(Photo courtesy of her facebook)

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 info on where and when

It’ll be one of the first events at the new JarvieU HQ – 2016 N Nuttall Dr, Lehi Utah.
7pm Monday (It’s a quick event but you can plan to stay as long as you want to mingle, even ping pong or tour the office here or rockband)
I will be able to fit about 20-30 people sitting but I expect even with late notice we might end up with a lot of people standing because Brooke is pretty popular.

If you have other people you want to see at the Meet The Photographer events let me know.
We’re looking for well known or otherwise great photographers that perhaps many people don’t know.
A way of extending the borders of our photography community beyond the people we always do stuff with.

Learn More about Brooke

To learn more about Brooke go to AllThePhotographer Blog which has highlighted her work and has links to her sites.

(A thanks to Suzanne for the great picture of me)

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.

I can count on one hand how many times I’ve been back to the place I grew up since I went away to college.
I was lucky to have a wedding back down in San Diego so I stayed a couple extra days and went to church on sunday, back in the same building I spent countless hours while in jr. high and High School.

While roaming the halls I saw two old friends and of course they had large families by now.
So I told them lets go outside and take some pictures.

We went in the back so we wouldn’t interupt as many people and the kids could run around at ease a bit more.
We just kind of hung out for a while and watched the kids play like kids are known to do.

Why not right? It was more fun for me to chat while a camera was in my hand and while the kids ran around doing fun things.
Plus it’s nice to do nice things for old friends.
Specially the ones that keep in contact the most on facebook.

Even organized a couple of group things.

You might think I made the poor kid cry… but I stand innocent.
I suppose sometimes kids just cry. I know that never happens to any of your kids.

Parents aren’t supposed to have favorites… but photographers can.
This red-head is a model in the making.

In just a matter of about 30 minutes I was able to come up with 129 usable images.

Probably the person I knew best of this photoshoot is the one person I didn’t get a picture of…
Perhaps pretty amusing, hopefully she finds it funny too.
But I did get her husband and all her kids.

I even had a few old church leaders who were there when I was growing up… as they were coming in for the next meetings.
I could only get them as they walked in quickly in order to avoid being late.

I’d love to take credit for it. But really what can I say?
It happened all on it’s own and I was simply there with the know-how to capture it in it’s fullness.

It’s funny because I went through my motions and I was outwardly calm but I knew what was happening was special and I was a giddy little school boy inside.

I posted a preview a few weeks ago of the pictures. Many of the brides friends wondered where we got the backdrop.

I had to play with the WB a little because there comes a point where the camera is fooled… it must believe that nothing can normally be that color and wants to soothen it.
But i told that camera, this is real baby, bring out all the color you can.

You know it was something special when the toast at the reception 3 weeks later they make analogies to the sunset.
If your life is anything like that sunset on your wedding day… well it’s gonna be something special

You can see here during the ceremony the sun was setting and it took some time for the color to really expload a few minutes later.

So what’s our lesson as photographers: be prepared to take advantage of amazing things.
It was a wonderful moment for me… one of the best. But had I been ill prepared it could have been amongst the worst experiences of my photography.

So what’s the lesson for the Photograph-ees: You can’t just expect things to happen, you need to be willing and creative enough to put yourself in positions where things can happen, if fate smiles down on you as well.
And if possible pick a photographer that can help play with that fate just a bit more and improve those odds.

Am I allowed the moment to rant a bit? Have I earned this much?

I feel I’m probably “preaching to the choir.”
I doubt I attract the other types to this blog.

I’m down about something completely different but for some reason I got sparked on this unrelated subject as well tonight
… this is after all the Photography Blog …Gotta keep it photography.

Give said the Little Stream

I feel people should not hide their talents…
They should use them to help the lives of others.
I’ve been given so much I totally want to give back…

You expect me to believe those are our only two choices?

I think people are Messed up in the head when they say “You’re not in this to make friends, this is a business”
Oh my heavens you dimwhitted baffoon!!!! You think I’d actually choose money over friends!!

Besides when did it ever become THE choice…
Like we can’t do both??!?… maybe for your small pathetic mind you can’t find the way.

USING vs Win-Win-Win

Stop telling people that people are to be used for your gain.
Stop making yourself feel better with the phrase “It’s Good business”
… try out some better phrases, like “It’s a good way of life” “It’s good principles”
Messing with this idea of good business practice means NOTHING in the grander scheme of things…

Try to look for the Win Win Win

Where everyone gains something… people are more than happy to pay for something that is of worth.
It makes both parties happy, to make an honest living and to be honest and pay for what they receive.
People will surprise you if you treat them with respect. They’ll give you money with no regrets and perhaps even happily.

yes understand business and how to operate it well… but don’t let it drive you to excuse any action… A bad action is bad whether or not Business “excuses” it

Stop being so caught up in yourself.

