.  After managing to tour the whole Javit's center without stopping at a single booth, I met up with Heidi and Quest at the LumiQuest booth where I would be working for the next two days.  Heidi and Quest were a lot of fun, and very entertaining to work with.  Since they sell such a great product, I felt as if the product practically sold itself to every photographer who stopped to look.  Turns out this is there 21st year at the trade show (If I remember correctly...).  I met a lot of key industry figures and was able to do some self-promotion work.  This show was HUGE for me!
After the show, I decided to walk over to the Empire State Building.  I had dinner plans with Heidi and Quest at 6:30, and assumed that 1.5 hours was enough time to ride an elevator and check out the views.  However, like everything on a vacation, the tour was expensive, and there were lines everywhere.  Just so you know, the empire state building is actually a giant tourist trap where innocent tourists could easily go missing for days, and come out with no money to their names.  That might be taking it a bit far, but I feel as if a good half of the building is made up of lines.  Contrary to what one might think, there is no cell service (at least for Sprint Users) on the top of the Empire State Building, or inside.  Even with all of my complaints, the view from the top is unbelievable, it's high enough that my ear's actually popped on the elevator!  There's a few pictures posted above.  I was not allowed to take the tripod up so I had to stabilize against the wire protection wall on the deck.

I finally escaped the tourist trap at about 8 PM, and caught a cab back to my room.  I had not drank any water since 1 PM, and was pretty badly de-hydrated.  The cab driver was making me sick, so I opened the window for some fresh air.  I must have forgotten I was in THE BIG APPLE because the air that came in only served me more sickness.  Although I had missed out on dinner with Quest and Heidi, I walked over to a pizza restaurant that they recommended, and had one of the greatest pizzas of my life.  It had to have been a 14 inch pizza, and I downed the whole thing in about 5 minutes flat.  10 minutes later and 5 pounds heavier,  I stopped at a desert restaurant on the way home and ate most of a huge slice of crumb cake, and one of the biggest cookies I've ever seen.  What a night!

The final day arrived and as usual started out at the diner near our hotel.  After 4 huge slices of french toast, we headed off to the trade show.  I met Scott Kelby for the first time at the show, and told him that I took the photo that was on the cover of Photoshop User magazine this month.  Scott is the president of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals which puts out the magazine.  He told me that he likes my work, which was great to hear from one of the most influential people in the industry!  I also met many other key industry figures and passed out a lot of cards.  The key here, is to not be nervous when approaching anyone.  You must have confidence and remember that your work is great, and that if it wasn't, you would not even be trying to meet with these people.  I tested out the new Nikon D3s, which was absolutely amazing.  I plan on purchasing one soon so that I can start doing some video tutorials on this blog, and take photos in extremely low light with almost no noise!
After the show, I headed back with Quest and Heidi, and ate the best Thai food I'd ever had.  NY is known for their food, and I can verify that every restaurant I ate at was delicious!  The only place that was not good, was when I decided to eat a pizza at the trade show.  Note to self:  don't eat trade show pizza, it's never good, not even in NY!!

The trip was a great experience and a huge help for my career.  I would recommend that anyone getting into marketing their work as a professional should do something like this to make a name for themselves in the industry.  I will definitely be going back next year, and who knows what point I will be at in my career.  Maybe I will be giving speeches in front of an audience that already knows who I am?!

I would like to thank Heidi and Quest for flying me to NY, and keeping me entertained through the whole trip!  You've really helped me boost my career and bring my work up to the next level.  I really can't thank you both enough for opening all of these doors for me and believing in my work.  I can't wait for the next trade show, and to do more work with LumiQuest.

Moving into a new neighborhood with a bang!

Come on Vail Police, is three officers the best you have??!!  Your going to need more than that to take Daniel and I out of business!  (At least that's what I would have said if I was more of a badass).


