OK so I can’t honestly remember the last time I was caught up on my editing.
I think it might have been February… but then again maybe it was last November.

And as of this morning… well I still am not. (Kinda)
I’ll always have something to edit.
I could a few road trips I’ve never touched or even Europe pictures (2006)

But as far as shoots I’ve done for money… well I think I’m pretty much caught up! Hurray.
And I think I’ll stay pretty caught up all the way until the christmas rush.

Here are pictures from the last shoot I did… get this… Friday (two days ago)
These were for an old friend Jason.
He grew up in Park City so that’s where we went.
This was the 3rd time downtown park city to do engagements… and I’m happy say we did all new places.
Park city has a lot of photographic spots to offer.

FULL GALLERY HERE

I specially loved how they were creating snow on the slopes and they were willing to go stand out in the field to get some… it was way cold there. (Much warmer downtown)

Since they met skiing they’ll probably like this one.

I love how in photography you’ll travel an hour just to get a picture of the sky.

The mayor of park city was here and he offered to get them married right then and there. In the end he just gave them a free print.

We were done but I just had to try out one last shot. Looking back i should have done more on this (meaning more poses to choose from)

The Rush is coming

It’ll be another fun and crazy christmas like last year, maybe just as much or more driving but with only 4-5 states.

Then a nice lull again to start getting on some projects that are long since needed to get rolling.

I’m getting more into twilight shoots. Too bad right around the time when twilight is pretty darn cold.
But it is at around 5:30pm so it helps those who can’t get off work earlier.

This is Carissa and Jake

How Carissa became my first Intern

Carissa wrote me last winter asking to be an intern… at that time I thought it was out there and wasn’t really willing to commit to one person when I was having someone different come assist on each photo shoot. And i didn’t really see the place for an intern.
She was going to school in Indiana and was from Park City but wouldn’t be around until summer.

When school was over she came on a couple of shoots and then I had her come work on pictures… she got better and better and I was ready to make the plunge to let someone take over on the selecting and rating of my pictures.
She only had fridays and saturdays which were often days I was gone out of the state doing weddings but nevertheless I saw her progress a ton and get pretty darn good.

We made her a Blog and a Website 

Now she’s back at college and won’t be back until May and then getting married in June here in Utah.
In the meanwhile I now have 3 interns to replace all of her great work. 

She saw all my tricks and yet still had me go and do her engagement pictures… i guess that’s a pretty good compliment.

So for the above picture I had to play around and do something different on the edit.

I loved the crazy skies that day… thanks to wendy who came to assist on the shoot…
(the new intern assisting on the shoot for the old intern… i love it)

I had this one edited a little more regular… but I figured she wouldn’t mind another copy with a version more dynamic

Doing a virtual copy is a great thing in my opinion a lot of the times you can spend a while making a crazy looking pic and yet what they really wanted was a normal-er looking one. Let them see both… plus that lets them see the work you put into it… it didn’t just come out of the camera like that.

It was fun shooting with another photographer friend David Terry who Carissa asked to come along. 
He was able to pose them a lot of the time and I would just steal the shots haha…
On the other hand I posed a bunch of them and I’m sure David enjoyed that. 

The sky looked great that day and the old barn that carissa picked out was awesome.
Still don’t know if I like the phone post or not.

I love when people pick their own spots…

• they’re more special to them (emotional connection)
• I usually get to shoot somewhere new (add to repertoire)
• My creative juices come out more when it’s somewhere brand new
• If it doesn’t work it wasn’t my fault… haha

I had to add in a picture with her and sunflares because I know how much she enjoyed every picture i ever did with sunflare when she was working for me.

Even if I don’t have the most striking pictures ever … I pride myself in making people feel comfortable. 
Getting them to relax and come out with their real smile and make it an all around enjoyable time.

I remember for this shoot I was singing a bunch. 

I love giving the couple a wide range of looks and feels for their pictures along with the range of expressions.
David set this one up… great times. 

And I’ll end with a few of the funnier pics… including her dog and it’s look alike and Mr. David Terry himself

I took these pictures July 3rd

Thought I’d post them to be seen… better late than never.
It’s a sign of all those from later in July and August to be posted some time soon.

See More after the Break

To view the entire gallery, go to http://jarviedigital.smugmug.com/gallery/8827398_JXtxE

So this is part of the story of my jump into Photography as a career.

A big part of that was this couple.
I had no intentions to doing paid jobs.
I had bought the D70 with no intentions of making money.
Megan asked if I’d do their engagements… I looked at it as something fun to do.
If they didn’t turn out I told them (and we both understood) that a Real photographer could easily do them.

I can’t even remember which picture they originally chose on this shoot.
The photo shoot was in March of 2005 if I remember right.