Stop spending all your time figuring out ways to drain the person of their money and figure out ways to make what you’re offering a better Win in the Win-Win-Win
They’ll give you some more money for THAT. No sneakyness needed.

And finally on another note.

When someone is giving and sharing… think about it, if you appreciate it show it.
I know that it’s hard to appreciate what’s right there.
Looking the gift horse in the mouth. (Is it too good to be true)
do we accept those from our own home country/town, as the analogy goes.

But it’s sad to see those who on one side give so much… and then to see those who establish a reputation on never sharing or giving and who even only take and then when they see incentive to share, they open up and people flock to them in droves and throw buckets of money. Are we rewarding a change of heart or are we rewarding the past of never giving?
Dang and how good are they going to be at actually sharing after a life of being close lipped about it all?

Encourage good

We can work the system and find ways to manipulate you.
Don’t encourage them… reward good principles and you’ll see more of it happen.

This is good for whatever…. beyond photography

You want people to treat others better?
Stop making jerks think there’s a benefit.
You want people to be kinder? stop acknowledging the bully.
You want people to share… do it yourself, without expectations.

Give love and charity, but don’t expect… it’ll make it’s way around.
And then let go of unfair expectations.

I understand the prodigal son… we rejoice in the change of heart.
The coming back to the fold.
But we search for that change of heart and support IT.
We show the next step to the lost son… of the type of good life ahead.

We don’t throw our inheritance his way.
he’ll eventually know his road is rough and long.

Photography

Why are you doing the things you’re doing?
How are you treating people?

Let’s show these bastards that not only can we be successful but we can do it based on solid good principles and good photography.
we’ll make money and we’ll create a solid business that just doesn’t thrive on the last bit of manipulative marketing you learned

Taking pictures for the organizers of the event and the salt lake street event

We had full access to in front of the stage for all the bands but only two songs for collective soul.
But they had such a crazy awesome light show and so much action going on up on stage that I was on rapid fire non stop.

You can see all of them including a ton of fan shots here

A note to those doing concert photography. You can take great photos and not be rude and in everyone’s way during a concert.
You don’t need to use flash even if they let you.
Remember there’s a lot of people who paid money to come, you should be try when you can to be out of their way.
Don’t stay in one place for too long. Be courteous.

Don’t give us other photographers a bad rap.

I must say that Collective Soul puts on the best show I’ve ever been to.
And really I haven’t been to a lot of concerts.
I’ve just started because I’ve found I love photographing them.

Ah the 14mm, fun lights and the use of my flash set up in the back to make it really light up. Firing with a pocket wizard.
Made for some fun fan shots throughout the night. Didn’t affect the stage of course.

Allred sang and it was a bit more low key. Just needed to wait for the moments and the expressions.

This guy was so far gone it was funny. Not a crowd favorite and I only shot him for a couple minutes because he never moved anyway.

This was Ivy League … I believe they’re also local. Maybe not.

Today we started by taking pictures of their creative director, CEO and a few other individuals today.

I’ll be heading back up there tonight to watch the opera and take pictures as people come in at night.

For now enjoy one of these pictures of Christopher the Creative director… hopefully this is creative enough for you Chris.

Stay tuned for some more pictures… some I might even add to this blog as a preview.

This post is inspired by my friend the queen of detail shots.

(Above) – I really enjoyed taking picture of her necklace. She loved it and wanted pictures.
When someone really likes something during a wedding it behoves us to make sure there are good pictures.

And of course to add the ring to the mix.
Me testing out my new macro lens.

She loved the mirror and creatively asked for a few pictures like this.

The other stuff in the jewelry box.

These are two of my favorite pics of the day

Small wedding party lit sparklers and toasted there at the park.

There’s certainly many more detail pictures on the full gallery.

The following are mostly details from the eclectic house they stayed at in Del Mar, Ca.

Things like Shoe Gardens and random pieces of art all throughout the house and in the yard.

Don’t ask me about half this stuff… it’s totally random.

I love this detail because it shows off the amazing sunset that day.

Lots of pleased individuals when I left… I heard a lot of positive responses to what SmugMug has to offer.
My way of saying thanks to SmugMug for being great and dealing with me and all my massive amounts of pictures.

There was a suggestion by a couple people at the end of the evening that perhaps we could all write a comment if you were there. Everyone was passing around business cards and perhaps felt this was a good way.
I of course wouldn’t mind at all the comments… and feedback would be great, as well to show SmugMug how good a time we all had. haha

I have written posts in the past.

