LUKE

Weddings

2011-06-08T22:12:00.002-06:00

So I wouldn't consider myself a wedding photographer but I've had the opportunity to take some wedding photos this summer and it's been a lot of fun. Well let me rephrase that. Shooting the engagements and bridals is fun, wedding day not so much. I really don't like the wedding day at all.
I've been trying to do some different stuff with every shoot I go on to hopefully improve my skills as a photographer, not sure how well its working for me yet. I've been trying to use off camera flash more, I think I need to use a light meter to help me get better results.
So, here are the results of the past two bridal shoots I've done. I thought they turned out all right.

Seniors

2011-05-03T15:21:00.002-06:00

One of the best part of my job as a school teacher is the interaction I get to have with students. I have some really fun and creative students and they are all very full of life and enthusiastic. This year I have had the opportunity to take a few Senior photos with students. We go out in groups and have been able to get some great photos, some of them I would consider from a technical aspect my best photos ever.

I don't like taking people to the same spot for photos so I try and find unique locations for every shoot I do. I have shot a few locations twice but try to shoot different angles so the photos don't look the same.

Here are a few of my favorite shots so far.

2011-04-05T15:01:00.007-06:00

A few weeks ago a saw a movie poster for the new Red Riding Hood movie. I liked how the poster looked but didn't think much of it after that. Well not a week later I was jogging on a trail by my house, it was an overcast day and kind of gloomy outside. I noticed not far off the path there was a large group of trees with a lot of downed branches around them, every thing looked very dead. Seeing this area made me think of this poster and I thought to myself how cool it would be to do a Red Riding Hood shoot in those trees. Well I found an inexpensive red cloak and emailed my friend Becca about the idea. She was all for it so we set up a time to shoot.
The day of the shoot was very overcast and dark, it even snowed a little bit. We had arranged our shoot for 5pm, great time for photos even on an overcast day like it was. Becca and I were all ready to shoot and just our luck the clouds moved out and the sun shone bright, something it hadn't done all week.
We didn't let that get us down though. We still shot our photos, I had to change a few original ideas but I ended up loving what I got from our shoot. Here are a few of my favorites.

Tha Capitol with Beckanne and Kathryn

2011-03-08T15:26:00.003-07:00

I was able to shoot with two more amazing dancers from Ballet West a few weeks ago. I love working with those dancers, they can do pretty amazing things. These two girls are fairly new to Ballet West. Kathryn has been here for two years in Ballet West II and Beckanne for one. Both girls will be returning next year as part of Ballet Wests core. So that means we'll have plenty more opportunities to take photos.
We needed an indoor location because it was snowing the day we took photos. We ended up going to the Utah State Capitol building in Salt Lake. I love how the photos turned out.

Photos

2011-03-01T15:17:00.002-07:00

So lately I havn't had many great ideas for photos. I really like to show interaction between people and the environment we are shooting in when taking photos. The last couple of months I have been lacking in the ideas area. I think that is where I struggle the most as an artist.
I have also been wanting to do some traveling. If I could find a way to make enough money from photos durring a trip to Europe to pay for Candee and I to go that would be ideal. The questions is how do I do that?
I've been looking at a lot of photos by travel photographers and just love what they are doing. Scanlans and Art Wolfe are a few of my favorites lately.
We have been watching some travel shows on tv lately and it really makes me want to get out there again and see more of the world. With my summers off and Candee working seven on and seven off we could have time for some cool trips. Maybe I'll have to start with Southern Utah this summer. We have also been thinking about going some where this summer before we have any kids. It could be our last chance for a while.

Old Places

2011-02-22T15:27:00.004-07:00

Yesterday I went out to take some photos of a few old abandoned houses I had seen when driving around. The two that I saw had been wrecked pretty bad by people stripping the copper pipes out of them to sell. I didn't find anything worth photographing in those places so I took a few back roads home that I had never dirven before. I ended up finding three more abandoned houses and one old barn that was full of old crap. It was pretty cool in the barn, the other houses were not that impresive though. I wanted to focus on textures, colors, and lines when looking for photos yesterday and thought a few of my photos turned out pretty good. Here are a few of my favorites.

Madeline

2011-02-08T15:22:00.002-07:00

Lst week Madeline and I went out for some photos. She really like the costume she had for her last show and wanted a few photos in it. We ended up shooting inside the U of U Library because it was so cold outside. We walked all around and found some pretty cool spots for photos. Here are a few of my favorites.