I had just finished moving into my new neighborhood on Saturday evening.  Sunday I needed a shot of myself with my LumiQuest gear for an upcoming ad campaign.  Luckily I had an idea for a location that was just outside my apartments window, under a bridge.  My friend Daniel Milchev (Check out his AMAZING work at www.photovenom.com) was on hand to help capture the photo.  We walked over to the bridge around 9 PM last night with two LumiQuest Softbox III's (For soft even light that allows me to look beautiful) on Nikon Sb-800's, and a LumiQuest FXtra gel pack (For creating a red light on the wall behind me) on a Nikon Sb-600.   We captured the shots using the Nikon Creative Lighting System which allows settings for flashes to be changed in camera, and automatically determines the necessary amount of light for each flash group.


When we arrived at the location, we immediately noticed the wall covered in graffiti.  This would make a  great backdrop for the shot!  I stepped into position, holding the Softboxs in each hand, and with the gel on a flash right next to and behind me.  Daniel controlled camera and flash settings, and was shooting my Nikon D300 with the 50mm Nikkor 1.8D (One of the sharpest, cheapest lens you can buy).  


We decided that we were almost done and were going to shoot 1-2 more shots just as a precaution, when the shoot took an interesting turn.  Two flashlights came peaking around the corners under the bridge, and a loud "POLICE" was yelled at us.  Though this may be shocking the first time it happens, I'm fairly used to it by now due to shooting urban skiing on rails at night.  The police had received a call from one of my new neighbors (thank you whoever you are, now everyone will know me as the troublemaker).   Daniel and I had to leave the location, and carry the flashes up to meet with the police.  By this time there were three squad cars and officers because it must have been a slow night.  Or maybe because other photographers were out and they had the whole force on looking for those troublemakers. The officers ran our ID's (thankfully no warrants out for me or Daniel).  And told us that this looked suspicious.  They also checked for spray paint cans because they believed we had painted the graffiti.  We were drilled with questions and were asked repeatedly why we would be shooting under a bridge. Finally they left, and we called it a night.  Today I will probably meet my neighbors, and hopefully they will know me already from my reputation due to the "Grand Entrance"!

Senior Portraits, Moving to a new place, running business, sales.... soo much to do so little time!

(Note: ALL IMAGES ARE UNEDITED AND NOT RETOUCHED AS OF NOW)

I Know that my posts have been lacking lately.... but I will tell myself right now that it is OK because I am so busy.   Saying that will at least let me sleep tonight (can't disappoint my fans!).  The last two nights I've been shooting a couple of senior portraits.  When I went out to capture these shots, I decided that I wanted some traditional, and some very unique shots.  My results are posted above.  Going out to shoot, there was no set location, and we drove to places I believed might be good at this time.  Normally, I like to have gone out and scouted everything in advance, but this is not a perfect world....  I used my Alienbees B1600 lights, a 32"x40" softbox, and some lastolite trigrip diffusers and reflectors.  If the sun was shining on the subjects face, I would place the softbox to the side that needed the largest boost.  This is known as fill light, and helps even the lighting and get rid of harsh shadows.  I would get more into the technical details, but I will save that until I have more time!  Look for more posts on this subject soon and enjoy these shots.  Any comments or feedback is greatly appreciated and can be posted by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.  Now it's time for me to get back to packing, and editing!

Spontaneous shopping cart shoot

8 PM: Model arrives, no image is planned, lets brainstorm!

8:30 PM: Driving around using headlights looking for random location.

8:35 PM: Decided on shot! Shopping cart in the woods with model asleep and posing in it!

From here, we had to decide the best way to "borrow" a shopping cart from the grocery store. This involved dropping the model off, having him take a cart around back, driving to the road up a hill behind the store, and hiking up it with the cart. For future reference, metal shopping carts are freaking heavy and awkward to load on top of a Toyota Corolla's bike rack. Without bungie cords we managed to strap it down with the bike tire straps. Surprisingly no damage was done to my car, and the cart barely moved.

I knew a 4wd road nearby that we could access via back roads so as not to be stopped by the police(they would not understand that we were just borrowing the cart). The road was definitely not meant for a corolla, but we managed to get pretty far up it, and shoot with the cart.

