The Family

The fact that our family portrait that hangs above our sofa is of our feet may indicate that we are not what you may consider "normal" folks. What I can tell you is that our house is a lively place. All three of our kids keep us moving nonstop.


As you can see, this photo says it all...


Although we love the wild adventure we call our daily life, once in a while we get a chance to get away together, like when we went to the Modern Bride's Trendsetter awards or dropping into Mexico for a beach wedding.

The Kids

Here's the kids!



Meet Ava, she is a people-person. She's a goofball with a good sense of humor, she is intuitive, creative and and has a knack for negotiating. I think she is 50% scientist and 50% artist.

And Trevor is our winsome mischief-man. He his interested have evolved from snowman to Frankenstein, to superheros, Star Wars and legos. I'm always interested to see his intricately detailed drawling or found-object creations he ocassionally makes from pencils, paper clips, ribbon, staples and whatever else happens to be available.  


Last, but not least, is Ruby. She is our little woman. She is 100% girl, with a delicate sense of fashion, affinity for jewelry. She likes to draw pictures on post-its. Her distictive feminine qualities don't hold her back from collecting earth worms and she has no inhibition when it comes to holding one of our chickens like it's a baby. 

Ruby in the field at sunset

On Sunday morning I drove the kids to get breakfast at a diner while my wife slept. On the way back I saw a foggy sunrise over this pasture of wildflowers. I suggested to my wife that we all go there later that night to take photos of the kids.



As it turned out, I was unsuccessful in recruiting the entire family, but my little buddy Ruby was happy to go pick flowers.



Thanks "little R" :)

Old Barn

I love old barns. When I'm driving with my wife, I gawk when I see one even though the enthusiasm is not reciprocated. I suppose not too many people would share with me in this indulgence though. There is an old barn a couple of miles away from the studio. It is pretty epic.



The old brown door looks like a Led Zeppelin album cover to me for some reason. Anyway, any where you look, the textures of old stone, paint and wood are perfect. In my future trip to Italy, I hope to get many more photos that will rival this old barn. Still love it though!

Photos of the sky

I have a habit of grabbing the camera, a cup of coffee and full winter garb in an instants notice at absurdly early hours of the morning to snap shots of the sunrise. I have found that there is a very small window of opportunity to get the "golden" shot. This applies to sunsets as well.

I'm not a guru photographer, so I can't say much about the camera settings. I do play with various ISO ranges while experimenting with shutter speed vs. aperture. I like to find the balance where the image appears slightly dark and then lightly treat it in Lightroom. I try not to augment the image into an artificially saturated state, however I do prefer rich hues and contrasts.

The overall craft however is to work within the camera as much as possibly to produce an image that does not need post work. This applies in motion pictures as well. When taking an image of a stunning sunrise or sunset, it can be like shooting fish in a bucket though. The major difference of course is that the sky is much more majestic and goes dissolves away quickly without leaving a fishy smell (unless you are watching the sunset on a fishing boat). Next time the sky grabs your attention, be sure to take a moment out of your busy day to breath it in!