I forgot to post these

2011-01-25T15:15:00.004-07:00

Over the summer I had the chance to go out to the Salt Flats a few times with dancers and once with a model named Mellanie. The Salt Flats is a pretty amazing place to take photos. The lighting can be pretty incredible and the sky just fantastic. The day Mellanie and I went out there was a little breeze that turned into some massive wind gusts. It was pretty wild for about an hour but we were lucky and the wind calmed down enough for us to get some great photos as the sun was going down.
I was a big slacker about posting over the summer. I thought it was time I posted these. Mellanie was awesome to work with and had a ton of great ideas. Here are a few of my favorite photos from our shoot.

Late night laundry!

2011-01-04T14:55:00.003-07:00

Over the summer my friend Nichol and I went out to an all night laundry mat for some photos. I thought that I had lost some photos but last week I was cleening out some photos on my harddrive and found the missing folder. I was pretty excited at how they turned out. Nichol and I get together for photos about once a year and always have some exciting results.
You can see more of Nichol in her gallery here.

Ballet West Nutcracker

2010-12-14T15:17:00.006-07:00

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

2010-09-17T16:30:00.002-06:00

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

2010-08-13T22:49:00.002-06:00

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!

2010-07-05T22:44:00.007-06:00

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

2010-06-11T12:22:00.002-06:00

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

2010-05-11T06:22:00.002-06:00

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

2010-05-11T06:18:00.002-06:00

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

2010-04-21T20:54:00.003-06:00

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

2010-04-16T06:16:00.004-06:00

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.

Busy Week

2010-04-12T06:15:00.006-06:00

Last week I was on spring break at school. How cool is it to get a paid week off! Well it was a really busy week. I took photos for Ballet West, Utah Ballet, University of Utah Ballet Seniors, and then went hiking with my Dad in southern Utah. I got some pretty awesome photos while down there. I will probably post them tomorrow.
I thought I was going to get a lot of stuff done last week, turns out I was to busy to do most of the stuff I thought I could. Looks like they are still on the "honey do" list.
One thing I did get to do was read a book. My wife and I are big fans of the Fablehaven books. They are fun fantasy books writen towards younger readers, kind of like the Harry Potter books were. They are a fun read for all ages though. The latest book is also the last in the series. It's called Keys to the demon prison. I thought the author did a great job finishing off the series. I have always like swords and in this book there is a pretty awesome sword, it made me happy :) I know I'm a giant nerd, but thats ok with me.
I will be posting a lot of photos later this week.

Busy photo week

2010-03-23T06:19:00.003-06:00

Last week was a busy photo week for me. I only took pictures one day but had a couple of photo events that were really cool. On Thursday night I was able to go up to Salt Lake and rub elbows with a bunch of local photographers. The event was for a pretty well known guy in the photo world named Zack Arias. If you don't know who Zack is, he is a pretty amazing music photographer. He does a lot of bands press kits and CD covers. I was able to talk to him for a few minutes and he also spoke to the group about how he got started and what he does. He's a great speaker and was really entertaining. There was a photo booth set up at the event and I got a couple photos with my buddy Sam and a new friend named Alex.

The other photo event I had was a thing called Photocamp Utah. It's an all day workshop type thing. I went up with my friend from high school and good photo buddy Jeremy Stowell. We were able to learn a few cool new things from some great photographers. I will admit though that I went in with pretty high expectations and was expecting a little more from the workshops. Still, even though I didn't learn as much as I was hoping I would I learned a few new things and again got to hear Zack Arias speak. Over all it was a fun day of photo nerdiness.

Elements

2010-03-16T06:24:00.002-06:00

Last week I gave my students an assignment to take photos of the Elements of Art. If you are not sure what those Elements are they are Color, Line, Shape, Form, Texture, Value, and Space.
I had a training I had to go to at UVU las week as well, just after I gave the students the assignment. As I was walking through one of the new buildings I noticed that the stair wells create these incredible shapes so I grabbed my camera and took a few photos. I'm going to show them to my classes today.

Swan Lake

2010-03-09T06:20:00.002-07:00

So I've been taking a lot of ballet photos lately and have been really enjoying it. I was recently invited to take photos at two dress rehearsals for Ballet Wests production of Swan Lake. It was a pretty big honor that they invited me to come photograph the show. I guess they have people all the time ask if they can come take photos but they never turn out very good, and rarely do they invite photographers to come.
Here are a few of my favorites from the two dress rehearsals. It was a pretty amazing performance!

Slacker

2010-02-28T17:31:00.001-07:00

Well I've been more than a slacker when it comes to blog posts so I think I'll fire it up again and try posting more often. I have a few minutes every monring before I head to work so I'm going to try posting then.