Below was the result… above is picture i just re-edited yesterday. (A treat for the couple)

(Above) – In fact this is better than the original edit… i think I edited the above one a year ago.
Would be interesting to see all 3 versions I’ve edited.
The first editing program i had 5 years ago was photoshop elements

(ABOVE) – As you can see I’ve re-edited a bunch from the shoot.
Like i have my whole career I’ve always taken TONS of pictures.

THEN OTHERS CAME ALONG

Their wedding was 4 years ago. Wow how the time passes.

When other friends found out and saw what I had done for this couple they started to jump on the band wagon.
I had some natural ability, i was easy to get along with.
But probably the most exciting thing was that I cost almost nothing… haha
$300-400 i think was the first couple weddings. (I offered to do the wedding for this couple for free of course)
I stayed under $1000 for a while

EDITING

Looking back my way of interacting with the clients hasn’t changed too much.
I think it started off great since I took pictures of so many people I was very comfortable with first.
I was able to continue that for the years down the line. As I just learned to make the subjects my friends while I took the pictures… so i could goof off and have fun and connect with them.

I don’t think I would have even considered the picture below years ago…
But the re-edited one above looks rather fun edited.

Looks almost as if I had just taken this picture.

I’m also glad I had a great looking couple to start off with… i think that made things easier.
I didn’t feel pressured to come up with tons of ideas. They knew it was my first time… they approached me!

Dang JPGs are so much harder to edit… this took a while because on JPGs the colors are so closely connected… you can’t seem to edit the contrast and blacks without screwing up the colors.
I’m still not completely satisfied with the tones but am liking the trees in the background.

TO THE WHITE FAMILY

Megan if you’re reading this,  the originals of these new ones are online if you’d like to save them and have them.
Also I’ll be doing another Charity Shoot this fall… you’re invited… it’s on me!

OTHER OLD JOBS

I bet it would be interesting to go through and edit the pictures from my old jobs!
Probably a little fun…. but in the end I’m sure I don’t have the time.

There’s a business prospect in there somewhere… haha

WHAT DOES IT SAY

What should I think that many of the brides I’ve taken pictures of have actually turned to pursuing photography as a profession or at least a involved hobby.
I think it’s pretty fun.

MORE HISTORY

I hope to write a few more posts reviewing the past… i think it’s fun.
Was it helpful?
Any questions about the first couple jobs or that part of the history.
Many know the rest of the story of how I started getting into photography… I’ll get to that. When things around JarvieDigital start to slow down.

These pictures were taken at the Garden park ward in SLC, Utah

I actually went assistentless for this one and did the whole thing with a light stand.
It’s kind of funny because for years I did everything without assistants or lightstands.

I hope I’m not chained to lights forevermore.

Anyway I thought it was funny.

See the Full Gallery

So many of you know the trick but for the rest of you… go high f/stop for the star effect.

More pictures after the Jump

Or just go to the full gallery

giggle giggle … heee hee heee

I took these a little over a month ago… thought I’d share them.
The pictures were picked by my PA Adele.

I did this photoshoot with a lightstand. Usually I have an assistant there to hold lights.
But this made me consider the location of the of camera flash a little more carefully since I’m kinda lazy.

To view the full gallery go to http://jarviedigital.smugmug.com/gallery/8942464_jqBTB

Just stop on some plain road with a bunch of high weeds and make it happen.
I got the camera down low as you can see.

But seriously we were driving to Park City Utah and I just stopped and pulled off the highway.
For like 10 minutes is all.

Wasn’t in the original plans to shoot this spot, but when the sun hits something just right, it can supercede the previous plans.
This is right next to the cool barn that we had gone there to shoot.

So they really liked the egyptian theatre, but when I saw it, it looked really hard to photograph and a bit boring and the street was so close and people walking by.
This one definately needed to be edted to make it look a bit more moody and fit what the theatre was all about.
Take note of that crazy moose behind them

This was at the theatre… I did like the doors. But to avoid reflections and to make the scene more interesting I put them down on the ground

To view the entire gallery go to http://jarviedigital.smugmug.com/gallery/8754786_ETxbM

My assistant really liked these lights… and since she’s a girl i thought dang why not, if she likes them then the bride will too, probably.
So I took a suggestion by someone else and put my own flare on it. I didn’t necessarily try to do the shoot she had in mind when she saw the spot… I’m sure she did though.

Funny story behind this one… it started off simple but then she started to get more interested… Who can blame her… he’s one big hunk
Well yes technically a hunk of metal… but still.

In any case take their impulses and ideas and create some pictures, roll with the story line, create the story.

I think the distortion is really what makes this picture.
They are lit up separately by 2 flashes.

We were able to extend our shooting time into the twilight with some flash stuff going on.
Helps to have an assistant around to help with lighting.

We turned the car around and came back to this place and searched around for an owner to ask if we could shoot here.
So needless to say this is probably the only time I’ll have pictures here. Skies were nice and blue that day thankfully.

