Punisher Series

I had an idea that I wanted to shoot and have been working on it for a few weeks. I watched a video by the photographer Joel Grimes and he talked about shooting the same idea a lot until you come up with a collection you are satisfied with. So far I have shot this idea three times and have been having a lot of fun with it. I got the idea from watching the 2004 Punisher movie. I looked up some comics after that and the Punisher comics have awesome lighting. Here are a few of my examples and shoots up to this point.

Weddings

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

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.

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

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

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

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.