One on my yr (1TB) anniversary with the company. A review
http://jarviestudios.com/blog/2009/10/smugmug-1000gbs-later/

Another to do a review and a wish list for their new coupons system
http://jarviestudios.com/blog/2009/12/coupons-and-questions-smugmug/

In continuation some Notes

SITES Of INTEREST

• http://www.dgrin.com – a forum for SmugMug info and ideas
• http://blogs.smugmug.com/ – blogs by smugmug workers and some other blogs for fun
• http://blogs.smugmug.com/release-notes/ – Release Notes
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SmugMug – Everything has a Wiki Entry! haha

Help Pages

• SmugMug Wiki
• Customizing Help pages
• Custimization on the forums
• 24+ JavaScript custumizations
• Pro-Users Fast Start
• Applications using SmugMug + Hacks
• help@smugmug.com

People who’ve played around with SmugMug

• http://photos.jarviedigital.com
• http://heninger-fotographik.smugmug.com/
  • Also see his link page to SmugMug
• http://gogetphotos.smugmug.com/
• http://scottsmith.smugmug.com/
• http://www.rjsnowphotography.com/
• http://aaronbarker.smugmug.com/
• http://cmac.smugmug.com/
• http://dwterry.smugmug.com/
• http://vizion.smugmug.com/
• http://whitneylewis.smugmug.com/
• http://lookieloo.smugmug.com/

Things to Cover

• Setup
• Uploading
• Where to send clients
• Integrating for blog – Video Too
• Gallery Settings
• Analytics
• Coupons
• Change of URL
• Other Control Panel stuff
• Setting Prices
• Printing Options
• Presets
• Watermarks
• Stats
• Visitor View
• Privacy Options
• Home Page Layouts
• Organization Practices
• Easy Customization
• Referral System

Trick I learned

You can send a link to someone that will pop open the Slideshow version (and a couple other styles too)
When in gallery go to Share-Links and there are lots of options there.

I discovered while teaching some easy customization how to get rid of the SmugMug bar on the top and make it pure JarvieDigital

I also discovered while teaching how to change the Rt-Click protect message. (Not that I use that function much)

We also learned lots about the new stats system that’s in Beta.
If you go to the old stats and change the URL to say “newstats” intead of “stats”
A better stats usage is something I’ve been looking for, it was fun to look at it for the first time with everyone else around.
My stats are way skewed because I use SmugMug to host everything for the blog – meaning it shows up with Tons of hits every day.
So personally I still don’t know what to make of it all… but the usage of analytics programs is great.

This is the year I start making time for my next push.
Family Lifestyle Photography

Last year while shooting a wedding in Southern California I stayed with the Vance family.
In addition to doing a comercial shoot for the mother’s Jewelry Business
I had a couple of short opportunities to take pictures of the family.

These pictures will serve to better help families see the vision of a Family Lifestyle Session by JarvieDigital
This being of course on a much smaller scale than a full day – many activity shoot.

So first off the dad is very much into gardening, it’s his passion I’m told.
So of course we went out into the garden and took a bunch.
Being someone that is a bit “Shy” around the camera I think he opened up a lot when it was him in the garden.
Even still it was very quick, but as long as he was getting something done it made a lot more sense.

Of course random portraits of everyone in the family, typical and not.

No set up or posing usually required. This is their actual dinner, in fact a tradition around the house to make home made pizzas.
Oh the memories. “Remember when we would make Home Made Pizzas every sunday”
“Not only do I remember it, but here are the pictures of us” and the emotions of the event are included no extra charge. haha

Detail shots gallore

The mom owns a Jewelry company… thus her with the jewelry she’s made.

And of course lots of portrait shots and headshots.

Love the camera or not, candid or posed… no one every has a boring time being Shot (in the face) by yours truly.

Even the other members of the family get their day in the sun.
Sadly their time is a little more limited but as we all know they can grow to be integral members of the family.

The “Other-Other” members of the family get their photo-shoots as well.

Parents do their thing and so do kids.
And it doesn’t have to be some big grand accompishment… sometimes it’s a matter of just sneaking into the room to capture what was going on without any setup

Random interactions… you better be ready for the camera.

How is this not the perfect documentation of a teenage girl… on the phone to her friends. haha

Documenting talents. Documenting where they spend their time.

Afternoon nap by dad… I love the clock being there and telling us all what time he chose his nap. – No setup required

Setup or don’t setup as long as it does the job of saying… This is Our family… this is the Vance family

Eating, restaurants, school work, musical instruments, hobbies, talents, family outings, beach, mountains, hikes, pic-nics, pets, friends, games, skiing, lake, sports … ETC

Yes these types of shoots aren’t inexpensive, but I have a feeling they’ll be popular.
Personally this is where I shine as a photographer and how I interact with people.
Time to make this happen in 2010 … all across the continent I bet.