Looks like i’m way up in the air for that one doesn’t it?
Oh the joys of the 14-24 2.8 on a full frame camera
Doing something unique like that helps to change a seemingly normal spot into something cool.

Getting closer to the barn helps, doesn’t show off just how cool a location, but remember that these pictures are more often than not supposed to be about them. So we need lots of pictures where they fill the whole frame almost.

It was a fun idea I had, and when I shot it I thought it wasn’t going to work.
Normally i would have taken one saw that it would take too long to make it work and move along because there are always a dozen more shots to be had a block away.
But I stuck with this location and tried to make something work. I opted for farther away shots instead of when i first started I was aiming for closeups.
My PA picked the pictures for this post and apparently she liked the newspaper one after all.
So not total bust I guess.

There was a whole series on these stairs. This isn’t even my favorite.

These two got engaged at this park which is next to Bridal Veil falls.
Not necisarily this spot exactly, thought that would have been fun to have seen.

At the end of the night we went to vivian park.
It was already a bit late so we just did a few here.

This is probably the first time I’ve taken pictures with bridal veil falls in the picture.
There are only certain parts of the falls I really like, so it’s hard to take pictures of. But at night it becomes a lot easier because all you see is the whiteness of the water on a dark background, haha

To view the full gallery, go to http://jarviedigital.smugmug.com/gallery/8756698_6iw63

I had my lightstand with me and learned a valuable lesson. Don’t use an umbrella when it’s windy unless you have something to weigh the stand down with.
In most cases I prefer a voice activated lightstand anyway.
But there is something nice about adjusting the lightstand yourself and point the light where you want it.
With certain relaxed couples it’s nice, slows the pace down a bit and they don’t mind my disconnect from them from time to time to go move things around.
I find it’s the couples that are so into eachother that do well. But then you miss all their giggling and interaction.
But like i said… it’s alright from time to time. Would be even nicer with radio transmitters… but now I’m stuck forever with TTL control from my camera… it’s soooo nice.

I’m starting to do this one more often.

With the 14-24 it’s really effective.
It’s kind of important to have another flash, so you can light up both people evenly.

Back in May I was able to go to alaska to do a wedding, while there I offered to engagements for this couple.

I recently went back to Alaska to do another wedding in July
At that time I was able to do this couple’s bridals… I will post those soon.

Lots of great locations in Alaska… it was so green there and the light was awesome there in the summer. I could take pictures really late into the day.

They’re getting married first week of August unfortunetly it’s a day I already have a wedding, therefore I wont’ be going back for the 3rd time this year.

This was his idea and I was more than happy to oblige… I wonder what the other Hagens out there think of this. Mick?

The field of these flowers were actually pretty small… but we made due and I did my magic to make it look vast.

To view the entire album go to http://jarviedigital.smugmug.com/gallery/8762206_bMbKE

The following pictures are of them at their new house they’re getting… I know doesn’t it make you sick.

Their house was perfect for pictures (or should I say the yard was)
But we had to take a few pictures of them jumping for joy in their yard. haha

Yes we had to dodge cars for these shots.

View Full gallery Here

So it’s not often a portrait photographer would be putting his life and equipment on the line.

Sure an adventure photographer or even some kinds of sport photographers.
Absolutely for a wartime photographer …

But not a portrait or wedding photographer!!

Well I might not have died falling into the river I’d say 50/50 with the almost freezing mountain water. But it was sure possible to fall in and the camera woulda been toast.
And those rocks were crazy slippery.

Perhaps I’m a wimp or perhaps I want to make it into a bigger deal than it was.

UPDATE: I guess I was right in thinking it was pretty risky… here’s a story of an actual death

Let’s just say my heart was pumping getting out on the rock and the dang thing was slick as anything… but stephen thought ahead and put towels on the rocks … or it would have been impossible.

This is stephen getting the towels on the rock. Doesn’t really show that there was no easy way to get to the rock.

I’m sad I didn’t get him to take a picture of me on the rock… but my thoughts were elsewhere.

Might we add the obvious!! They were out on that log… they were pretty crazy too!

And stephen!! Well the kids just a stud… jumping around on those slick rocks!
Going back to my bag when the battery ran out. Etc Etc

Fun times!!

They picked out this cool spot and had me come out… it fits them well and we all had a ton of fun.

See the FULL GALLERY

A note about the location:

I know some will be asking where this is:
Some random antique store in Orem.
It’s not a place that is used to photographers.
The girl in these pictures talked directly to the owners and asked for permission.

If someone is serious enough about gaining access to the store let me know.
If you can sweet talk the owners into allowing more photographers come and not getting thrown out.
Maybe tell them we’ll give them $10-20 each time we come.
That could be cool. But until then let’s not over-run the small little store and make them mad.