(Canon XSi, Tamron 17-35mm 2.8, 17mm, ISO100, F8, Six Exposures, HDR) Feels like it’s been awhile since I just went out shooting for “me” instead of client photoshoots…and I have to say, Sunday evening was a lot of fun. I had a short, 40 minute shoot at 4pm, so that left me with a bit of daylight to explore the downtown Phoenix area a bit more. I drove down some alleyways, stopped under bridges and saw some things I hadn’t known were there before. There is one real takeaway from my urban exploration trips…I’m a chicken. The sun was down,…

Monday night I visited Neighborhood Ministries in downtown Phoenix to shoot some photos of kids for the Day Twelve Gallery and this coming First Friday event. I wish I could remember the girl’s name in the photo above, but it was long and I’m bad with them anyways. However, when I asked her name…I remember it sounding beautiful. Just like her. A foster child attending this weekly Neighborhood Ministries event…who knows what her life is like? Is it hard? Has she been shuffled around a lot? Separated from siblings? Or have things been good for her? I don’t know any…

I’m writing this entry about 5 hours after the photoshoot I did tonight with the Kruckenberg family. I recently purchased a new laptop to help speed up the processing time for things just like tonight. And I have to say…the comparison between my old laptop and the new one is like a 1930′s Ford Pickup to the Starship Enterprise going Warp 10. Sorry to drop some nerdiness on you, but I’m going nuts over this thing. Needless to say, the ease at which I busted out these photos was mind-numbing. The Kruckenbergs are great friends of ours. Brian is the…

Sometimes you can go light on the processing, sometimes you can go heavy…this photo of the Chase Towers in downtown Phoenix is a bit on the heavy side. There is a plugin called Topaz Adjust and I love the Exposure Color Stretch filter. It can take a good photo and add something unique to it. Most of the time I love the way my images look naturally, but on occasion, I like to shake things up! I shot this over a month ago…just a few weeks after moving downtown. The exploration of the urban Phoenix area has progressed a bit…

I’ve known Joel and the Felix family for awhile now. Long ago I did sports writing for Rivals.com and the Associated Press and ran a few websites for local Arizona sports. One of them that I no longer own but is still going strong is called ArizonaSportsFans.com. The messageboard community there is thriving and if you are looking to talk AZ sports, that should be your first stop. But back 5-10 years ago, either Joel or Kevin (Can’t remember which of the twin Felix brothers) held a big poker party for a bunch of people from the website. We all…

My buddy Sam Servin has been one of my closest friends since my first year in high school. The photo above is of his little boy Samuel, who is pretty much a spitting image of dad. I saw him for the second time a week ago at Lyla’s 2nd birthday party, and if Sam and Teresa had asked us, we’d definitely have taken this little cutie pie off their hands. I mean, look at that face! Sam asked me to do a photoshoot for his entire family, a clan of 11 and some of my favorite people in the world….

The Sandlot…I know the only way you connect that film with this photo is obviously the playground area boxed in by sand, but when I was trying to think of something for Movie Title Wednesday, this one clicked into place. May as well use it now, I think this may be the first time I’ve ever shot anything sunset/landscape related from a children’s playground. There was a reason for that of course, I’ll tell you in a bit. But first…The Sandlot…once of those cult classic movies for me that will never get boring, never get old and never fail to…

I had such a great time with the Johnson family so I wanted to post a few more of my favorite images from the hour or so we spent together. You just never know how a shoot is going to go or what may result from it. Meribeth, the mother of the group, is getting into photography herself and thus I offered up my standard recommendation for people starting out: Get the $100 50mm 1.8 and you’ll love taking pictures of your kids and stuff on vacation. So her awesome hubby David surprised her with it and Meribeth has been…

Way back on October 19th we had a spectacular sunrise in downtown Phoenix after a rainstorm earlier in the morning. I don’t always take my camera to work these days, especially when there is nothing but blue skies all day long. But I had an inkling there would be a good one on this day, so I had my gear with me. I set up just up the ramp to the 3rd level of the parking structure we use for this building. If I had my choice, I’d be 50 miles away from here with some amazing desert scene to…

Last week I posted a shot from the parking garage of the World Market Center, but other than me telling you what it was, you’d have no idea unless you knew the place. But it looked awesome from the outside, so before I left, I wandered into the outdoor “lobby” between a few of these buildings and was just struck by the awesome architecture, lines and especially the shadows highlighting the name of the place. One of the highlights of taking this shot was that the security guard across the way never once bothered me or even approached me. And…