And right now I’m getting back to a few thousand of them… from May of 08 when I drove down to Caliornia to do a wedding and proceeded to spend a week traveling around California.

I went through several deserts, including mojave, anso borego and death valley.
I went to the san diego vild animal park.
Traveled up the PCH all the way to San Fransisco.
Visited the Salton Sea.
Spent some time in the Sierra’s including Yosemite.
And made lots of other random stops along the journey.

I will proceed to edit them nice and show them off over the course of a few posts.

The first set is from the first couple of days.
Gallery Here

OK so I’m cheating! This wasn’t taken this February.
Or even last year or the year before.

Not too Shabby eh?

Now days I take pride in in a consistent level of pictures all throughout a several hundred picture output.
Back then… well I’m happy to share a pretty decent set. Perhaps not as copious, but still pretty good.

Perhaps this post goes to show that maybe what I have improved the most at is developing the pictures and doing edits.
There wasn’t Photoshop Lightroom back then.

This was also before I discovered (had enough money for) low light lenses, and therefore before low apertures and blurred backgrounds.
Just some posing, framing and my 18-70 kit lens.

But the experience was always the smiling Jarvie interaction and capturing who they were.
Did I do that Garrett?

Garrett has since gone into the Film industry
Jill does a lot of photography herself.
They both do.
I’ve shared some tips in years past, but I’m not sure how far they’ve gone with it.

Garrett is one of the people I suggest to Brides looking for a videographer.
He traveled to California to shoot a wedding I took pictures at.

Garrett can be found on Twitter @garrett_film
His website is http://www.garrettgibbons.com/

Impromptu Decision to do a Workshop

On saturday I created an impromptu workshop on How to find locations and use them.

The reason was because an Intern just booked 2 weddings and had to do engagements and needed place ideas.
I said I had a free Saturday so why not make an event of it.

Not publicized

No one really knew about the workshop because it was immediatly full and therefore I didn’t announce it.
I opened it to the students of JarvieU and they all came.
We invited a few models to join us as well.
We didn’t want a huge caravan of cars… just 2 maybe 3.

Did it work?

I hadn’t done an event like this before so it was nice getting an idea of how it worked.

In short…. It was amazing!
Everyone seemed to really enjoy all the information that was shared on locations.
Of course other things were discussed and learned as well.
We even took note of all the spots we stopped at.

It was a fun experience because we had no pre-objective. We were out driving around SLC, just finding new spots.
We even stopped at spots which some attendees probably wondered what in the world we were doing there. And yet we ended up with some of the best shots of the day.

Hopefully beyond finding some new spots they learned to utilize well any location they happen to be at… and are able to see and find spots more easily.

We also had an awesome lunch and time to chat. (Red Iguana is Amazing)

AGAIN?

I have another free saturday coming up and I know the students are really interested.
I also am looking at getting a new Projector for the house and JarvieU events.

So why not?

Another Workshop this Saturday?

I can’t take many people and I don’t feel I need to  charge a regular workshop rate, specially since it’s only one aspect.
So at a fraction of the cost for a full day event. $200

I’ll take about 4 people. JarvieU students are still invited of course but they all know they’ll be kicking it in a separate car following us along.

So if you’re interested let me know.
If there are at least 3 people I’ll do it.

I might continue to do it in the future… but who knows if it’ll be the same cost. Specially when spring/summer comes and my weekends get much more busy with real paying jobs.

We start early and we go until people need to go.
Last time it was 9am until 3:30pm

(more…)

The theme is “Composite Lighting”

Here’s a recent Example

The Low-Down

We’re inviting a mixture of 2 groups.

Photographers and Food bloggers/Chefs

(more…)

Their reception was at “The Point” at the huntsman cancer center.

I liked the location and the food was awesome.
If you go to the full gallery you’ll see all the pictures including the many pictures my two interns took.

The fates aligned and the photo angels have blessed us with the coolest thing ever.

At the Photowalking Utah event today. See their website. (Organized in part by Rich Legg)
There were a bunch of lighting setups (at least 10)
I wandered around with one extra. My ring light on my sb-900 flash.

I set it to manual and figured out good manual settings and let everyone use it even the canon shooters were shooting with the nikon flash on manual.

Enter 8mm

At the end of the event a friend (Jeremy B.)
Lent me his 8mm fisheye… I’m thinking what in the world would I do with this lens… I wanna play with my flash.
Oh well… maybe I’ll just keep it on. (Read later for more of what I was thinking)

Well getting to the point… This is what happens.
A couple of inches away from their face. Short enough lens that it actually sees the ring flash.