For these shots, I used 2 nikon SB-800's on the sides, my Quantum Battery packs, a Lumiquest Softbox III on the right, and a Lastolite Trigrip Diffuser, and silver panel on the left. I would set the camera on self timer, then run and hold the trigrips. For most of the shots I fired at ISO 100, F/4.5, and a shutter speed of 1/50th. The temperature was in the upper 40's Fahrenheit, so the shoot did not last too long. Not bad for a random night with no plan whatsoever! My advice from this shoot: It's better to go out and shoot with no plan at all, than to forget the shoot altogether. Also, look everywhere for props and unique locations! This shoot was finished by 10:30 PM, and the cart was safely delivered back to the store. Gotta love free props!

One more note: The images above are all unedited RAW files(I will be editing and updating them soon!)

4 hours of mountain biking+sunny day w/ blue skies!= Awesome stock photography

Downhill mountain biking photography can be very challenging. The lifts only run during the worst hours of sunlight (midday), and the shadows of the trees cause very complex and shadowy situations to deal with. My advice for mountain bike photography: Purchase a powerful flash (such as the SB-800 from Nikon), a quantum turbo battery pack (allows for ultra fast flash reloads for multiple shots of one trick), and a set of wireless radio triggers (Mine are Pocketwizards, but I also highly recommend the Alienbees Cybersyncs). Better yet, purchase two of these complete setups! These are very expensive though, and if you are just starting out and a Nikon user, you only need the SB-800 or SB-600, and can control them from your camera's pop-up flash. The flash will have to be line-of-sight, and you will have to time out your shot just right since midday light generally means 1/2 to 1/1 power.

This setup allows you to properly deal with those spotty forest lighting situations. I generally place the flash around 10 feet from the rider, aim it higher than you might think you have to, and set it to 85mm or 105mm zoom for more kick. It appears I've gotten ahead of myself though, and must now backtrack to the start of the whole process... First off, you need a talented mountain biker that is willing to stop repeatedly, and climb back up the trail for multiple attempts. Before shooting with said biker, you must build up a good rapport as this will make the whole process a lot easier, and make them more comfortable with having a camera in their face all the time like paparazzi.

From there, I choose to ride ahead of the model/rider, and scout the best locations for my vision. I find that although knowing a trail in advance can help you get to locations faster, if you don't know it all you won't overlook certain parts of the trail. This, in turn, leads to great shots that had you known the trail, may have never come into being. Once I have found something that may work, I have the rider roll through it once to become familiar with it, and so that I will know the best spot to setup my shot. I then setup my flash like I discussed above and have the rider stand on the corner for a quick test shot. At this point I can adjust all my camera settings and make sure everything is just right! Usually a shutter of 1/250th to avoid high speed sync, an aperture right around f/7.1 to ensure the sharpest image possible and keep highlights from washing out, and an ISO of 200. These are only rough guidelines, but the aperture is usually the only thing I change.

The rider climbs back up for the shot and yells when ready. I confirm my focus (almost always pre-focus on the key spot), and the rider hits the feature. Sometimes things will go wrong, or you will be disappointed with the results. If this happens, show the rider the image, and ask if they are willing to hit the feature again. Don't get too hung up on it if they aren't interested in making that climb back to the top again, you will have plenty more opportunities in other locations.

My best advice for a stock shoot like this: SHOOT EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS!! From when the rider is unloading the bike off the car, lunch time, riding the gondola, staring into the distance while they wait for you to finish setting up on a berm. Shoot anything and everything that happens. You will be surprised by the resulting images. Always remember that when shooting any sport or activity, there is more than just the action that makes that sport mean so much to people.

Above are some shots that I captured from this short day of photography. If you have any questions please contact me at info@cnwphoto.com, or comment below this post. I am trying to create a strong following on this blog so if you enjoy my posts, please add yourself as a follower!

Firefighters, training, just plain luck.

I don't know how much longer this luck of mine can last! I feel like everything just seems to work out with whatever I'm doing. The other day I shot photos of Firemen training in Gypsum, CO. My friend Daniel Milchev (www.photovenom.com) and I went to the airport in Gypsum hoping to gain access and shoot photos of a fireman training exercise involving a bus that was set on fire. The training was on the airport runway and fenced in. An airport worker told us that there was no way we could be granted access. We were really flying by the seat of our pants on this one.

