New Image Wednesday + Rocky Mountain Table Company + Denver UkeFest

Ok, I’m much happier this week. Sorry for the downer last week! 

This week I’m showing off a few photos for an update to our Rocky Mountain Table Company website (here). We’re going to be providing some new awesome stuff coming up soon, including some wicked awesome stump tables, more cool media storage stuff, a pony, and a half-eaten gourmet sandwich. With each update comes a new seasonal photo. 

Sometimes, I come up with some really random fun ideas that require me to figure out how to build weird stuff (wait until you see the upcoming few weeks…bwaahahaha), but sometimes, folks have already built some of the ideas I have. In this particular case, I needed to make rain. While I know it’s been wildly horrible rain and tornadoes lately – jeez, this is getting out of hand, eh? – I needed to be able to control WHEN it rained. So, I built a rain machine! Fun! This particular machine has been made and even had instructions on the AWESOME website instructables.com. Love it. I made my own version out of metal, twine, a 25′ hose, a drill, and some light stands. What a fun project!

Here’s some of the photos for Rocky Mountain Table Company. Which one do you think we should use? Thanks to Desiree Rudolph for modeling in the freezing rain!!

Not only that, but I had blogged about the Denver Ukulele Festival a couple weeks ago, and here’s the online magazine I made of some of the photos from that event!

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P.S. A SHOUT OUT to some of my best good friends, Greg Carr & Faceman who finally collaborated to make one of the coolest music videos I’ve seen in a LONG time. See it here.

New Image Wednesday + Denver UkeFest + What He Said Next Will Blow You Away…

Hello friends!

This blog has turned into a great way for me to record some of the progress I’m making in the photography realm. It’s always nice to look back and realize how far I’ve come. It’s like having a little recorder that explains my life back to me on a weekly basis. So, here’s a few photos from this year’s Denver UkeFest at Swallow Hill:

However, one of the big things I’ve been struggling with lately is that we’re so overwhelmed by amazing art on a daily basis. While I think that’s AMAZING, my hope is that we haven’t started to gloss over the importance of a single piece or song or lyric. I’d like to believe that when we post a hundred things to Facebook, each one has gotten the time it deserves to resonate and help define us. I’ve made a video about this very topic today. It’s certainly my time to whine, but hopefully it’ll function as a reminder to myself not to take so much creativity for granted. 

Thank you all!

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New Image Wednesday + Promotional Shots For DIY Furniture + Rossonian

Happy Wednesday, everybody!!

I’ve got a few new fun things today! My buddy, Donnie Criswell, started a cool new furniture website called DIY furniture. He built it so you can design your own tables! That means you can choose between a bunch of his top-types and bottom-types and slam ’em together to make your own awesome table. You can also adjust the sizing, the coloring on the bases, and a bunch more stuff. I took some photos for him a bit ago to be able to then drop your creation into a background to see what it’ll look like. Not only that…but, you can UPLOAD YOUR OWN BACKGROUND too!! How cool is that, eh?!

Not only do we have those photos, but I did a music video for muh old pals, Rossonian. It features Madelyn Albright – she had a feature here a couple weeks ago. Give ‘er a watch!

I hope you’re all having as great a week as I am! As always, if you have requests of stuff you want to see or have questions on how I’ve done stuff in the past, please ask away!

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New Image Wednesday + Utah + Video on White Balance

Hello everybody!

This week has been another crazy one! I spent all last week in the middle of nowhere in Escalade State Park in Utah. If you get a chance, make sure to check that place out. It’s like a ding•dong alien landscape out there. Beautiful for photo takin’. I’ve been out there a bunch over the years, and it just keeps getting buried deeper and deeper into my heart as a perfect place to escape to. I’ve included one photo from my week out there. 

Soap Box: I’m kind of over the HDR thing that’s being beaten into the ground nowadays. The only guy I still see that successfully pulls it off is Trey Ratcliff. Check out his blog at stuckincustoms.com. He gets some absolutely beautiful stuff for sure. But, for the rest of us? We need to give it a rest. However, that being said, this shot in Utah used the same idea as HDR without all the fanciness of having to combine 3, 5, or even 7 images together.

How I did it: I exposed one shot for the awesome sky, and I exposed one shot for the creepy rock. Then, I stuck ’em together. If I had money, I’d obviously just use a graduated filter and viola! Perfection. But, because I like photoshop and I’m too broke to afford a good graduated filter, I just took two photos. Now…I really always like to get everything right in the camera so I don’t have to use outside sources to do anything but add a bit of pizzazz to an image, but this was so doggone easy that I just went for it. I think there’s this stigma against photoshopped work (I know I certainly have it at times), but heck, if it’s here, why not use it? But…we really should be able to get it right in camera first.

With that in mind, one thing I always get right, no matter what shot, is my white balance. So, my first video blog/educational blog is all about using kelvins to get proper color in digital photography. 

Click here to scope it out!

Yay! I did a video!

I feel a bit like I’ve been on a soap box this morning, and I hope y’all will ask some questions or send some thoughts of your own about some of this. The cool thing about photography is that there’s no right or wrong, there’s only a feeling or story from a finished photograph. So, this is just…like…my opinion man.

Thanks for reading. Y’all are amazing.

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New Image Wednesday + On A Friday

When I started this out, the original intent was actually to only present one new photo a week. Whelp…failed at that. Instead you’ve been getting a slew of stuff from me. However, this week, I think I’m going to follow my original model. I’ve been working like mad again this week with a bunch of awesome clients and I have a lot I can share, but, I want to just show you a fun little hand-drawn poster I made for my buddy, Faceman. 

