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My beautiful family

We tried to do our own family portraits this year. It was reasonably successful in that I was not present in most of the photos. This is always a good thing - my presence only serves to bring the overall attractiveness of a photo down.

However, my boys are handsome and my daughter is the cutest thing ever (not that I have any bias). I also feel that these photos show conclusively that Marci is a total hottie and that she somehow went mentally insane when she agreed to marry me, clearly to my advantage.

It was a fun evening, even it if is nearly impossible to get Gavin to relax and not give me the "fake smile" thing.

Seriously, how cute can you get?

Getting Gavin to relax when taking photographs is difficult. He just cannot grasp that being stiff and  posed doesn't look good. Tickling him helps.

Caleb gets it more or less - he's just too cool for school now. You have to get him to laugh to get really good pictures as well.

It is almost impossible to take a bad picture of Sabrina.

There are going to be some serious orthodontist expenses in the future.

Caleb is just a good kid. It's super easy to make him laugh too. In this case we had him say "Taylor Swift is a total hottie." Worked like a charm.

Honestly, she gets more beautiful every day. She is amazing.

Craig & Lisa Adams and crew

It was a month or so back, but, hey, nobody said that I keep my blogs up to date.

Anyway, this seems to be the year of the Mesa Arts Center. That is the location most requested and there were no fewer than 5 different groups taking photos at the center at the same time we were cruising around with the Adam's family.

Still, it was fun. It's always interesting to learn how to work with children. They are never the same and no matter how easy or difficult they may be, you still have to have patience and luck to get good portraits. I think we had sufficient of both for this shoot.

The lighting was perfect to be able to use a really cool yellow plastic wall that was back-lit by sunset, I thought it was awesome, and the effect of the back-light was really cool.

Unfortunately, the yellow color didn't match the decor that Lisa had in their house. She requested that I change the background to something more turquoise in nature. The change turned out pretty good, but I personally liked the yellow more - it was just fun.

This is probably my favorite picture from the day. We were having a lot of difficulty with getting Bryce to cooperate, but when we let him do his thing he did great. This picture shows that dynamic perfectly. Bryce is just back there jumping around....I think it's a fun picture.

This is another picture I liked. Bryce is now the only one that seems to be genuinely having fun. We just needed to find opportunities for the boys to be having fun together, then the pictures just took care of themselves.

Mesa Temple Christmas Lights Panorama

I had some fun shooting the Christmas lights at the Mesa Temple, and here is one of the resulting images. This is a large panorama of a little under 180 degrees. I shot it right at dusk so you can see a gradual lightening of the sky as you move from left to right.

I wasn't expecting it to turn out quite like this, but it still turned out pretty cool.

The original file is something like 57 inches across, so I've reduced to a lower resolution, but you'll probably still have to scroll a bit.

Enjoy.

Miya & Devin (Superstition Mountain)

Last weekend we had the great pleasure of doing some engagement photos for two of our favorite people. Miya and Devin have been dating for a while and everyone knew they were getting married, we were just waiting for them to make it official. It finally happened and I was absolutely delighted that Miya asked me to do her engagement and wedding photography.

We went to a new location for this shoot. They wanted to have the Superstition mountains in the background, so we first went over to the Superstition Museum, a quaint little "old west" location on the road to Lost Dutchman State Park, and tried a few things. We discovered that location would be MUCH better during sunrise but still managed a good photo or two. We then went on to Lost Dutchman State Park. That is a location that I visit quite frequently, but normally just for hiking, it was quite fun for me to do portraits at a place that I love so much and know so well. Sunset was definitely the best time to be there.

Miya and Devin were very patient and we had a fun time. I don't think Devin really enjoyed being photographed (very few guys do), but we still managed to get some excellent portraits. Here are some of our favorites:

 First of all - their kids are definitely going to have gorgeous eyes. Can you believe how well the color of their eyes match and how beautiful that color is? That is NOT an enhanced color. They really are that bright.

Both Miya and Devin have a difficult time being serious, so, why not embrace the goofiness? It doesn't make for great engagement photos, but it did allow us to have some fun in between trying to get other less-goofy shots.

