Ballet West Nutcracker

I was pretty excited when Ballet West asked if I could look through my photos as soon as the Nutcracker rehearsal was over, they needed 8 awesome photos becuase the New York Times wanted to run one of them with an article about the company.

I rushed home and spent a solid hour looking through photos picking my favorites. I found 70 or so that I really liked and started to work edting them so Ballet West could have them in the morning for approval.

I was pretty excited to see the photo that the New York Times ran. Here is a link to the article about Ballet West and a few other photos from the show that I really liked.

This is the photo that ran in the New York Times

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/the-nutcracker-chronicles-in-the-land-of-snow/

Underwater

I purchased an underwater case a few months ago and had really been wanting to shoot with it. I shot with a model over the summer named Mellanie and she said she would be interested in an underwater shoot so we set up a day for it.
It was a little different getting into the groove of shooting underwater. The case is bulky and I had a hard time feeling the buttons. But, after about 30 minutes I got into the swing of things and I was pretty happy with what we came out with in the end.
I know Mellanie also felt a little off at first trying to be graceful and beautiful while holding her breath and 10 feet under water. She was really great and now that we both have the hang of things a little better I think we'll try it again soon.






We took a few photos on the water before we went under. This one reminds me of a resort add photo, it was one of my favorites.

silhouettes at the salt flats

I try to make a trip out to the salt flats at least once a summer. This summer I had a lot of dancers that wanted to come. I like having a lot go out there for photos, it's a unique place and a lot of dancers never get to go out there.
I really love how the clouds looked out there on this trip. Last year there really wasn't much as far as clouds so it was a little less exciting for photos. But the clouds this trip were just amazing and helped make some of these photos really pop.
Seeing the sun rays blasting through the clouds I took the opportunity to create some pretty unique silhouette. We were all really pleased at how these turned out.

Silver!

A couple weeks ago I was able to work with a dancer from Ballet West named Silver Barkes. She has been dancing professionally at Ballet West for the past six years if I remember correctly. I have had the opportunity to work with a lot of amazing dancers but Silver has to be the most amazing dancer I've worked with, and that's saying something. For our photo shoot she didn't want any traditional poses, she's been there and done that. So we tried to come up with a few ideas that were a little more contemporary and unique. I think we came up with some great poses and I love how her photos turned out.

Ballet West Academy

It's been way to long since I've posted anything. I've been so busy taking photos that I haven't taken the time to write anything. So far this month I've had two weddings, one bridal shoot, two shoots with models, and one graduation shoot. It's been a busy two weeks.

Last week the Ballet West Academy had their final show of the year. It was great to watch all the younger kids dance around, they seemed to have a lot of fun. The older dancers were just as amazing, and we even found out that a couple of them are getting moved up to Ballet West II. That was pretty exciting.
I shot two nights of the performance. I normally am only there for dress rehearsals but this time was asked to come during the actual show and sit back in the sound booth. It was a little different shooting, I normally get to sit in the seats so I don't have to hold my camera up the entire two hours. The first night I had a tripod to use, thankfully. And I was shooting with a different lens, Canon 70-200 2.8IS L. I think it needs to be calibrated I wasn't the most happy with the results. The second night of shooting I didn't have the tripod so I had to hand hold my camera for the entire shot. I had came from shooting a wedding so I was already a bit tire and by the end of the ballet my back was killing me. I went back to using my Canon 70-200 4.0L and got much better results.
Here are a few of my favorite shots.

High School Dances

Last month I had a group of my students ask if I would take their Prom pictures. I guess the photos cost a ton at the dance and we all know that those dance photos can be kind of lame.
So, this group of kids offered to pay me to take their photos instead. It ended up being a much better deal for them cost wise and they had a heck of a lot more fun. We shot photos for about an hour and a half and this was a pretty unique group so they helped make it interesting and fun for me too.
Well ever since then I've been getting asked to take photos for groups of kids for all the upcoming dances, and even a few request for next year. It's actually turning out to be a pretty good deal for me and the kids I'm taking photos for. They get more photos, and better ones if I say so myself, than they would at the dance. And I make a few bucks on the side.
So here are a few of the photos we've been taking for the dances.

Ballet West Review

Check out this great review of Ballet Wests "Balanchine's America" by Betsy Hijazi.

http://www.betsysview.com/2010/05/the-brilliance-of-ballet-west-and-balanchines-america/

Balanchine's America

I have recently had the privilege of taking photographs for Ballet West. They are one of the premier ballet companies in the United States.
Ballet Wests latest performance was a show called "Balanchine's America". Based off of the famous choreographer George Balanchine's ballets. George Balanchine was probably the most influential choreographer in the 20th century. The performances included three ballets choreographed by Balanchine: Serenade, Agon ,and Stars and Stripes.
Here are a few of my favorite photos from the show.

Hike

Last week I was on Spring Break at school and thought it would be a great time to get out and do something. My Dad has been asking me to come do a hike with him for a couple of years now and I'd never been able to work out a time that I could go down. Spring Break worked out perfect though.
The canyon we went to go hike is called Buckskin Gulch. My Dad said it's the longest slot canyon in the world. There is a lot to see down there, not just the canyon. Our first day there we stopped and watched a bunch of condors that have been reintroduced into the area. They feed them up on the Vermilion Cliffs, it was cool to see them fly around. We went to a place by the Honeymoon Trail where people traveling in the late 1800s carved their names into the stone. And later in the day found some pretty amazing rocks to hike around on.





The second day we went down and hiked around a place called Coyotte Butes. That place was amazing. The hills were multi colored and we found all sorts of amazing rocks there. After hiking around and taking photos there for an hour or so we headed to Buckskin. My dad thought we wouldn't be able to get real far in because there are usually pools of water to go through that could be pretty deep. Turns out this season they must have been filled in so we were able to walk up a few miles. There were still little pools of water but none we had to walk through.

After spending some time in Buckskin we headed off to a place called the Wave. This is a pretty famouse landscape and I've been wanting to go there for a while now. The directions we had were not the best and we wandered for a bit longer than we really needed to but we eventually got there. It was a pretty amazing place and well worth the hike to get to.