Faceman is doing this great series. The first installation is this next Saturday, May 10th at Mutiny Bookstore, and yep…it’s free. He’s paired up once again with the great folks at Incite (wonderful new, hungry set building company here in Denver) to make a massive shoebox diorama stage. His idea is to change the interior of the diorama for a series of shows and base all of it around great literary works. This round, he’s chosen one of my favorite writers of all time; Charles Bukowski. Faceman is featuring the poem “The Bluebird.” If you haven’t read it, please do. Here’s a link for youtube: THE BLUEBIRD.  Also, if you get a chance, Tom Waits does a couple great readings of “Nirvana” and “The Laughing Heart,” two of my favorites. 

With all that promotion outta the way…how are you? What’s new? I’ve missed seeing you around the slosh ball court. I’ve been thinking about changing this blog into a more informative venture. I realize I learn so much EVERY day and I want to know if you think it’d be cool to learn some of the same stuff from me? I’m talking about photography gear, lighting, dark room stuff, photoshop, hand-made stuff, general life-wide wisdoms, music, poetry, great and fun quotes, etc. I think it’d be fun to keep an educational journal on here. Let me know your thoughts about what you want to learn or even if you think you’d read it. 

Thank you all so much for all your kindness over the years, I’m sincerely lucky to have such wonderful friends, clients, and family.

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Holy Cow, It’s Been A Month

I never thought I’d be a blog guy, and as it turns out…I’m not. It’s been a stinkin’ month since my last post! Holy cow! But, I’ve been working away a lot lately on wedding invitations, engagement photo shoots, product photography, album designs, and I even took a great trip to Clarksdale, Mississippi with some of my best friends, The Organgrinders for the Juke Joint Festival. What an amazing place. I felt more at home in the Delta than I have in most places in a very long time. Some of my favorite moments of the trip included; drinking, breaking into an abandoned school, checking out the WROX building, and doing a photo shoot in a broken down building in downtown that had suffered a fire. I also got to finally meet one of my life-long heroes, Cedell Davis. If you don’t know Cedell, check him out for sure. Unfortunately, he can’t play any more as he’s lost control now of his right arm…dude’s old…totally understandable. But, he still knows how to bring it. 

Outside of my amazing trip, I’ve also been working with one of my favorite bands as of late: You Me & Apollo. I feel so lucky to have made that friendship. I shot their band portraits with a Hasselblad 500CM and spent a couple days down in the dark room at Leon Gallery developing and printing for the record. A big shout out to Eric Dallimore and Leon Gallery – THANK YOU AGAIN. After the shoot, my girlfriend and I held hands and dumped honey all over them for the cover image. We set up a large baking pan on a table, and just started dumping honey everywhere. I lit the scenario very simply with one Alienbee and a medium sized octabank. I had a flash gun behind us with no modifier to separate from the wall behind us. You Me & Apollo have a CD release coming up next week at the Bluebird with my other great friends, Desert Noises! I love how the world works.

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I Won Something!

Yay! I won something! Denver’s Westword rated The Outfit’s album art #4 out of their top 10 for the year 2013. Way to go Outfit! You guys rule! That was a super fun shoot and I had a blast working with those guys. I don’t get a plaque or anything because I’m #4…but, I’m certainly going to buy myself a beer…perhaps Bud Light Lime (for the spritz of elegance on my special little day). This is what they had to say about me: 

4. The Outfit | Tough Kids

Scott McCormick’s artwork has graced many a local album cover at this point and he brings his gift for creating otherworldly imagery grounded in a dreamlike reality for this cover. There is literally an elephant in the room being ignored by the humans. It even has a glowing orb on his forehead like a symbol of divine wisdom much like Eric Johnston’s surprisingly illuminating lyrics couched in pop songs.

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New Image Wednesday + HOLY COW, It’s Been Too Long

I miss posting! Jeez-o I’ve been busy! I’m loving it, though. I’ve been so happy to be working on so many projects.

One of the major ones I’ve been trying to finish is product images, background images, and art images for a website I’m building (well…squarespace is building– I’m too dumb for coding) for Rocky Mountain Table Company.

Since my last post, the woman with the belly shots, Coryn, HAD HER BABY!! Welcome to the world, Robyn Wade! Glad to have ya!  Anywhoo…here’s a couple shots from the table company!

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New Image Wednesday + Midwestern Symmetry

I used to be a musician. I toured all over the world playing music in tiny bars and giant stages. I feel very lucky to have done that. However, the worst habit I picked up from all those years of running around trying to make a difference is – besides alcohol – practice. If I get a break in a day, I tend to wander throughout the town for at least 3-4 hours to take photos. Sometimes, I go a full day of walking without ever clicking the shutter, but rather focus on minuscule movements of the surrounding population – I love the difference in even just holding a cup of coffee vs. gripping it. It’s nice to have some quiet in a day and just walk and try to see the world rather than look at it. These photos are from a tiny neighborhood in Elkhorn, Wisconsin on a frigid day. While they’re not my best photos, I feel it’s important to show the learning path that we all go through and express the importance of trying new things. 

New Image Wednesday + A Brand New Year

My dad and I went walking down to Lake Michigan today for a few hours.  It was quite an experience.  The lake is pretty well frozen for what seems to be about a mile off shore, so we walked out on a frozen pier to get a little closer.  Despite the trip being freezing cold and the pier being a wonderfully treacherous walk, we found the undulating waves looked almost like they were moving in slow motion pushing large icebergs against each other. 

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