Consider it shamelessly branded. haha

Really. I’m not opposed to calling it something else, but I do want it to be called something. And that something should be cool and memorable.

Before I posted the pictures (full gallery)
I asked what we should call it, so I could title the post and what not.

Only a few people spoke up but they came up with “Jarvie Window”
I figured it would be fun and catchy.

I assume others will continue to do this because it really is quite simple and very fun.

Now this being said… I like my last name and I’m not shy.
But it’s not like it’s a typical thing. And the literal “Through the Ring Flash fisheye” isn’t too catchy

Yes you will see me doing this again… often

Yes it’s very gimmicky and doesn’t replace being able to take good pictures otherwise.
But you better believe that I’m going to be doing this a lot.

A whole series of faces in square format, doing crazy stuff.
Up in the face… no personal space allowed.

I can totally see this as the hit of a party or wedding reception.
There’s something me and Bryan Jones just couldn’t put a finger on… something about it that makes it so endearing.
It has to do with shooting through the circle.
Yes the lighting is cool.
Yes it’s often more of a caricature Than a picture

I’m just someone somewhere has stumbled across it in a similar fashion… but they sure didn’t share it much, because it didn’t catch on.

Put the flash on the lowest setting… i was doing 1/128th
Use a super wide that is short enough that it won’t actually go through the ring flash.
Use a ring flash like this Ray Flash – (Also available at OPGear)

Put the aperture up at around f/8

Be careful to focus on the eyes really well.
And then just get CLOSE.
And be creative.

Camera+Flash+RayFlash+8mm lens+Characters

And I thought I could be sensible and take off the ring flash.
Or I could be half lazy and half non-sensible and one more half inquisitive.

Apparently the 8mm is available for $900 from B&H – Nikon version here

And the Ray Flash is available through places like pictureline – here – (Also available at OPGear)

my guess is they’ll be selling out fast with sites like Strobist and Photofocus featuring it soon.

Meet the Photographer Event

Recently I came up with this rocking idea to highlight well known photographers in a fun and friendly fashion.
Since a lot of people know about her and yet a lot of people don’t actually know her personally, we should do an event that solves this.
We’ll meet up (Monday 7pm)

Have an introduction, a short slideshow of work.
An interview and or a Q&A period.
Then just chow down on some potluck style food and snacks.
Mingle or network… or whatever you want to call it.

Brooke has informed me she loves Snacks… so lets bring those.
Maybe she’ll tell us what some of them are here in the comments… or take a moment to ask her on your own.

(more…)

Mormon Artist

The magazine Mormon Artist has done an interview of me this month.

Read Article Online Here
Even better: Download the beautifully laid out PDF

(Or full magazine PDF)

On another note the founder of magazine is an amazing person, one of the most talented and intelligent people I’ve ever known, follow him on twitter @bencrowder
What a Wonderful project he has taken on himself to produce. Thanks Ben for your contribution to the arts and the LDS community.

The Interview

They don’t mess around it’s 10 pages including the 20 pictures they used, big and small.
I talked a lot because I had an 8 hour drive from San Diego to Vegas and I had nothing else to do so I talked for like 90 minutes, I wondered how they’d cut it down: Answer… Use most of it

Yes of course I’m happy for the exposure, it’ll be fun.
My favorite part of photography is seeing people happy about my work.

The Way I see it

As we all know I love sharing things I’ve learned, hoping that it helps others or at least speeds up the time it took them.

I think there are a few questions I answered that could help anyone going down the photography road.

So I hope that beyond exposure that YOU learn from things I’ve shared.
I have written a history of how I got into photography already on my site, this article takes a little different spin.

BEST THREE LINES

I’m the type of person who is crazy enough to agree to take on a wedding, never having done one.

How has the gospel influenced your work as a photographer and also as a teacher of photography?

I like to try to do everything in a principled-based approach. I don’t believe in just saying: “It’s good business.” I think that’s a cop-out and it can be very destructive when someone excuses themselves with “I think it’s good business.” Almost all these principles I learned at church, through the interpretation of the scriptures, or from church leaders. Where we learn that the purpose of life is not to get more money but that we’re supposed to help others, we learn the value of real education. It’s not about a piece of paper that says you’re educated. It’s about really gaining light and knowledge, and at the same time, expanding our talents. It teaches us that we shouldn’t hide our talents but we should share them, and that they should be beneficial to other people. We don’t always need to prostitute our skills; we can just share them and give them to other people.

What are your plans for the future?

I see myself doing a lot of education. And I see myself almost completely doing Envision the World project work. And having a family, and you know, enduring to the end, and living happily ever after.