We walked around the fence until we found an OK spot to capture a few photos. Quickly though we became discouraged as the location was not allowing anything special. Just as we began packing our stuff up and heading back to the car, a man calls us over to the gate to speak with him. He asked us who we were shooting with, and I told him we were with the local newspaper. We were told to follow a fire vehicle to another gate, where we were escorted down the runway straight to the scene!! There was a truck with a high platform on it, and we climbed up and captured some great shots of everything.

The lesson to be learned here: BE PREPARED FOR ANYTHING! Photography will never go as planned, and more research will go a LONG way. The lighting is never in your favor, and sometimes you will have no access to using flashes. We came to the job unprepared, and got lucky this time. I still am amazed that it worked out. Two of my shots were published in the local newspaper (Vail Mountaineer) ironically. Though my posts have become fewer and farther between, I am now back on my game. Look for daily posts here on out, and thank you for reading!

Vail Forest Fire

Two days ago a forest fire occured near my house. It was said to be started by lightning strike. I was fortunate enough to be home during the fire, and capture a few photos of it. I climbed the mountain nearest the ridge that was on fire, and took a few unique shots. The media was all here documenting it for the news, a helicopter was brought in and dumped massive loads of water on the fire, and landed in the park by my house.

This is one of those times when I am really thankful that my camera has some programmed, and shutter priority modes. I know that a lot of the "hardcore or purist photographers" (whatever you want to call them, just no names cause they might read this.....) will tell you that the only way to shoot is full manual all the time. But our professional cameras must have all of these other modes for a reason! If you pick up a copy of Joe McNally's new book, "The Hot Shoe Diaries" you will learn that he almost exclusively shoots in aperture priority mode. This is a great mode for shooting models, and staged shots, but when it comes to firing off rapid-fire shots of fast moving (sometimes unexpected) objects/people, I throw the camera into shutter priority. For fast objects moving towards or away from you, a shutter speed of about 1/400th and above will work well. If it is moving across in front of you, a faster speed will be needed. Set your ISO, and your camera will control the aperture mode. The other times I will use this mode is when the amount of light keeps changing and the the sun is dodging in and out of clouds.

I've been shooting full manual all the time for too long! These modes are amazing, and using your exposure compensation button will work for most tricky situations. I highly recommend picking up a copy of "The Hot Shoe Diaries," and be prepared to learn all kinds of new tricks and change the way you shoot. It's easy to be wary of these modes, and with a little practice, you can learn the appropriate times to use them! Practice is everything in photography, and with digital we can practice as much as we want for almost free!

The fire was put out after a couple of hours, and I captured some cool photos of the slurry bomber. The slurry bomber is a massive airplane that drops this red stuff called slurry, which is a fire retardant. When it fly's over, it shake's the ground and a large hatch opens on the bottom, filling the sky with a red cloud! You can view the photo above to see what I mean. Luckily, the fire was completely extinguished, and I escaped with some new photos.

Crankworx FINALS and the sunny 16 rule

The final day of crankworx turned out to be amazing, and with PERFECT weather!!! Finally, I can use flash, and not have to worry about blowing a unit. I have one piece of advice that I have learned time and time again. When I say "learned" I really mean that in a casual way because I never really catch on. That advice, is to always pack lunch, and lots of water. You never can tell how long an event will go during the day, and forgetting to eat, or being unwilling to take a break will make you almost pass out. (I would know from this day) By the end of the day I was DEAD TIRED and hardly able to function. I actually left the event a little early due to a total loss of energy. My friend Daniel Milchev(Check out his AMAZING work at www.photovenom.com), who I was shooting with through the event, almost passed out in the hot sun. We both ate before 9AM, skipped lunch, and did not get to dinner until 7:30PM. UGHHHH. Don't do that to yourself please...

Everyone loves photos with the sun starred out. I can't keep track of how many times I have been asked, "how do you do that?" by other photographers. This is a rule passed on to me by my friend Mark Ridenour ( You can view his EXCELLENT work at www.mark-ridenour.com). The basic idea, is to set your camera to F/16, get it? Sunny 16! AHHH, IT MAKES SOO MUCH SENSE!! This small aperture allows less light in, and shows a star that has as many blades as your lens has inside. I feel that the more blades a lens has, the better the shot will look. For the one's above, my lens has 16 blades, creating a wide spread, starred-out, jaw-dropping, mouth-gapingly, beautiful photo! For action its a bit tougher because you will need a fast shutter speed for the scene, and at the same time, a high-ISO to allow the subject to be lit, and not just a silhouette. With my flash popping, I can do a 1/250th shutter, but will still need to be at ISO 500 or above to make this trick work. Experiment with this, and once you have it mastered, prepare to create some of the best photos you have ever made!