I have set up a website which I’ll be promoting more in times to come family.jarviedigital.com

It’s most everything you want to know about SmugMug as fast as I can teach it… with live setup as well.

And it’s Open to the Public and it’s free … and it’s also Tomorrow Night (Thursday) at 7:02 pm

525 w Bullriver Rd
Lehi Utah

Yes it’s late notice…

I need to set up a new SmugMug account for the ATP Project-Blog
So I figured I could do this live.

Then you can see me setting it up new.
And also you can see how i’ve set up and organized my main SmugMug site.
No it’s not as fancy as some people with all their CSS editing.
But it is large… I’m told I am amongst the top 10 users of SmugMug in the world if you count # of pictures or storage.

I’ve used it for years now and I feel i can answer most any question.
And what I don’t have an answer for we’ll figure out right then.

Haha you thought it was going to be the city. Tricked you.
They call him Boston.

He asked for some pictures and I saw that I did his shoot just a month or two before I started using smugmug… so I went back through his pictures and uploaded them to SmugMug.

FULL GALLERY

I also re-edited his pictures some because I’ve certainly improved a bit in the last two years.

It is a good exercise for me and the student-interns to go over some older less essential pictures and play around on them.

Shall I Re-Edit your pictures too?

So I guess the offer is open to other people… if I took your pictures a while back and you’d like to see them re-edited let me know.

I’ll bump you up higher on the priority list if you’re interested in Buying prints of them as well… or at least if you’ll show them off to everyone, yeah but probably more so if you want to buy a couple prints

So i was down in San Diego for a wedding I went and visited where I grew up in Chula Vista… and then I went and visited an old friend of the family.
I wanted to visit them and I also really wanted to take some pictures of her, her kids and her brother, because I thought it a kind gesture.

See full gallery here

There are benefits of having me stop by the house… Personally I love shooting anytime anywhere.
If there are no expectations even better… (meaning I’m just doing it out of the kindness of my heart and the people don’t expect it to happen and there’s no huge committment.)
And in this case I didn’t feel any expectation or pressure and I was able to just lounge in the couch and had the camera in hand as the kids played around… and I got an good dinner out of it.

It’s a tricky road us photographers walk… we want to be known for our photography and we certainly want to share it.
But we also want to be liked for ourselves outside of photography, appreciated for our company as well.

We want to add pictures as a side benefit of our friendship (At least I do)
but we  don’t always want it to be the main focus of a friendship… that would instead be like a business-friend relationship,
(which is fine but we got plenty of those where the side benefit is a friendship, and i tend to like business-friend relations because those are the relationships that pay my bills.)

It’s kind of like the game nights … every so often I’ll pull out the camera… but no one that comes expects it to happen.

It’s funny how it just takes some time and the right approach.

At first she was shy and played around about how she didn’t want pictures.
You can kinda tell when it’s a facade and sometimes the best approach is just to wait and try not to perpetuate the game too much.

When I was leaving she was sticking her face in front of the camera and asking for pictures.

I think one safe rule is that if they feel getting pictures taken is a huge chore they won’t want to do it… if it’s accompanied by lots of nagging and directions they’ll probably not want to continue with it.

Do you think that’s safe to say?

I think this is another reason I just enjoyed capturing them while they were unaware playing in the room as the adults talked… or on a walk.
Kids get lost in what they’re doing so easy it’s easy for them to forget someone has a camera

Aren’t her kids terribly cute?
It was fun to take pictures of them.

I like just visiting and having a camera in hand as life just happens.
Kids don’t need a lot of encouragment to get them in fun situations.

I certainly didn’t pose any of these pictures… this all just happened as I ate or sat on the couch like any other visitor.

So the new years resolution is to not spend all 15 waking hours of the day editing and taking pictures… I need to play more.
A sainer happier scott should mean better pictures for everyone…

And hey come to game nights and maybe you’ll get your picture taken… OK I probably won’t take many pictures but if you ask I’d probably do it.

But it’s also a great opportunity for lots of us photographers (and regular types) to come together and discuss photography if you want, it’s up to you.
So yeah… that’s game night.

I write this post in part as a way to train the new student-interns of JarvieU

They all say hi… Chuck, Melissa, Jeets, Kara

But in all seriousness come hang out… rock band and what-not as well.
You can also bring friends, you know… the single cute variety (Chuck is single, just looking out for him

I wanted to relax and edit a really short shoot.
Well I only took about 45 pictures on my drive from Utah to Oregon.

I stopped to take a couple of pictures near the salt flats, then later a random mountain cuz it looked cool (not sure I stopped for this one)
Then luckily in a repeat of last year I came accross a pack of wild horses in the middle of no-where nevada.