Devin had an especially hard time not being weird. As I said, he didn't really seem to like being photographed, but he did his best to have fun and he certainly loves Miya, so it was pretty easy to get good pictures of them.

This is Marci's favorite shot of the day. The look on Miya's face as she is embracing Devin is pretty dang priceless. Plus, Miya is just a beautiful woman, so it's kind of impossible to take a bad photograph of her.

The photos seemed to really pop whenever we were trying to have more fun. I would have liked to be in a location that allowed for more "play" - but when you're surrounded by cholla cactus, you kind of need to be more careful.

This is one of my favorites, I just love the combination of Devin in a "stupid happy, but not too goofy" look and Miya with her beautiful smile - it just works for me.

Here is another shot that emphasizes both of their incredible eyes and their infectious smiles. I also threw in a slightly different edit of the photo just below this one that I moved significantly toward the blue (which is easy to tell in comparison) which really highlights their eyes without making them look creepy.

This is my absolute favorite shot of the day. It was also, oddly enough, the LAST shot of the day. We had a bunch more pictures of them being back-lit by the sunset, but this one just had that perfect combination of happy looks, great color, perfect position....it just all came together for this one shot. I'm very happy with it.

Thanks Miya and Devin for a fun evening, and thank you both for being such good friends.

Bri's Senior Pictures (October 2012)

Bri asked us to do her senior/graduation pictures.  We chose to do them at the Red Mountain Campus of MCC.  They have great walls with fun textures and colors and they have some desert landscape that is really nice as well.  Bri is gorgeous and is so easy to do a photo shoot with.  She loves to pose for the camera and is a natural.  I mean, these pictures tell it all:

 Looking to her future...

Beautiful...

Love this one in the street. Luckily, we were there on a Friday night and almost no one was around. As a side note, I wish I had my own camera to take a picture of Jared laying on the street on his stomach to capture this picture. The lengths he will go to get a perfect shot.

When Bri and her mom came over to view the pictures, they really loved this picture - although it was just black and white. They asked Jared if he could make the green glass still green with everything else black and white. It was a little bit of a challenge, but he figured it out and it looks amazing.  I love the little pop of color it gives the picture.

We ended up in the right spot at just the right time.  The sun was setting and it was perfect to capture this photo.

Bri, we wish you luck in where ever your life takes you. Thank you for allowing us to be part of your senior pictures. You are a wonderful young woman with a bright future ahead of you. We hope you will allow us to be a part of many other great accomplishments in your future.

Beyer Family (October 2012)

Jared and I had so much fun with the Beyer family. They asked for a sunrise shoot at the Mesa Arts Center.  We are not morning people so I knew it would be hard for me to get up and be happy at that time of the morning - but this family made it so worth getting up before the sun. They were all so happy and cheerful and just a pleasure to work with.

They came with the idea for this first picture. I love it. It really shows what is important to them.

The Mesa Arts Center is a wonderful place to take pictures. There are so many textures and colors there.  Sunrise was the perfect time to capture some amazing light and make these color walls pop.

Mom and Dad are the rock of this family and I love when we can capture these moments that are not staged.

 Dad and his daughters. They all adore him.

This was another idea  that they had for us. It was wonderful that they had done some of their own research of what they wanted. This shot was not as easy as it looks - but was totally worth the time and effort.

This one just makes me laugh every time I look at it. The 2 girls and looking at this sister and wondering what is going on with her. I understand this is a typical reaction to each other.

 They had a lot of fun with these frames.

 I don't need to say anything special about these next 3 - just beautiful...

 Dad's and daughters have a special bond.

I love this picture. Here you have a dad who is front and center - the rock of the family and the only male in a houseful of women. I love their attitudes behind him and the fact that his expression never changes in any of the pictures we took.  

Thank you to the Beyer family for the wonderful photo shoot. It really has been our pleasure to work with you and be with your wonderful family. You all make me smile all the time.

Gavin's Baptism (September 2012)

Gavin was baptized this past month, so, of course, we have to get baptism pictures! Gavin actually came up with a few of the poses. I was going to do them as well, but I though it was very fun to let him think he had control over what was going on.