Crankworx is all over now, and editing has begun. The athletes pushed the event to even higher levels, and will continue to next year. I would like to thank Winter Park Resort for putting on such a great event year after year, as well as Daniel for helping me shoot and edit, and Mark for teaching me the Sunny 16 rule. Hopefully this will allow you to be more creative then ever!

Crankworx Part Deux...

Day Two:

Weather was terrible. Shoot, hide from storm, shoot, hide from storm, shoot, eat lunch, shoot hide from storm.. on and on and on.. When it rains it pours, and this day was no exception to that rule. I started out the day setting up my alienbees, and gave up after the second storm moved through. It's just too much work and not worth it to risk the gear when the sky is clear for 10 minutes and then pouring for 30. I got to shoot some slopestyle practice in the morning, which was great! Then it was dual slalom practice, semi-finals, and finals.

For most of the event I shot using my SB-800(now replaced by the SB-900), run by a Quantum battery pack, held in my left hand, and triggered by Nikon's CLS (Creative Lighting System). This seems to work well last minute, but it's especially hard to make it work when trying to capture photos of two riders that are 10 feet apart. I'm not allowed to shoot between them for safety, so that puts me closer to one rider than another. Good thing I have photoshop for adjustments after!! It was supposed to be slopestyle best trick in the afternoon, but pouring rain quickly made the course too wet to ride... Big disappointment since I was really looking forward to setting up my lights!

The finals for Dual Slalom took place in the afternoon, and was a total slopfest, globs of mud splattered my lens, and everytime I stepped on a hillside, I would slide back down to the bottom with 3 inches of mud on my shoes. When it gets really wet like this, it works well to place your camera in your jacket between shots, and zip it closed. This will save your investment, and keep you from having to take out that 2nd mortgage.

More updates soon.......

Crankworx Colorado Day 1!!

Have you ever arrived on location, only to realize that you have forgotten a couple key pieces of gear?! This is a terrible situation to be placed in! Unfortunately, I packed the wrong gear to shoot downhill biking at Crankworx Colorado yesterday. I usually use my Nikon SB-800 with a Quantum Turbo 2x2 battery pack, and a pair of pocketwizards. The battery pack allows me to fire far more flashes, and a MUCH faster rate! This is extremely important when bikers are passing by me at 25-50 MPH!! The pocketwizard is an amazing tool that allows me to move around, and leave my flash setup at a great distance and reliably trigger every shot. Heres where the disappointment began yesterday.... I ride the chairlift up (leaving my other gear bag in the room with the assumption that I packed everything I need..) Only to hike halfway down the mountain to location, and discover that my connector cord that I need for hooking the flash to the battery, is back at the hotel. My immediate reaction is that I can at least still use all the extra batteries I took, and fire just one shot each time a rider goes by. This would work well unless...... you forget your pocketwizard cord as well... WOW, GREAT WORK GENIUS!!! YOU REALLY DO LOOK LIKE A PROFESSIONAL! Lucky for me Nikon comes to the rescue with their CLS (Creative Lighting System). To use this I use my pop-up flash (at a very low setting) to send an infrared signal to my SB-800. The only issue is that my camera must be close-to line of sight with the signal receiver located on the SB-800. This can be quite tricky in a dense forest. I was surprised though, that many times my flash would fire without even being able to see the flash through the camera lens! This system saved me in the end, and I fortunately came out with great shots. The other great strength of this system, is that I can change my flash power output from the back of the camera! Pocketwizard will be releasing a system like this for Nikon Users soon and there is currently a Canon version available.

As photographers, our greatest strength is the ability to adapt. Whether that be for lighting issues, forgotten gear :( , broken gear, or bad weather conditions! I will be shooting again today, and should have all the gear that I need ( I will be making sure of this....) Look for another update later today or tomorrow morning.