Picture a Day - Project 365

2009-09-04T21:26:00.004-06:00

I have recently started my new job as a high school photography teacher. I spent a lot of time over the summer preparing for school and a lot of my evenings since starting planning all night. This past week went pretty well because I've been able to plan a couple weeks in advance and my plans have gone well. BUT since I am doing well on my planning I've had a few free nights this week that I didn't need to work on school stuff. Well my wife is working nights so she is asleep for most of the evening when I'm home and I'll be honest, I'm getting bored. So, instead of sitting on my butt playing video games and not doing anything productive with my time I have decided to start taking a photo a day, or "Project 365" as many people call it.
I'll probably start tonight but will probably only upload my photos once a week. That way you can see all weeks photos at once. I'm not sure where to start so I think I'll just look around my apartment tonight and see what I can find.
Wish me luck. This will be a fun, but long project.

Solar Delta

2009-06-20T13:57:00.005-06:00

So a few weeks ago I went down to Delta to get my car inspected and see the family. I hung out with my dad most of the day and we drove around looking for stuff to take photographs of. He took me to some killer spots and I got a few great photos.

The first stop took us out by Hinckley where some one is building these weird solar panel things. They panels work like huge magnifying glasses, we walked under a few and man it would burn you to a crisp if you stood there long enough.

Papa also took me into and old building where they sell grain and seeds. They have these really old shakers that separate grain and the nasty stuff that you don't want in it. Lots of dust in there but it was sweet.

Memorial Day BBQ

2009-06-01T17:41:00.003-06:00

So Memorial Day was last week and we had a little BBQ with friend, partly to celebrate my friend Melissas birthday. We always have TONS of food when we get together for these events, and I made sure to eat plenty of it.
Now that we are all getting older every one is starting to have kids and there were plenty of those at the party too. We all had fun eating and chatting about what we've been up to lately.

MOAB

2009-05-23T20:07:00.004-06:00

Last weekend we got together with all of Candees family down in Moab. We pitched out tents in a campground on the north end of Moab close to the entrance of Arches National Park. We had a great weekend of hiking, taking photos (me), and eating lots and lots of hot dogs.
It was a really great weekend for camping and hiking. The temperature was perfect, there were no bugs, and it wasn't windy at all.
Candee and I got there in the evening on Friday and set up our tent right away. We got a good spot, thankfully not next to the loud drunks that kept us all up at night. Candees Sisters family were the lucky ones that got to camp next to them. Honestly how rude can some people be. They let their kids stay up well past midnight running all around through other peoples camp sites while they drank all night.
Any ways, Arches was a blast. I took a ton of photos but am only going to post my favorites here. I spent a lot of time looking for wild flowers, another reason this was the perfect weekend. The cactus were all blooming and it looked amazing.

Graduation

2009-05-12T22:07:00.005-06:00

Last friday was a pretty cool day I must admit. After several years of school I finaly graduated from the University of Utah with my BFA. I wanted to go to the big commencment in the morning but had a job interview, not sure about the position though.
My family came up in the afternoon and we had an enjoyable lunch at the Cheesecake Factory here in SLC. Thanks Papa and Steve! After lunch we came back to Candee and I's place for about an hour to digest and take a few photos.
I had heard that a lot of students dress up their cap and gowns for the College of Fine Art Convocation and thought I'd do the same. I got a stole of gratitude to give to Candee for all the great stuff she has done for me while I have been in school and decorated it up. I had a pretty cool idea and was pleased at how it turned out. It took me about four and a half hours to draw and one sharpie marker :) I was hoping that a ton of people would decorate their stuff but there were only a dozen or so that actually did. One girl made her own robe for graduation, even the buttons to button it up with.
So here are a few shots from the day. Thanks every one for coming.

Papa and I

Steve, me, and Mom

Me and some of my college buddies

The Dean and I. He really liked my Stole.

Candee and I after graduation

Seniors

2009-04-29T23:46:00.002-06:00

Over the past week or two I have been able to take photos of the University of Utah Ballet Seniors. These are some of the most amazing dancers I've seen, the U has a really well known ballet school. There are 14 Seniors total and I've been taking them out in pairs on photo shoots. I tried to pick different locations for each group so when I display their photos at their senior show I don't have 14 photos of dancers all in the same spot, how boring would that be!
This photos is of me and all the girls on the day we took their group photos. Of course I had to get one with me in it. I'll be posting the individual photos here and talking a bit about how I picked the locations and edited the photos.