remembering Colorado

This week I primarily photographed kids, hundreds of them for their School Picture Day. It’s an interesting gig, and often fun. But I can’t show you these photos as they belong to the parents of each of the darling children, but trust me, there are many many painfully cute kids in elementary schools throughout New England.

On the "post" side of photography, I spent time this week selecting a photo to print for my little Brother’s birthday. I chose a photo from our trip to Colorado last summer, so I was back in the 2007 archives and thought I’d share some of these images.

If the images seem to have a different quality, you’re picking up the saturated color resulting from the fact that I shot good old traditional slide film—Kodak KodaChrom to be exact.

Dale by Mirror Lake, at 11,000 feet! (Don't be fooled by his smile, the water was freezzzzzzing!)

That’s the little man himself. When I say he’s my “little” brother, I guess I’m not being clear that he’s 19, was a wrestling champ at his high school, and the diameter of his neck approaches the size of my waist.

Likewise, this is my “little” sister Valerie.

Home away from home.

If you’re curious, this is the winning photo for Don’s Bday gift.

Me, Don (“little” Brother), Dale, and Valerie. Photo by our 5th companion Johanna.

raspberries and a wide angle lens

Two exciting things today: (1) I got a new lens (2) I picked raspberries!

For all you photo nerds out there, my new lens is a fixed 28mm, f/1.8 with an aspherical DG macro lens! For all you not-nerds, it means that I can take pictures of things really close up, in low light and without the kind of distortion that usually comes with a wide angle lens.

I bought it with event photography in mind, but on this sunny breezy Berkshire afternoon, I took it raspberry-picking with my good friend Laura.

This is Bruce, who owns the farm—Howden Farms in Ashley Falls.

This is his kitty, Thief, who Bruce says stole his way onto the farm.

Ahhhh... the Berkshires.

new dimensions in portraiture

Recently, I’ve made it a goal to go deeper with my portraiture. Shooting for Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health I was always focused on getting people to smile and glow in a portrait. This is all well and good but I’m also interested in photographing other dimensions of people. I'm also beginning to experiment more with location.

My beautiful friend Sara is generous, fearless, and playful enough to be my guinea pig as I try new approaches to making a portrait. Here’s some of what we tried at her house yesterday.

(notice the impact of the angle of the face)

(cropped and over-saturated like this, it’s an album cover waiting to happen.)

(this shot makes you feel more comfortable, huh?)